PART 3

Vincent Romano had spent forty-three years believing he understood the worst things his father had done.

He was wrong.

Naomi stood in the basement office holding Isaiah’s note.

Her voice came quietly.

“Why did your father pay my mother’s rent?”

Vincent did not answer.

Not because he knew.

Because he was afraid he did.

Anthony Romano had been many things.

Powerful.

Unfaithful.

Controlling.

Generous when generosity served him.

Vincent remembered one woman.

Dark curls.

Warm laugh.

Camille.

He had been eleven or twelve.

She sometimes appeared in the Romano kitchen after his mother went upstairs.

Vincent had assumed she worked for his father.

Adults encouraged children to believe convenient things.

“I knew your mother.”

Naomi stared.

“What?”

“Not well.”

“How?”

“She came to my house.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not enough.”

“I know.”

Naomi stepped closer.

“Was she sleeping with your father?”

Vincent looked at Emily.

The child was playing with the lid of her coin jar.

Naomi noticed.

“Rachel.”

The attorney nodded immediately.

“I’ll take Emily upstairs.”

Emily frowned.

“No.”

Naomi crouched.

“Sweetheart.”

“I found red book.”

“You did.”

“I stay.”

Vincent surprised everyone.

“She should not.”

Emily glared.

He crouched.

“There are grown-up things in the next part.”

“I know grown-up things.”

“I believe you.”

“You’re mafia.”

Rachel closed her eyes.

Vincent continued:

“But some information belongs to your mother before it belongs to you.”

Emily looked at Naomi.

“Do you want me to go?”

Naomi’s face softened.

“Yes.”

That worked.

Emily handed Vincent the jar.

“Guard it.”

“All forty-seven dollars?”

“And eighty-three cents.”

“I remember.”

She went upstairs with Rachel.

The moment she disappeared, Naomi turned.

“Now answer.”

Vincent nodded.

“I believe my father had an affair with Camille.”

Naomi closed her eyes.

“Believe?”

“I saw enough to suspect.”

“Did your mother know?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“One night I saw her crying.”

He looked toward the old desk.

“My father left with Camille.”

Naomi’s voice became cold.

“And then?”

“I was a child.”

“So was I.”

That stopped him.

Right.

Naomi had been living inside the consequences while Vincent observed them from a mansion.

“What happened to your mother?”

Vincent asked.

“Car accident.”

“When?”

“When I was twelve.”

“Body?”

Naomi stared.

“What?”

“Did you see her?”

“No.”

“Funeral?”

“Closed casket.”

Of course.

The pattern was becoming familiar enough to be obscene.

“Who identified her?”

“My father.”

“Isaiah.”

“Yes.”

Vincent looked at the photograph.

Isaiah knew Camille survived.

So the funeral had been deliberate.

“Why fake her death?”

Naomi looked at Isaiah’s note.

“Dominic.”

They opened more files.

Slowly.

Carefully.

Rachel returned after arranging childcare upstairs with a trusted building resident Naomi knew personally.

Good.

No Romano staff around Emily.

The documents built a story.

Not cleanly.

Secrets rarely came preorganized.

Camille had been Anthony Romano’s longtime affair partner.

She became pregnant.

Anthony paid for an apartment.

Isaiah Carter—Camille’s cousin and closest friend—helped her hide the pregnancy from the Romano family.

Naomi stopped.

“My father wasn’t my biological father.”

Rachel read the page.

“No.”

Naomi looked away.

Isaiah had raised her anyway.

Completely.

No distinction.

Another page:

PATERNITY CONFIRMED — A.R.

Anthony Romano.

Vincent sat.

For once, his legs failed him.

Naomi stared.

“My father was your father.”

“Yes.”

“So…”

Neither said it.

Rachel did.

“You and Vincent are half siblings.”

Silence.

Naomi laughed.

A broken, incredulous sound.

“No.”

Vincent looked at her.

“I understand.”

“No, you don’t.”

She paced.

“My daughter walked into a diner.”

“Yes.”

“She asked some terrifying stranger for a house.”

Vincent said nothing.

“And the terrifying stranger is her uncle.”

