Chapter 11 - WHAT ROMAN HAD DONE
Roman didn’t sleep.
At three in the morning, he sat alone on the boxing ring apron, staring at his hands.
Sophia found him there.
“You didn’t know.”
Roman looked up.
“You don’t know that.”
“Know what?”
He laughed quietly.
“Over the years, my father gave me names.”
Sophia sat beside him.
“People?”
“Competitors. Executives. Men he said were stealing from us.”
“What did you do?”
“I destroyed them.”
Roman looked at the floor.
“I froze accounts. Bought debt. Called lenders. Ruined businesses.”
Sophia said nothing.
Roman’s voice tightened.
“What if some of them were witnesses?”
“That doesn’t make you him.”
“You don’t know me.”
“No.”
Sophia looked at him.
“But I know what you did when you found a stranger and a baby sleeping in your stairwell.”
Roman’s face tightened.
“That proves nothing.”
“It proves something.”
Before he could answer, Samuel entered.
“We found the girl.”
Roman stood.
“What?”
“Evelyn’s daughter.”
Roman stopped breathing.
Samuel placed a school photograph on the ring.
The same gray eyes.
Same dark hair.
Older now.
Eight years old.
“Her name is Lily Foster.”
Roman stared.
“Where?”
“Westchester.”
“Parents?”
“Adoptive mother. Single. Teacher.”
Roman was already moving.
Samuel grabbed his arm.
“Don’t.”
Roman turned.
“That’s my daughter.”
“And if Arthur knows we found her, rushing there gets her killed.”
Roman’s eyes darkened.
Then Sophia’s phone buzzed.
A video.
Lily Foster walking out of school.
Filmed that afternoon.
Roman went pale.
Text beneath:
NOW YOU UNDERSTAND THE TRADE.
Another message.
BRING GABRIEL. GET LILY.
Sophia clutched her baby.
“No.”
Roman looked at the screen.
“No one is trading anyone.”
A third message arrived.
An address.
Abandoned Callaway Strategic warehouse.
Midnight.
Samuel said, “It’s a trap.”
Roman looked at him.
“Yes.”
“So we don’t go.”
Roman’s expression turned cold.
“Oh, we’re going.”
Sophia stared.
“Roman—”
He looked at her.
“But Gabriel isn’t.”
She tightened her grip.
“Neither am I.”
Roman started to object.
Sophia cut him off.
“They’ve been following me since the hospital. Daniel left me alone with this. Your family is using my child as a bargaining chip.”
She stepped closer.
“I’m done hiding.”
Roman studied her.
Then nodded.
“Fine.”
At 11:42 p.m., Samuel received a call.
Lily Foster had disappeared from her bedroom.
No broken window.
No forced entry.
May you like
Just one thing left on her pillow.
A Callaway family ring.
