Chapter 6 - The Brother Roman Buried Without a Body
Roman did not speak for nearly a minute.
Nobody else dared.
The townhouse seemed to shrink around him.
Finally, he looked at Salvatore.
"Explain."
Salvatore sat heavily at the dining table.
"Your father had another son. Older than you by three years."
Roman's eyes were black.
"Name."
"Gabriel."
The name landed strangely.
Too ordinary for a secret capable of shaking Roman Rossi.
Salvatore continued.
Gabriel's mother had been a woman named Elena Marchetti. Roman's father kept her in another apartment for years. When Gabriel was ten, Elena died. The boy was brought into the Rossi household unofficially.
Roman remembered him.
Not as a brother.
As a stable boy named Gabe who slept above the garage.
A teenager who taught Roman how to throw a punch.
A boy who disappeared the same week Roman's father died.
"You told me he ran," Roman said.
Salvatore looked down.
"Your father found out Gabriel had been helping your mother plan her escape. He ordered me to kill him."
Sadi felt Roman tense beside her.
"Did you?"
"No."
Salvatore's voice cracked.
"I put him on a freight train west with five thousand dollars and told him never to return."
Roman crossed the room so quickly Helen gasped.
He seized Salvatore by the collar and slammed him against the wall.
"Twenty years."
His voice was almost soundless.
"You knew for twenty years."
"I was protecting you."
"Don't use that word with me."
Sadi recognized the sentence.
Protection.
Locked doors.
Lies.
The same poison wearing different clothes.
Roman released Salvatore with disgust.
"Find him."
Nico was already typing on his phone.
Sadi sat beside Chloe.
Her sister's hand trembled.
"Are we going to die?" Chloe whispered.
"No."
Sadi said it with more certainty than she felt.
"We're going to be careful."
Chloe laughed weakly.
"You sound like him."
Sadi glanced at Roman.
"God help me."
For the first time since the wedding, Chloe smiled.
It lasted only a second.
But it mattered.
By dawn, Nico had a name.
Gabriel Marchetti had reinvented himself as Gabriel March.
He owned a private security company in Nevada, two freight brokerages, and a chain of casinos operating through tribal partnerships.
He was wealthy.
Legitimate on paper.
And three days earlier, his private jet had landed outside Chicago.
Roman stared at the photograph on Nico's tablet.
Gabriel was forty-one.
Tall.
Dark-haired.
The resemblance was undeniable.
Same eyes.
Same jaw.
But where Roman looked carved from stone, Gabriel looked polished.
Approachable.
The kind of man strangers trusted.
"He wants me to know he's here," Roman said.
"Then why hide?" Sadi asked.
"Because he wants me searching."
Roman looked at the old family photograph again.
"And angry."
Sadi understood.
Angry people made mistakes.
Roman's father had apparently raised two sons who understood that lesson very well.
At nine that morning, a package arrived at the estate.
No bomb.
No weapon.
A dinner invitation.
Black card stock.
Silver lettering.
THE PALMER HOUSE.
8:00 P.M.
COME WITH THE WOMAN WHO TAUGHT YOU COURAGE.
Roman crushed the card.
"No."
Sadi took it from his hand.
"Yes."
"Absolutely not."
"He specifically asked for me. If I don't go, he'll choose another way to reach me."
"That's why you're leaving the state."
Sadi stared at him.
"We're doing this again?"
"Until you develop a healthier respect for bullets, yes."
"Roman, he already got into this house. He already got into Chloe's. Running doesn't make me safe. It makes me uninformed."
"I can handle Gabriel."
"Can you? You didn't even know he existed."
The words struck hard.
Sadi regretted them immediately.
Roman turned away.
She touched his back.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. You're right."
That answer hurt more.
At eight that night, they entered a private dining room at the Palmer House.
Roman wore black.
Sadi wore red.
Not because anyone chose it for her.
Because she did.
Gabriel waited alone at a table set for three.
He stood when they entered.
His smile was warm.
That made him more frightening.
"Little brother."
Roman stopped six feet away.
"Don't call me that."
Gabriel's smile faded slightly.
"Fair. We lost the right to familiar language a long time ago."
His gaze moved to Sadi.
"And you must be the woman who finally convinced Roman Rossi he has a heart."
Sadi did not offer her hand.
"You broke into my sister's house."
"I needed his attention."
"You had it after stealing thirty million dollars."
Gabriel laughed.
"I like you."
"I don't care."
Roman pulled out Sadi's chair.
The gesture was almost absurdly civilized.
They sat.
No one touched the food.
Gabriel poured wine.
"I didn't come for the money," he said.
"Then return it," Roman replied.
"Eventually."
"Why are you here?"