He almost smiled.

Very slightly.

“Apparently.”

Naomi stopped.

“Do not make this funny.”

“I’m not.”

“You almost smiled.”

“I’m sorry.”

She started laughing anyway.

Then crying.

Then doing both.

Vincent looked away again.

Rachel gave her tissues.

“Why did Camille disappear?”

Naomi asked.

They kept reading.

Dominic discovered the affair after Anthony tried to alter part of his estate.

Not to name Naomi publicly.

To create a protected fund for Camille and the child.

Dominic objected.

Why?

Because Anthony’s legitimate marriage had already produced Vincent.

Recognition of another child could complicate inheritance.

Family governance.

Property.

Power.

So Dominic confronted Camille.

Threatened exposure.

Threatened Isaiah.

Threatened custody battles.

Threatened to paint Camille as an extortionist.

Anthony did not protect her openly.

That was the ugliest part.

He paid.

Arranged.

Whispered.

But refused to challenge Dominic directly.

Naomi read the note twice.

“He loved her enough to hide her but not enough to stand beside her.”

Vincent’s face tightened.

“That sounds like him.”

“What happened when she ‘died’?”

Isaiah and Camille staged a fatal crash.

Camille disappeared.

Naomi remained with Isaiah because bringing a child into hiding made everything harder.

Camille intended to return.

She never did.

“Why?”

Rachel turned another page.

A payment record.

Then a location.

Savannah, Georgia.

Camille lived there under another name for at least six years.

Then records stopped.

Naomi’s hands shook.

“She may be alive.”

Vincent did not offer false hope.

“Maybe.”

Good.

“What happened to Anthony?”

Vincent knew.

His father died fourteen years ago.

Heart attack.

Open casket.

Real death.

At least some people stayed dead.

Then Rachel found another letter.

From Anthony.

Addressed to Isaiah.

Never sent.

Isaiah—

Dominic knows about Naomi.

Get Camille farther away.

Do not tell Vincent yet.

He is too young and too loyal to me.

If I tell him now, he will protect the family name before he understands what the family has done.

Vincent stopped breathing.

His father had known him accurately.

That hurt.

Naomi read the line too.

“What would you have done?”

“At twenty-nine?”

“Yes.”

Vincent thought.

“Probably exactly what he feared.”

She looked at him.

“And now?”

He looked at the red ledger.

“Now I burn the name before I protect what was done under it.”

Rachel immediately said:

“Metaphorically.”

Vincent looked at her.

“Yes, counselor.”

Naomi almost smiled.

Then they found the last file.

EMILY CARTER.

Naomi froze.

“No.”

Vincent opened it.

Photographs.

Emily walking to school.

Emily with Naomi.

Emily outside the diner.

Recent.

Very recent.

Dominic had been monitoring them.

Why?

One note:

CHILD APPROACHED V.R. — UNPLANNED.

Another:

IF CONTACT CONTINUES, MOVE CARTERS BEFORE BLOODLINE ISSUE EMERGES.

Vincent’s face became stone.

“He knew Emily came to me.”

Rachel nodded.

“He got reports fast.”

Naomi’s breathing changed.

“Move us?”

Nobody needed to explain.

Eviction.

Friday.

Derek.

North Harbor.

Not rent.

Not entirely.

The pressure began because Emily had approached Vincent.

Dominic was trying to remove them before Vincent learned the family connection.

Naomi whispered:

“He sent that man.”

“Yes.”

“To scare me out.”

“Yes.”

“Because my daughter asked you for help.”

Vincent looked at the coin jar.

Forty-seven dollars and eighty-three cents.

The smallest transaction in the room.

The one that disrupted everything.

Rachel said:

“We need police involvement on the gun incident, housing regulators, independent financial counsel, and outside investigators.”

Vincent nodded.

“And Dominic?”

She looked at him.

“Do not handle him yourself.”

Naomi immediately said:

“Agreed.”

Vincent raised an eyebrow.

Naomi stared.

“If you want me to believe you’re different from these people, act different.”

That landed.

“Yes.”

So Vincent did something the old Romano organization would have considered weakness.