Chapter 1 - “If I go with you, are his debts gone?”
Roman studied me.
“Yes.”
“And Mercer Atlantic?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether there’s anything left worth saving.”
My father blurted, “There is.”
Roman ignored him.
I looked at the folder.
Then at the father who had sacrificed me before I even knew there was an altar.
Something inside me went very cold.
“Fine.”
Dad exhaled.
Relief.
That was what I saw on his face.
Relief.
I would remember it longer than I remembered his betrayal.
I picked up my purse.
Roman rose.
He was taller than I had realized.
My father stepped forward.
“Claire, I promise I’ll fix this.”
I looked at him for a long time.
“You should have fixed it before the price became your daughter.”
Then I walked past him.
I made it into the hallway before my vision blurred.
I made it to the elevator before my hands began shaking.
I made it inside before the doors closed and twenty-nine years of loyalty turned into one humiliating sob.
Roman stepped in beside me.
His security men remained outside.
The doors slid shut.
I pressed a hand over my mouth.
“Please,” I whispered. “Whatever you’re going to say, don’t.”
He said nothing.
That almost made it worse.
When the elevator reached the lobby, I stepped out too quickly. My heel caught the edge of the rug.
Roman caught my elbow.
I recoiled.
He released me immediately.
Outside, a black SUV waited beneath the hotel awning.
Snow blew sideways through the streetlights.
I stopped.
“This is the part where I’m supposed to get into the car with the terrifying stranger my father owes millions of dollars?”
Roman stood beside me.
“Yes.”
I laughed bitterly.
“At least you’re honest.”
“I find lying inefficient.”
“That must make you a rare man in my family’s circle.”
Something shifted in his expression.
Not amusement exactly.
Recognition.
The driver opened the rear door.
I stared at it.
“My phone?”
“You keep it.”
“My purse?”
“Yours.”
“Am I allowed to leave wherever you’re taking me?”
Roman paused.
That pause frightened me.
“You are not my prisoner, Claire.”
“My father just exchanged me for a debt.”
“Your father believes he did.”
I looked at him.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You’ll understand in the morning.”
“I want to understand now.”
“You’ve had enough truths for one night.”
“No. I’ve had enough lies.”
For the first time, Roman looked almost gentle.
“That,” he said, “is exactly why I’m taking you with me.”
Roman DeLuca’s house was not the mansion I expected.
It was worse.
Not because it was frightening.
Because it was beautiful.
The property sat outside Brookline behind stone walls and bare winter trees. The house itself was an old brick estate renovated with glass, steel, warm oak, and the kind of understated wealth that didn’t need gold railings to prove anything.
A middle-aged woman named Teresa met us in the foyer.
She wore slacks and a gray sweater, not a maid’s uniform.
“Ms. Mercer,” she said. “Your room is ready. There’s food upstairs if you’re hungry.”
“I’m not.”
“Tea?”
“No, thank you.”
Roman handed his coat to a man near the door.
“Teresa, no one enters Claire’s room without permission.”
Teresa nodded as if this were perfectly ordinary.
I folded my arms.
“You have rules for your captives?”
Roman looked at me.
“I have rules for guests.”
“You keep using words that don’t match reality.”
“Sleep. Tomorrow we deal with reality.”
“I’m not sleeping in your house.”
“You already agreed to come.”
“To settle my father’s debt.”
“And I said you’ll understand tomorrow.”
I hated how calm he was.
“I don’t trust you.”
“You shouldn’t.”
That answer stopped me.
Roman stepped closer but left several feet between us.
“Trust should be earned. Your father apparently taught you otherwise.”
Then he walked away.
I didn’t sleep.
I sat on the edge of a bed in a guest room larger than my apartment and watched snow cover the garden.
At 2:00 a.m., I called my father.
Straight to voicemail.
At 2:14, I called again.
At 2:30, I called Diane.
Disconnected.
By sunrise, humiliation had hardened into anger.
At seven, Teresa knocked.
“Mr. DeLuca is in the library.”
I followed her downstairs wearing yesterday’s black dress and no makeup.
Roman stood by a long table covered with files.
He had changed into dark trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. Black ink from a tattoo curled beneath one cuff.
“Coffee?” he asked.
“I want answers.”
He pushed a mug toward the empty chair opposite him.
“Answers are easier with coffee.”
I sat because I wanted the documents between us more than I wanted to keep arguing.
Roman opened the first file.
“Mercer Atlantic is not failing because shipping rates changed.”
