Chapter 6 - THE CONFESSION HE COULD NOT BUY
For three days, Roman and I lived twenty feet apart and might as well have been on different continents.
Grace slept.
Ate.
Cried.
Slept again.
My entire universe narrowed to bottles, diapers, exhaustion, and the incredible warmth of her body against mine.
Roman visited only when I invited him.
That surprised me.
He would knock.
Wait.
Ask before picking Grace up.
Ask before staying.
Ask before bringing food.
The man who had once rearranged my life without consulting me suddenly requested permission to move a chair closer to the window.
It should not have affected me.
It did.
Not enough to forgive him.
But enough to notice.
Malcolm remained missing.
Police recovered evidence from a storage office proving he had siphoned more than eighty million dollars from Carter Logistics through shell companies.
Federal investigators became involved.
Roman spent hours speaking to attorneys and agents.
Then on the fourth evening, he knocked on my door holding a folder.
“What is that?”
“Everything.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It is.”
I let him inside.
Grace slept in the crib.
Roman sat at the small dining table but did not open the folder.
For nearly a minute, he said nothing.
“Roman?”
He looked at me.
“I’m stepping down.”
“From the company?”
“Yes.”
I stared.
Carter Logistics was not just his company.
It was his identity.
His inheritance.
His kingdom.
“You’re resigning?”
“Temporarily at first.”
“Why?”
“Because federal investigators are reviewing everything Malcolm touched. I told the board I won’t create the appearance that I’m influencing the investigation.”
I had never heard Roman willingly surrender control over anything.
“What’s in the folder?”
“Financial disclosures. The trust for Grace. Property transfers.”
I felt my walls rise.
“I don’t want your money.”
“I know.”
“Then why—”
“I’m giving you the condo.”
“My mother’s condo already belongs to me.”
“The building.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“I bought it after your mother died.”
My mouth opened.
“You what?”
“She had a mortgage.”
“I was paying it.”
“You thought you were.”
Anger surged.
“You paid it behind my back?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought solving problems was the same thing as loving someone.”
That stopped me.
Roman looked down at his hands.
“My father taught me that money was how a man kept people safe. If something hurt, buy it. If someone threatened you, destroy the threat. If someone wanted to leave, give them a reason they couldn’t afford to.”
I sat across from him.
“And you believed that?”
“For most of my life.”
“And now?”
His eyes moved toward Grace.
“Now I know a house can cost fifteen million dollars and still feel like a prison.”
I said nothing.
He pushed the folder toward me.
“I transferred ownership of the estate into a trust for Grace.”
I stared at him.
“The estate?”
“Yes.”
“Roman, no.”
“It’s done.”
“I don’t want it.”
“It isn’t yours.”
I frowned.
“It’s hers. You manage it until she’s twenty-five.”
“Why?”
“Because if I disappear, go to prison, or get myself killed, no one in my family can touch where she lives.”
The casual way he said killed made my stomach tighten.
“Don’t say that.”
His eyes lifted.
Something passed between us.
Old instinct.
Old love.
I looked away first.
“Are you going to prison?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“I turned over everything I know. Some things my father did will become public. Some things I knew about and failed to report quickly enough may become public too.”
“Illegal things?”
“Mostly tax and contracting issues from years ago.”
“Mostly?”
Roman almost smiled.
“Evelyn has asked the same question with considerably more profanity.”
“Answer.”
“I never ordered anyone hurt.”
I believed him.
That disturbed me because I no longer trusted myself where Roman was concerned.
He continued.
“I threatened people. I ruined companies. I used information to destroy careers. I was not a good man simply because I stayed on the legal side of certain lines.”
The honesty felt different from confession offered only because someone had been caught.
He was not defending himself.
He was dismantling himself.
“And Claire?” I asked.
His face tightened.
“I ended it.”
“When?”
“Christmas morning.”
“After I left.”
“Yes.”
“Would you have ended it if I stayed?”
Roman went silent.
Pain bloomed beneath my ribs.
“There it is.”
“Savannah.”
“No, tell me the truth.”
“I don’t know.”
I stood.
“Then what are we doing?”
“The truth.”
“You want points for admitting you might have continued cheating?”
“No.”
His voice remained calm.
“I want you to know exactly who you were married to so you never again have to wonder whether I’m editing reality to protect myself.”
I turned toward the window.