Gabriel leaned back.
"To dismantle what our father built."
Roman's expression did not change.
"You stole from it."
"I stole from you. There's a difference."
Gabriel's eyes sharpened.
"You killed him and then inherited everything. The houses. The businesses. The men. The power. You became him with better suits."
Roman's hand tightened beside his plate.
"You know nothing about what I became."
"I know bodies followed you for twenty years."
Sadi watched Roman carefully.
Gabriel was not merely threatening him.
He was attacking the place Roman already feared most.
The possibility that he was his father.
"Why involve me?" Sadi asked.
Gabriel looked at her.
"Because you're evidence."
"Of what?"
"That he's changing."
Roman went still.
Gabriel continued.
"My plan was simple. Pressure the organization. Expose the accounts. Make his soldiers doubt him. Force him into violence until the government finished what I started."
He looked almost annoyed.
"Then you appeared."
Sadi frowned.
"I was already there. I cleaned his kitchen."
"Exactly. He spent a year walking past you. Then one night he heard you cry, and suddenly Roman Rossi changed his schedule, risked exposure, walked into a suburban wedding, and put his body between you and bullets."
Gabriel raised his glass.
"That interested me."
"You attacked the wedding?" Sadi asked.
"No. Moretti did. I simply benefited from the chaos."
Roman leaned forward.
"If you touch her again—"
"There he is."
Gabriel smiled sadly.
"Father's voice."
Roman stopped.
Sadi placed her hand over his fist.
Not to restrain him.
To remind him he had a choice.
Gabriel noticed.
"See? Evidence."
"You didn't invite us here to discuss personal growth," Sadi said. "What do you want?"
Gabriel's smile vanished.
"I want Roman to leave the organization."
Silence.
"Transfer the legitimate companies to a trust. Dissolve the criminal operations. Give the men severance, immunity arrangements where possible, and walk away."
Roman stared at him.
"You think I can simply resign?"
"No. I think it will be bloody."
Gabriel looked at Sadi.
"And I think you're the only reason he might consider it."
Sadi felt anger rise.
"So that's what this is. You threatened my family to manipulate me into manipulating him."
"I showed you what his world costs."
"I already knew."
"Did you?"
Gabriel reached beneath the table.
Roman's hand moved toward his weapon.
Gabriel slowly placed a phone on the table.
A video played.
A warehouse.
A chair.
Nico Bellini tied to it.
Blood on his face.
Sadi's heart stopped.
Roman stood.
Gabriel remained seated.
"Sit down."
"Where is he?"
"Alive. For now."
Roman's eyes became murderous.
Gabriel looked at Sadi.
"You wanted a seat at the table, Sadi."
He pushed a document toward her.
"Now make a decision."
It was a list of Rossi businesses.
At the bottom was a deadline.
Twenty-four hours.
Sadi looked at Roman.
Then at Gabriel.
And understood the trap.
Gabriel did not want Roman's surrender.
He wanted Sadi to ask for it.
He wanted Roman to choose between his empire and the woman he loved.
Sadi pushed the document back.
"No."
Gabriel blinked.
"No?"
"I don't make Roman's decisions for him."
She stood.
"And neither do you."
Roman looked at her.
Something fierce and grateful moved across his face.
Sadi turned toward Gabriel.
"But you made one mistake."
"Which one?"
"You showed us Nico is alive."
She smiled without warmth.
"Now we know you need him for something."
For the first time that evening, Gabriel stopped smiling.
The ride back from the Palmer House was silent until Sadi finally asked the question that had been pressing against her ribs.
"If Gabriel had asked you before all this—before the theft, before Nico—would you ever have considered leaving?"
Roman watched the city lights slide across the armored glass.
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I confused responsibility with ownership. My father left hundreds of people dependent on the organization. I told myself walking away would abandon them."
"And now?"
"Now I wonder how many of them stayed because I never gave them another kind of future."
Sadi studied him. This was not redemption. One conversation could not wash blood from a man's history. But she was beginning to understand that change rarely announced itself dramatically. Sometimes it sounded like a dangerous man admitting that his certainty had been wrong.
Roman looked at her.
"You should know something else. If this ends badly, there are accounts in your name."
Sadi's head snapped toward him.
"What?"
"Legal accounts. Taxed. Documented."
"You put money in my name without asking me?"
Roman visibly reconsidered his life choices.
"I can see from your expression that this was a mistake."
"A spectacular one."
"I was trying to make sure you were secure."
"Then ask me what security looks like to me."
Roman was quiet.
"What does it look like?"
Sadi answered immediately.
May you like
"Knowing I can leave and choosing to stay."
That sentence remained between them for the rest of the drive.
