Chapter 8 - The Night Roman Lost His Empire
Darkness swallowed the printing plant.
Sadi dropped immediately.
A gunshot cracked above her.
Metal screamed as the bullet struck machinery.
Someone cursed.
Sadi crawled beneath the rusted table.
Her heart hammered so violently she could hear it.
Another shot.
Then a third.
Emergency lights flickered red along the walls.
Sadi saw shoes moving.
Anthony's.
Gabriel's.
Salvatore's.
She also saw a fourth pair.
Someone else had been hiding in the darkness.
Sadi grabbed the nearest object she could reach.
A steel wrench.
Anthony bent to look beneath the table.
She swung.
The wrench struck his cheek.
He screamed.
Sadi rolled out the opposite side and ran.
"Get her!"
She reached the old press line when a hand grabbed her dress.
Fabric tore.
Sadi spun and drove her elbow backward.
A man grunted.
Then a roar came from the loading bay.
"SADI!"
Roman.
The steel doors exploded inward under the impact of an armored SUV.
Headlights flooded the warehouse.
Roman came through the smoke with Nico and six men behind him.
Gunfire erupted.
Sadi dropped behind a press.
Roman crossed the floor toward her.
Not carefully.
Not strategically.
Furiously.
Gabriel's men retreated toward the rear exits.
Anthony fired twice.
Roman returned fire.
Anthony fell.
Salvatore stood frozen between both sides.
His weapon lowered.
"Roman!"
Gabriel's voice echoed from the catwalk.
Everyone looked up.
Gabriel held the red book.
"You always were predictable."
He threw something over the railing.
A phone.
It landed near Roman's feet.
The screen displayed a live video.
The Rossi estate.
Flames climbed from the windows.
Roman stopped breathing.
"Mama."
Gabriel smiled from above.
"Choose."
Roman looked at Sadi.
Then the burning house.
Gabriel ran.
Roman could chase him.
Or save his mother.
Twenty years earlier, Roman had been a boy unable to protect her from his father.
Gabriel knew exactly where to cut.
Roman turned toward Nico.
"Get Sadi out."
"Roman—"
"Now!"
He ran toward the SUV.
Sadi followed.
"I'm coming."
He did not argue.
That frightened her more than if he had.
The estate was twenty minutes away.
Roman made it in twelve.
Smoke covered the road before they reached the gates.
Fire engines screamed in the distance.
The east wing burned brightest.
Roman was out before the vehicle stopped.
Sadi caught his arm.
"Your mother isn't there."
He stared at her.
"You moved her downtown. Remember?"
For one terrible second, Roman looked confused.
Trauma had erased the present.
He was seventeen again.
Sadi gripped his face.
"Roman. Look at me. Your mother is safe."
His eyes focused.
He inhaled sharply.
"Safe."
"Yes."
The house burned anyway.
The home his father built.
The rooms where Roman grew up.
The kitchen where Sadi whispered that she needed a boyfriend.
By sunrise, half the estate was gone.
And so was the empire.
Federal agents raided four Rossi businesses at dawn.
Someone had released selected pages from the real Ledger.
Not enough to expose everyone.
Enough to trigger arrests.
Three captains disappeared.
Two switched allegiance to Gabriel.
Banks froze corporate accounts.
News helicopters circled downtown.
Roman's legitimate board members demanded his resignation.
By noon, his organization had fractured into competing factions.
Roman sat in a hotel suite overlooking Lake Michigan.
He had not spoken for an hour.
Sadi stood by the window.
Nico entered quietly.
"We found out how Salvatore got Anthony out. He controlled the old security protocols."
Roman nodded.
"Where is Salvatore?"
"He surrendered. He's downstairs."
Roman stood.
Sadi followed.
They found Salvatore in an empty conference room.
No restraints.
He had requested none.
"Why?" Roman asked.
Salvatore looked twenty years older.
"Because I failed Gabriel once."