Chicago glittered below.
“Why her?”
“I don’t have an answer that makes me look better.”
“Try.”
He inhaled.
“You were pregnant. You were happy about the baby. You wanted me at appointments, classes, dinners. You wanted a husband.”
“That sounds unreasonable.”
“I know.”
“Then?”
“I felt trapped.”
The cruelty of the word hit me.
Roman saw it.
“No. That came out wrong.”
“How else should ‘trapped by my pregnant wife’ come out?”
“Not trapped by you.”
“Then what?”
“By the possibility of failing you.”
I laughed bitterly.
“So you solved that by failing spectacularly?”
“Yes.”
At least he understood.
“My father was terrible with children. Terrible with my mother. I promised myself I would be different. Then the closer Grace got to being born, the more I realized I had no idea how.”
“You could have told me.”
“I know.”
“You could have gone to therapy.”
“I know.”
“You could have attended one childbirth class.”
“I know.”
I turned.
“But Claire was easier.”
His face went still.
“Yes.”
The answer broke my heart in a quieter place.
“She didn’t need anything from me except attention. She didn’t know the parts of me you knew. There was no history to disappoint.”
“So you punished me for loving you.”
Roman’s eyes closed.
“Yes.”
I hated the tears that filled mine.
He stood but did not approach.
“I will regret it until I die.”
“That doesn’t fix it.”
“No.”
“You cannot love me enough now to erase what happened.”
“I know.”
“You cannot buy the building.”
“I know.”
“You cannot give Grace an estate and expect me to forget Christmas Eve.”
“I know.”
I wiped my face angrily.
“Stop agreeing with me.”
A faint, miserable smile touched his mouth.
“That might be the hardest thing you’ve asked so far.”
I laughed despite myself.
Then hated myself for laughing.
Roman’s smile disappeared.
“I signed the divorce papers Evelyn prepared.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“They’re in the folder.”
I stared at it.
“You signed them?”
“Yes.”
“No custody fight?”
“No.”
“No challenge to my request for primary residence?”
“No.”
“You’re just agreeing?”
“I’m agreeing that after what I did, I do not get to make freedom expensive for you.”
For months, I had wanted Roman to understand exactly that.
Now that he did, it hurt.
“What about Grace?”
“I want to be her father.”
His voice broke slightly.
“I want every minute you are willing to give me. I want legal rights because I love her, not because I want to use them against you.”
I sat slowly.
“You would really let me go.”
Roman looked at me for a long time.
“No.”
My anger returned.
Then he continued.
“I would never stop loving you. But I will let you leave.”
The difference landed somewhere deep.
Before I could respond, his phone rang.
Roman glanced at the screen.
Detective Harris.
He answered.
“Yes.”
His face changed.
“When?”
A pause.
“Is she sure?”
Another pause.
“We’re coming.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?”
“Claire remembered something.”
“About Malcolm?”
“Yes.”
Roman reached for his coat.
“She knows where he transferred the money.”
“So?”
“The account is not in his name.”
“Whose?”
Roman looked directly at me.
“Mine.”
I stared.
“That’s impossible.”
“He set up an offshore company using copies of my passport and electronic signatures.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Malcolm wasn’t only stealing from me.”
His jaw hardened.
“He was building a case that I stole from my own company.”
I understood slowly.
“He wanted you arrested.”
“Yes.”
“And the photographs of me?”
“Insurance.”
“For what?”
Roman’s expression became frighteningly calm.
“If the financial plan failed, he had another way to force me to run.”
“With us.”
“Yes.”
My stomach turned.
“He wanted police to believe you fled.”
“He wanted everyone to believe it.”
“Why?”
“Because a guilty man who disappears is easier to destroy.”
The phone rang again.
This time Roman put it on speaker.
Detective Harris spoke quickly.
“Carter, we found Grayson’s vehicle.”
“Where?”
“Near your estate.”
Roman stopped breathing.
My blood turned cold.
The detective continued.
“Security cameras were disabled at the western gate approximately twelve minutes ago.”
Roman’s eyes found mine.
Margaret.
I grabbed my phone.
Called her.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Then a text arrived from Margaret’s number.
Mrs. Carter, don’t come home.
Three seconds later, another message.
A photograph.
Margaret sat in the kitchen of the estate.
May you like
Malcolm Grayson stood behind her.
And in his hand was a gun.