I frowned.
“I know exactly why we’re failing.”
“No. You know the explanation you were given.”
He handed me a bank statement.
I scanned it.
Then another.
Then another.
My pulse accelerated.
The numbers were wrong.
Not slightly wrong.
Catastrophically wrong.
“These transfers aren’t in our operating ledger.”
“I know.”
“Where did you get these?”
“From accounts your father thought no one would find.”
I stared at the routing numbers.
Nearly six hundred thousand dollars had left Mercer Atlantic over fourteen months through consulting companies I had never heard of.
Then eight hundred thousand.
Then another million.
My stomach tightened.
“What are these companies?”
“Shells.”
“For whom?”
“Your father.”
I shook my head.
“No. He couldn’t have moved this much without triggering our controls.”
Roman slid another page toward me.
My signature appeared at the bottom.
I stopped breathing.
“That’s not mine.”
“I know.”
It looked like mine.
Close enough to fool a stranger.
Not close enough to fool me.
“What is this?”
“A personal guarantee on a line of credit.”
I flipped the page.
My name.
My address.
My Social Security number partially masked.
My date of birth.
Everything.
“He forged this.”
“Yes.”
I looked up.
Roman’s face was unreadable.
“There are five more.”
My voice cracked.
“What?”
“Your father put you on loans, vendor agreements, and two property transactions. If Mercer Atlantic collapsed under investigation, you would appear to be the officer who authorized several of the transfers.”
“I’m controller, not CEO.”
“You’re also the person whose electronic credentials were used.”
I stood so quickly my chair scraped backward.
“No.”
“Claire.”
“No.”
I began pacing.
“He knows my passwords.”
“He had access to the internal system.”
“I gave it to him.”
“Because he was your father.”
I turned on Roman.
“Why do you care?”
His expression changed.
Not much.
But enough.
“Sit down.”
“Stop ordering me around.”
“Then stand. But listen.”
I folded my arms tightly around myself.
Roman rested both hands on the table.
“Eight months ago, I started reviewing a series of suspicious freight contracts connected to one of my warehouses. Mercer Atlantic appeared repeatedly.”
“You were investigating us?”
“Your father.”
“For what?”
Roman hesitated.
“Moving goods for men I don’t do business with.”
The phrasing was careful.
I understood anyway.
“Criminal business.”
“Yes.”
“You’re telling me my father was working with criminals while owing money to criminals.”
“Your father had a diversified portfolio.”
Despite everything, a shocked laugh escaped me.
Roman’s mouth almost curved.
Then he continued.
“I expected Thomas Mercer to be greedy. I did not expect him to be stupid. When I looked deeper, I found money moving out of employee benefit accounts.”
My anger vanished.
“What?”
Roman passed me a spreadsheet.
I recognized the account immediately.
“No.”
“Claire—”
“No. That account funds the retirement match for our warehouse employees.”
“Yes.”
“It can’t be.”
“It is.”
I sat again because my knees stopped trusting me.
For six years I had watched my father tell employees the company couldn’t afford raises.
I had helped negotiate payment plans with vendors.
I had skipped bonuses.
I had taken a salary cut.
I had sat across from sixty-four-year-old drivers and assured them their retirement contributions were safe.
“How much?”
“Just under two million.”
The shame was physical.
I covered my face.
Roman’s voice softened.
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have.”
“You found irregularities three times.”
I lowered my hands.
“How do you know that?”
“You emailed your father about them.”
My skin prickled.
“You read my emails?”
“Yes.”
“That is unbelievably invasive.”
“Yes.”
“Do you ever apologize?”
“When I regret something.”
I glared at him.
He remained maddeningly calm.
“You asked him about unexplained vendor payments in March,” Roman continued. “He blamed duplicate invoices. In June, you questioned benefit-account timing. He told you the bank had changed settlement procedures. In October, you discovered your credentials had been used after midnight.”
I remembered every conversation.
Every explanation.
Every time Dad had kissed my forehead and told me I worried too much.
Roman pushed the final document forward.
It was a flight itinerary.
Two passengers.
Thomas Mercer.
Diane Mercer.
Departure scheduled for 11:45 that morning.
Boston to Montreal.
Then onward to Europe.
I read it twice.
“They’re leaving.”
“They were.”
“Were?”
“The reservation was canceled forty minutes ago.”
“Why?”
“Because the money they planned to use vanished.”
May you like
I looked up sharply.
Roman folded his arms.
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