Roman's expression hardened.
"You saved his life."
"And abandoned him. I sent a sixteen-year-old boy into the world alone. I told myself I was protecting you both. I spent twenty years serving you because guilt is easier when it looks like loyalty."
Roman said nothing.
Salvatore continued.
"Gabriel contacted me six months ago. He said he wanted what was owed to him. Half. I believed him."
"And when he threatened my mother?"
Salvatore's eyes filled.
"I realized too late he wanted everything."
Roman reached inside his jacket.
Sadi's stomach tightened.
Salvatore did not move.
Roman removed his pistol.
Placed it on the table.
Then pushed it toward Salvatore.
"Take it."
Salvatore stared.
"What?"
"If I am my father, this ends with your body on the floor."
Roman's voice shook with controlled fury.
"I'm tired of proving dead men right."
He stepped back.
"Leave Chicago. If I ever see you again, I may change my mind."
Salvatore began crying.
Roman walked out.
Sadi followed him to the elevator.
The doors closed.
Roman stared straight ahead.
"You let him live."
"Don't sound surprised."
"I'm not."
Sadi slipped her hand into his.
"I'm proud of you."
Roman's face tightened.
He looked away.
"Don't."
"Why?"
"Because I lost everything today."
Sadi turned toward him.
"You lost a house. Money. Men who weren't loyal."
"My organization."
"Maybe that's not the same as everything."
Roman looked at her then.
The elevator doors opened.
Neither moved.
"What if Gabriel is right?" Roman asked.
It was almost a whisper.
"What if I built my entire life around becoming a better version of my father and never noticed I was still becoming him?"
Sadi did not rush to comfort him.
He deserved a real answer.
"Then stop."
Roman stared.
"Just stop?"
"Not magically. Not without consequences. But yes. Decide what ends with you."
She squeezed his hand.
"Your father left you an empire built on fear. You don't have to leave it to anyone else."
Roman stepped out of the elevator.
For the first time, he looked uncertain about where he was going.
That evening, he called every remaining captain.
He gave them a choice.
Legitimate employment in Rossi Logistics with clean books, taxes, contracts, and salaries.
Or severance and departure.
The criminal operations were finished.
No collections.
No narcotics.
No illegal gambling.
No protection rackets.
Some men laughed.
Some threatened him.
Some accepted.
By midnight, three more warehouses belonged to Gabriel.
Roman did not retaliate.
Sadi watched him dismantle his own throne piece by piece.
At 1:17 a.m., Gabriel called.
Roman put the phone on speaker.
"You surrendered," Gabriel said.
"No," Roman replied. "I quit."
Gabriel laughed.
"Same thing."
"You'll learn the difference."
"You think going legitimate absolves you?"
"No."
Roman looked at Sadi.
"I think it gives me something worth building."
Gabriel went quiet.
Then he said, "Enjoy it while you can."
The call ended.
Sadi frowned.
"That sounded ominous."
Roman's phone immediately buzzed with a news alert.
He read it.
His face drained of color.
Sadi took the phone.
The headline announced that federal prosecutors had obtained a witness willing to testify that Roman Rossi personally ordered multiple murders.
The witness's name was printed beneath it.
Helen Miller.
Sadi's mother.
Before leaving the hotel for the meeting that night, Roman handed Nico a sealed envelope. Sadi noticed.
"What is that?"
"Instructions if I don't come back."
She stared at him.
Roman did not soften the truth. "The company transfers, my mother's care, legal access for you, and orders that nobody retaliates in my name."
The last part caught her.
"No retaliation?"
"If Gabriel kills me, I don't want fifty more people dying because men decide vengeance is loyalty."
Sadi swallowed.
Months ago, Roman would have answered a threat with a larger threat. Now he was planning for a world that might continue without him and refusing to poison it from the grave.
She took his hand.
May you like
"Come back anyway."
"That is also in the plan."
