Chapter 11 - What Vincent Owed the Dead
Vincent did not deny the recording.
Roman sat across from him in the detention center the next morning.
“You moved Jonah’s body.”
“Yes.”
“You helped put him in the car.”
“Yes.”
“You let our mother bury him believing he was you.”
Vincent looked away.
“Yes.”
Roman struck the table with his palm.
“Why?”
Vincent’s voice broke for the first time.
“Because Father was standing there telling me you would lose everything.”
“I was scared.”
“I was stupid.”
“And Jonah was already dead.”
Roman stared at him.
“That was your excuse?”
“No.”
“It was my failure.”
Vincent leaned forward.
“I have lived eleven years knowing Jonah’s mother buried an empty box because her son was lying in my grave.”
“I don’t need you to explain what that makes me.”
Roman’s anger softened, but it did not disappear.
“What happens now?”
“My lawyer thinks I face charges for obstruction, evidence tampering, conspiracy, possibly more.”
“And you’re going to fight?”
“I’m going to tell the truth.”
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
Roman looked at his brother.
“That could send you to prison.”
“I know.”
“What about Sophia?”
Vincent closed his eyes briefly.
“That is the part that hurts.”
Roman almost said something cruel.
Then he remembered Sophia feeding Gabriel in a borrowed bedroom.
He remembered four nights on concrete.
Vincent had already given her enough pain.
“You don’t get to disappear again.”
Vincent looked up.
“If you go to prison, you write.”
“You call.”
“You explain yourself to your son when he is old enough to understand.”
“You do not decide that vanishing is noble.”
Vincent nodded.
Roman stood.
As he reached the door, Vincent spoke.
“Roman.”
He turned.
“There’s another reason Silas wants Gabriel.”
Roman waited.
Vincent lowered his voice.
“The trust isn’t just money.”
“What else?”
“Voting control over the foundation archive.”
Roman frowned.
“The archive contains sealed transaction records going back thirty years.”
“Silas can destroy evidence if he controls Gabriel’s share.”
“Evidence of what?”
Vincent stared at him.
“People paid Silas for things Callaway companies should never have been involved in.”
“Bribes.”
“Coercion.”
“Illegal loans.”
“Judges.”
“Politicians.”
“Contractors.”
Roman felt sick.
“Father knew?”
“Some of it.”
“Not all.”
Vincent continued.
“Jonah copied part of the archive before he died.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“He said he hid it somewhere our father would never look.”
Roman returned to the brownstone.
Sophia was standing beside the fireplace.
Gabriel slept in a sling against her chest.
Roman told her everything.
Vincent’s confession.
The likely charges.
The archive.
Sophia listened silently.
When Roman finished, she wiped tears from her face.
“I loved a man who didn’t exist.”
Roman said nothing.
“Daniel was patient.”
“He made pancakes badly.”
“He bought old books for three dollars and treated them like treasures.”
“He talked to strangers’ dogs.”
“That man was real.”
Roman spoke quietly.
“He was Vincent too.”
Sophia nodded.
“That’s the problem.”
A knock came at the front door.
Roman’s security team checked it.
A courier had delivered a package addressed to Sophia.
No return address.
Inside was a child’s blue knit cap.
Sophia recognized it instantly.
Gabriel had worn it when they left the hospital.
She had lost it somewhere before reaching Roman’s building.
Beneath the cap was a photograph.
Davis’s daughter.
Tied to a chair.
Alive.
Terrified.
A note was taped beneath it.
BRING THE ORIGINAL LEDGER.
MIDNIGHT.
COME ALONE.
Davis saw the photograph and stopped breathing.
Roman looked at him.
Silas had finally shown what he wanted.
The ledger.
The archive.
Gabriel.
Everything was connected.
Then Sophia turned the photograph over.
Three words were written on the back in tiny handwriting.
NOT SILAS’S MEN.
Roman read them twice.
“Who wrote this?”
Davis went pale.
“My daughter.”
Roman looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“When she was little, we had a code.”
“If she wrote a message under threat, she always added three dots beneath the last word.”
Roman looked again.
Three tiny dots sat beneath MEN.
Davis swallowed.
“She’s telling us whoever has her isn’t Silas.”
Roman felt the game change.
May you like
There was another player.
And this one had been hiding behind Silas all along.
