Chapter 2 - “I froze the accounts.”
“You can do that?”
“I can persuade people to reconsider transactions.”
“That sounds illegal.”
“Probably.”
I should have been afraid.
Instead, for the first time since dinner, I felt something dangerously close to relief.
Then the truth hit me.
“My father wasn’t going to come back for me.”
Roman didn’t answer.
“He told me I was helping him buy time.”
“I know.”
“He was going to leave me here and run.”
“Yes.”
The word was not cruel.
That made it hurt more.
I stood and walked to the window.
Snow rested along the stone terrace.
Behind me, Roman said nothing.
Finally I whispered, “Why did you take the deal?”
“Because your father offered you before I asked for collateral.”
I turned.
Roman’s jaw was tight.
“He volunteered his own daughter within four minutes of realizing I knew about the stolen money.”
I stared at him.
“I could have refused,” he continued. “If I had, he would have found another way to bury you. He had already prepared documents making you responsible for the company’s financial misconduct.”
“So you let him believe he sold me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I needed him to run.”
I felt anger rising again.
“So I was bait.”
“At first.”
The honesty struck harder than an excuse would have.
“At first?”
Roman walked toward the window, stopping several feet away.
“I had been watching your father’s company for months. That meant I watched you too.”
My breath caught.
“I saw someone working until midnight while executives twice her age left at five. I saw you personally authorize emergency pay advances for three employees after a payroll delay. I saw you reject a bonus your father approved for you because the maintenance department needed new safety equipment.”
“That doesn’t explain why you care.”
“No.”
His eyes met mine.
“It explains why I knew you weren’t part of what he was doing.”
“And the rest?”
His voice lowered.
“The rest is harder to explain.”
Before I could answer, the library door opened.
One of Roman’s security men stepped inside.
“Boss.”
Roman looked over.
“What?”
“We found Thomas.”
My heart jumped.
“Where?”
The man glanced at me.
Roman nodded once.
“Say it.”
“At Claire’s apartment.”
I froze.
“What?”
“He was searching it.”
“For what?”
The security man held up a photograph of a small brass key.
I recognized it.
It belonged to the safe-deposit box my mother had opened when I was a teenager.
I had not touched it in years.
Roman’s gaze sharpened.
“Claire, what’s in that box?”
“Nothing important. My mother’s jewelry. Letters. Some old company papers she kept before she died.”
Roman and his security man exchanged a look.
“What?” I asked.
Roman stepped closer.
“Your mother worked at Mercer Atlantic?”
“She was the original accountant.”
“For how long?”
“Almost twenty years.”
“And she kept records?”
“She kept everything.”
Roman went still.
My own thoughts caught up a second later.
“No.”
“Where’s the key?”
I shook my head.
“Not at my apartment.”
“Where?”
I touched the chain around my neck.
Beneath my dress hung a tiny silver locket.
Inside it, folded behind a photograph of my mother, was the key.
Roman stared at me.
And for the first time since I had met him, the famously unshakable Roman DeLuca looked surprised.
“My mother told me never to let my father have it,” I whispered.
The library fell silent.
Suddenly the debt, the forged documents, my father’s panic, and his desperate search of my apartment arranged themselves into one terrifying picture.
Maybe he had not traded me merely to escape Roman.
Maybe he had needed me gone because I possessed something he had spent years trying to find.
Three hours later, Roman and I entered a private bank vault in downtown Boston.
He did not send a man with me.
He came himself.
The safe-deposit box contained my mother’s wedding ring, two photographs, a stack of letters tied with blue ribbon, and one black notebook.
Nothing looked valuable.
Until I opened the notebook.
My mother’s handwriting filled the first page.
If anything happens to me, Claire must know that Thomas is not losing the company.
He is stealing it.
My hands began shaking.
Roman stood beside me but didn’t touch the book.
Page after page documented transfers.
Dates.
Amounts.
Property acquisitions.
Fake vendors.
My mother had discovered the first theft eleven years earlier.
She had confronted my father.
He had promised to stop.
He hadn’t.
Then I reached the final pages.
My chest tightened.
Mom had been sick by then. Her handwriting wandered slightly.
Thomas thinks the company belongs to him because his name is on the building. He forgets my father financed the original purchase. Half of Mercer Atlantic belongs to Claire through the Whitmore family trust. Thomas cannot legally sell, pledge, or transfer those assets without her approval when she turns thirty.
I stared at the date.
My thirtieth birthday had been six weeks earlier.
Roman read over my shoulder.
“That’s why he needed your signature.”
