Chapter 5 - THE RULES OF HARPER LANE
Harper wrote six rules on a hotel notepad.
Roman hated all of them.
RULE ONE: Nobody gets threatened for disagreeing.
RULE TWO: Nobody gets fired without evidence.
RULE THREE: No revenge against civilians.
RULE FOUR: Harper makes her own decisions.
RULE FIVE: Roman stops tracking Harper without permission.
RULE SIX: No imported water.
Roman stared at the page.
“The sixth rule is childish.”
“It stays.”
“The filtration system is objectively superior.”
“Roman.”
“Fine.”
Luca sat across the table with an ice pack against his jaw.
“I’d like copies distributed throughout the organization.”
Roman ignored him.
Harper tapped Rule Four.
“This is the important one.”
“They are all ridiculous.”
“Then I leave.”
Roman looked up.
Harper waited.
The threat worked because it was not a threat.
She truly would leave.
Roman picked up the pen.
“What am I signing?”
“A behavioral agreement.”
“I run a criminal organization.”
“And apparently need workplace boundaries explained on hotel stationery.”
Luca covered his mouth.
Roman signed.
Harper folded the paper and put it in her pocket.
“Good.”
“Are you satisfied?”
“Deeply.”
Something almost like amusement crossed his face.
Then the room returned to business.
Victor Rossi was sixty-two and publicly retired. He lived in Connecticut, chaired three charities, attended Mass twice a week, and had spent decades appearing harmless.
But Harper remembered details.
Victor had questioned Roman’s modernization efforts.
He disliked Luca’s legitimate investments.
Most importantly, Victor believed leadership belonged to whoever could inspire the most fear.
Roman had begun moving away from that philosophy.
Slowly.
Imperfectly.
Perhaps Victor had noticed.
They needed proof.
Harper spent the next two days following money.
Not drug money.
Charity money.
The Rossi Foundation had funded housing projects, addiction clinics, and scholarships partly because Roman’s mother had insisted the family return something to the communities their business damaged.
Victor controlled several old accounts.
Harper found payments hidden inside construction invoices.
Security contractors.
Vehicle rentals.
A private medical facility.
Then one address appeared repeatedly.
An abandoned printing factory in Queens.
Roman wanted to raid it.
Harper refused.
“We watch.”
“They tried to kill you.”
“And if we rush in, we destroy evidence.”
Roman paced.
Harper watched him.
“You hate waiting when someone else chooses it.”
“Yes.”
“That’s useful information.”
“For whom?”
“Your future therapist.”
Roman stopped.
Luca laughed from the couch.
“I’m putting that on a shirt.”
Three hours later, surveillance photographs arrived.
Victor entered the printing factory.
So did Isabella.
Roman stared at the image.
“I knew she was working with him.”
Harper looked closer.
Isabella’s posture was wrong.
Her shoulders were tense.
A man followed behind her.
His hand remained near her back.
Not affectionate.
Controlling.
“She isn’t working with him.”
Roman frowned.
“She’s his prisoner.”
Luca leaned closer.
Harper pointed.
“Look at her hands. No purse. No phone. She never moves more than two feet from security.”
Roman understood.
Isabella had not staged her death alone.
Victor had.
Perhaps he had kept her alive for years.
The idea changed something in Roman.
Harper saw guilt settle into his expression.
“I stopped looking,” he said.
“You thought she was dead.”
“I should have known.”
“You are not responsible for everything.”
Roman looked at her.
The sentence seemed foreign to him.
Harper continued.
“Your uncle built you to believe control equals responsibility. It doesn’t.”
Roman sat.
For the first time since she had known him, he looked tired rather than dangerous.
“My father was killed when I was nineteen.”
Harper remained silent.
“Victor arrived before the police. He told me crying was something men did privately and only once.”
Roman looked at his hands.
“I never cried.”
Luca’s humor disappeared.
Neither brother had ever discussed that night.
Roman continued.
“Victor taught me every failure was preventable if I controlled enough variables. Every employee. Every room. Every schedule.”
Harper finally understood the office.
The temperature.
The water.
The pens.
The silence.
Roman was not controlling because he believed himself a god.
He was controlling because somewhere inside him remained a nineteen-year-old boy who believed one overlooked detail had killed his father.
It did not excuse what he had done.
But it explained the machinery.
Harper sat beside him.
“You hurt people.”
“I know.”
“You made people afraid to tell you the truth.”
“I know.”
“You made me afraid.”
That one landed hardest.
Roman looked at her.
“I know.”
No defense.
No excuse.
Harper felt something dangerous soften inside her.
Then Marco entered.
“We have a problem.”
He placed a photograph on the table.
Davis.
The employee Roman had fired.
He was entering Victor’s factory.
Roman stood.
Harper caught his sleeve.
“Evidence first.”
His eyes moved to her hand.
Then he sat again.
They followed Davis electronically.
At midnight, Harper’s new phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
“Hello?”
“Harper?”
Davis.
He sounded terrified.
“I need help.”
“Where are you?”
“I can’t say.”
“Are you with Victor?”
Silence.
Then:
“He has my daughter.”
Harper stood.
Roman immediately looked over.
Davis whispered, “He made me alter the manifests. He wanted Roman to fire me. He wanted everyone angry. He’s been doing it for months.”
“Doing what?”
“Creating mistakes. Moving things. Changing schedules. Making Roman think everyone around him was incompetent.”
Harper looked at Roman.
Even the pen.
Even the dusty water.
Victor had been feeding Roman’s paranoia.
“Why?”
Davis started crying.
“To isolate him.”
A crash sounded through the phone.
Davis gasped.
Then a different voice came through.
Victor Rossi.
“Harper Lane.”
Harper’s blood chilled.
“You have caused extraordinary inconvenience.”
“People keep telling me that.”
Victor chuckled.
“I understand why my nephew likes you.”
Harper’s eyes met Roman’s.
Victor continued.
“Tomorrow. Noon. St. Matthew’s Cemetery.”
“For what?”
“To learn why Roman’s father actually died.”
The line disconnected.
Roman stood completely still.
Luca whispered, “What did he say?”
Harper looked at the brothers.
May you like
The answer could destroy them.
“He says your father’s death wasn’t what you were told.”
