Chapter 5 - WHAT ROMAN ALREADY KNEW
Roman read the sentence twice.
ROMAN HEARD EVERYTHING.
He did not pretend not to recognize the photograph.
That almost made Elsie angrier.
“You were there.”
“Yes.”
“You knew my mother.”
“I met her once.”
“That is not what she wrote.”
Roman placed the photograph on his desk.
“No.”
Elsie stood across from him.
Norah had quietly left when she realized the conversation was personal.
For once, there was no folder between Elsie and Roman.
No table.
Nothing to make the distance professional.
“You told me Adrien had been using me before I knew his name.”
“He was.”
“You neglected to mention your family had been connected to mine for years.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Roman’s face remained still.
“Because I did not know how much your mother had told you.”
“She was dead when I started working here.”
“I know.”
“And my last name never bothered you?”
“Parker is not unusual.”
“When did you realize?”
He waited too long.
Elsie’s anger sharpened.
“When?”
“Six months after you started.”
“How?”
“You listed Walter Parker as your emergency contact.”
She almost laughed.
“So for three and a half years, you knew exactly whose daughter sat outside your office.”
“Yes.”
“And said nothing.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Roman looked toward the windows.
“Shame.”
That answer surprised her.
She expected strategy.
Or protection.
Or one of the controlled phrases men used when they had spent years believing silence counted as wisdom.
“Your father stole from mine?”
“My father participated in things he should not have participated in.”
“That is a sentence written by a lawyer.”
Roman looked back at her.
“Yes.”
“Try again.”
He breathed out.
“My father used Anthony Manuso to move money through subcontractors.”
Elsie’s stomach tightened.
“Including Parker Construction.”
“Yes.”
“Did my father know?”
“No.”
“Did yours?”
“Yes.”
“And when my mother discovered it?”
“She confronted him.”
Elsie placed Diane’s notebook on the desk.
“You were there.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
Roman sat.
Not because he was weak.
Because, Elsie realized, he had stopped trying to dominate the room.
“My father denied it at first.”
“Then?”
“Your mother had copies.”
“Of what?”
“Invoices. Payment authorizations. Bid communications.”
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
She stared at him.
“My mother died believing you heard everything.”
“She was correct.”
“What did you do?”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“Not enough.”
“Meaning?”
“I forced my father to stop using Manuso companies.”
“Very brave.”
“It wasn’t.”
“No.”
“I was thirty-four. I told myself separating the businesses solved the problem.”
“It didn’t.”
“No.”
“Because my father’s company collapsed.”
Roman nodded.
“Parker Construction was already carrying debt created by the false invoices.”
“And Bellamy bought the property.”
“Yes.”
“For pennies.”
“More than foreclosure would have produced.”
“That does not make it generous.”
“No.”
At least he didn’t defend it.
Elsie looked at him.
“Did my mother ask you to help my father?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I tried.”
“How?”
“My father offered Walter a purchase price that would clear the bank debt.”
“He lost everything anyway.”
“Because Anthony Manuso bought part of the debt first.”
Elsie went still.
“Adrien’s father.”
“Yes.”
Roman leaned forward.
“That is why your father’s collapse happened so quickly. Manuso called obligations that were supposed to remain extended.”
“So your father profited.”
“Yes.”
“And Manuso caused the collapse.”
“Yes.”
Both.
Again.
Nobody innocent.
Nobody simple.
Elsie felt suddenly tired.
“Adrien thinks Bellamy destroyed his father.”
“In part, we did.”
That answer stopped her.
Roman continued.
“When my father ended their relationship, Anthony lost contracts, influence and money. He blamed us.”
“Was he wrong?”
“Not entirely.”
Elsie looked down at Diane’s notebook.
“Then Adrien isn’t imagining his grievance.”
“No.”
“He’s just punishing the wrong people.”
Roman’s eyes held hers.
“Yes.”
She thought of the ninety men on the pier.
The foremen.
The shipment three weeks away.
“How does the upcoming shipment fit?”
Roman stood.
He opened a drawer and removed a terminal lease proposal.
“Bellamy’s lease on Pier Nine renews in January.”
Elsie knew that.
She had typed half the renewal documents.
“If the shipment is seized or materially delayed because of a compliance failure, the port authority can reopen the bid.”
“And Adrien wants it.”
“Manuso Redevelopment submitted an alternative proposal four months ago.”
Elsie stared.
“That isn’t revenge.”
“No.”
“It’s business.”
“It is both.”
Roman turned a page.
A local logistics partner was listed.
Parker Site Services LLC.
Elsie felt cold.
“My father.”
“Yes.”
“If Bellamy loses Pier Nine, Adrien gives Dad part of the terminal work.”
“That appears to be the promise.”
“And Marissa?”
Roman slid over another page.
Public relations and community liaison.
Marissa Parker.
Elsie closed her eyes.
Adrien had built an entire future for her family on top of Bellamy’s collapse.
She had simply never been told she was helping finance it with information.
“How soon?”
Roman looked at her.
“The shipment moved up.”
Her eyes opened.
“What?”
“Forty-eight hours.”
“Why?”
“Customer request.”
“Or Adrien.”
“We don’t know.”
Elsie started walking toward the door.
Roman said, “Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“We need your help.”
She turned.
“You lied to me for three and a half years.”
“I withheld something.”
“Do not become a coward with vocabulary now.”
Roman accepted the hit.
Elsie continued.
“Adrien used me. Marissa betrayed me. My father signed my name into a business arrangement. And you sat ten feet away from me every day knowing my mother once begged your family to stop destroying mine.”
“I know.”
“So no, Roman. You do not get to become the honest man because everyone else turned out worse.”
She reached the door.
“The shipment can affect ninety men.”
She stopped.
Roman did not tell her to stay.
That mattered.
He simply said, “They didn’t do any of this.”
Elsie looked at him.
“No.”
“If you leave, I will understand.”
He pushed the folder toward the edge of the desk.
“If you stay, you work for them. Not me.”
Elsie hated that he knew which argument would reach her.
She hated even more that it was true.
She returned to the desk.
“One condition.”
“Name it.”
“When this is done, everything about 2019 comes out.”
Roman was silent.
“Everything.”
“That could damage Bellamy Holdings.”
“Yes.”
“It could expose my father’s estate.”
“Yes.”
“It could cost us contracts.”
“Yes.”
Roman looked at Diane’s photograph.
Then back at Elsie.
“All right.”
She searched his face.
“You mean that?”
“Yes.”
“Put it in writing.”
For the first time, something almost like approval moved through his expression.
“Norah will draft it.”
They worked until nearly midnight.
At 11:38, Elsie found the mistake.
A company listed on the alternative Pier Nine proposal had an address she recognized.
Not from Bellamy.
From childhood.
“Roman.”
He moved behind her.
She pointed.
“Twenty-seven Murphy Avenue.”
“What about it?”
“That was Parker Construction’s accounting office.”
“It closed in 2019.”
“Yes.”
Elsie opened the corporate filing attached to Adrien’s proposal.
The registered representative of the company was not Adrien.
Not Marissa.
Not Vincent Rusk.
Walter Parker.
Roman read the signature.
Then the date.
Three months earlier.
Elsie felt something sink inside her.
Her father hadn’t merely signed a hopeful contract six weeks ago.
He had been involved much longer.
Roman said nothing.
Elsie picked up her coat.
This time, he did not stop her.
On the bottom of the filing, beneath Walter’s signature, was a handwritten notation.
Local partner approved. Full knowledge of transition plan.
Elsie stared at the words.
May you like
Her father had not been tricked into everything.
Somewhere along the way, Walter Parker had chosen a side.