I could barely hear him.
“He forged me because he doesn’t own enough of the company to secure the loans.”
“And if the trust still exists…”
“He may not own the company at all.”
The last envelope in the box contained the trust papers.
Forty-eight percent of Mercer Atlantic belonged to me.
Not someday.
Now.
My father had known.
Roman swore quietly.
I looked at him.
“He didn’t sell me to settle his debt.”
“No.”
“He sold me because he needed me out of the way.”
Roman’s expression hardened.
“And because he thought I would keep you where no attorney, bank officer, or employee could reach you.”
I laughed once, but it sounded broken.
“He thought you’d imprison me.”
“Yes.”
“Would your father have?”
Roman’s eyes darkened.
The answer came slowly.
“Yes.”
That was the first time he spoke about his father.
We left the vault carrying the notebook and trust documents in a locked case.
In the car, I finally asked, “Is that why you’re different?”
Roman looked out the window.
“I’m not a good man, Claire.”
“I didn’t ask if you were.”
He turned toward me.
I held his gaze.
“People talk about your father.”
“They should.”
“What did he do?”
Roman was silent long enough that I thought he wouldn’t answer.
Then he said, “He believed fear was ownership. Employees. Family. Women. Sons. If someone depended on him, he believed they belonged to him.”
Something in his voice changed on that last word.
“When I was seventeen,” he continued, “my mother tried to leave. He brought her back.”
My throat tightened.
“She never tried again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. She eventually left after he died.”
I understood then.
Not everything.
But enough.
“You hated what my father did because you recognized it.”
Roman looked at me.
“Yes.”
“And that’s why you told me I wasn’t your prisoner.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you say I belonged to you?”
A flash of regret crossed his face.
“I shouldn’t have.”
“No.”
“I was angry.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“No.”
The car slowed at a traffic light.
Roman leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.
“My father taught me possession. I have spent twenty years teaching myself loyalty instead. Sometimes the old language still comes out.”
I studied him.
“Then learn a new one.”
His eyes lifted to mine.
“What language would you prefer?”
“Choice.”
The light changed.
Roman sat back.
“Then choose.”
“Choose what?”
“What happens next.”
I stared at him.
He continued.
“The debt no longer matters. Your father’s fraud covers more than what he owes me. You have enough evidence to protect yourself and reclaim Mercer Atlantic. I can put you in a car tonight. Teresa will pack your things. You can go anywhere.”
I should have said yes.
I had spent the previous night imagining escape.
Instead I asked, “What happens to my father?”
“That depends on what you do with the evidence.”
“And what would you do?”
Roman’s face became cold.
“You don’t want my answer.”
I did.
But I also understood why he wouldn’t give it.
So I looked down at my mother’s notebook.
“My father stole retirement money from people who trusted us.”
“Yes.”
“He forged my name.”
“Yes.”
“He tried to leave me holding the blame.”
“Yes.”
“And now we have proof.”
“Yes.”
I lifted my head.
“I don’t want revenge.”
Roman watched me carefully.
“I want daylight.”
That evening, everything changed.
Not because Roman declared war.
Because I made a phone call.
The first person I called was Rebecca Sloan, an attorney who had once represented my mother’s trust.
The second was Mercer Atlantic’s independent board member.
The third was our bank’s fraud department.
By midnight, the trust documents had been verified.
By morning, my father’s authority over company accounts had been suspended pending review.
And by noon, Thomas Mercer finally called me.
I answered on speakerphone in Roman’s study.
“Claire.”
My father sounded exhausted.
“Where are you?”
“You know where I am.”
“Come home.”
I looked at Roman.
His expression didn’t move.
“You traded me away yesterday.”
“I panicked.”
“You forged my signature.”
Silence.
“Who told you that?”
“You did when you tried to steal Mom’s key from my apartment.”
His breathing changed.
“Claire, listen to me.”
“I’ve been listening to you my whole life.”
“You don’t understand business.”
I almost smiled.
For six years, I had repaired every financial mistake he made and apologized to every employee he disappointed.
Now he was telling me I didn’t understand business.
“Mom understood it.”
He went silent.
“I found her notebook.”
“Claire.”
For the first time, fear entered his voice.
Not worry.
Fear.
“You need to bring that to me.”
“No.”
“You have no idea what you’re holding.”
“I know exactly what I’m holding.”
“Roman is using you.”
I looked across the room.
Roman leaned against the desk, arms folded.
Maybe he expected me to defend him.
I didn’t.
May you like
“Maybe,” I said.
Roman’s eyebrow rose.
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