Chapter 9 - THE LAST LIE
Thomas Miller had planned to make me disappear one final time.
Not physically.
Legally.
The passport carried my photograph under an altered version of my name.
The offshore accounts discovered in his luggage were also connected to me.
If investigators had found them without uncovering the forgery, millions of stolen dollars could have appeared to belong to me.
Dad had built an escape route using his daughter as the criminal.
Again.
Only this time, nobody believed him.
Forensic records proved the accounts were created years before I had access to company finances.
Gregory testified.
My mother testified.
Even Dad’s former chief financial officer testified.
The empire Thomas Miller spent thirty years building collapsed in six weeks.
I visited him once.
Only once.
He sat behind reinforced glass in a detention center outside Hartford.
For the first time in my life, he looked old.
“Sadie.”
I picked up the phone.
He did the same.
“You look different.”
“I am.”
He stared at me.
“Costa turned you against me.”
I almost laughed.
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To hear you say it.”
“Say what?”
“Why.”
His face tightened.
I waited.
“Why did you hate me?”
“I never hated you.”
“You killed my father.”
His eyes flickered.
“It was an accident.”
“We both know that’s a lie.”
He looked away.
“You stole his company.”
Silence.
“You married the woman he loved.”
Silence.
“You raised his daughter and punished her every day for being his.”
His mouth hardened.
“You looked like him.”
There it was.
Twenty-four years condensed into four words.
I looked like him.
“You’d sit at that kitchen table doing numbers in your head,” Dad continued. “Anthony did that. You’d challenge projections. Anthony did that. You even frowned like him.”
His voice cracked.
“I gave you my name.”
“You gave me your resentment.”
“I fed you. Educated you.”
“And made me apologize for existing.”
His eyes hardened.
“You have no idea what I sacrificed.”
For once, his words could not reach the part of me he had trained to feel guilty.
“I’m not carrying this anymore.”
He frowned.
“What?”
“Your anger.”
I stood.
“Sadie.”
I placed my hand against the glass.
Not affection.
Goodbye.
“Whatever happens to you now belongs to you.”
Then I walked away.
Roman was discharged two weeks later.
He was a terrible patient.
Elena threatened him hourly.
I found him one morning attempting to conduct a business meeting from bed.
I confiscated his phone.
“You’re becoming frighteningly comfortable ordering me around.”
“You were shot.”
“Minor technicality.”
“You nearly died.”
His smile disappeared.
I sat beside him.
That fear still lived inside me.
Some nights I woke hearing the gunshot.
Roman seemed to understand.
He reached for my hand.
“I’m here.”
“I know.”
“And Hale isn’t.”
Victor Hale had survived.
Barely.
He faced kidnapping, extortion, financial crimes, conspiracy charges, and enough cooperating witnesses to ensure he would spend years fighting prosecutors.
I was glad he survived.
Death would have been too simple.
Roman touched my cheek.
“What happens now?”
I smiled faintly.
“I was going to ask you that.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“I mean you.”
For the first time in my life, the future was mine.
The waterfront trust officially transferred into my control after a court reviewed the fraud surrounding it.
Forty-one million dollars in land.
Miller Development entered restructuring.
Thousands of employees feared losing their jobs.
Investors wanted blood.
I wanted something different.
“I’m buying the company.”
Roman stared.
“What?”
“The legitimate pieces.”
“You want Miller Development?”
“No.”
I smiled.
“I want to bury Miller Development.”
Understanding slowly appeared.
“You’re starting over.”
“Costa Community Development.”
Roman’s eyebrows rose.
“My father wanted affordable homes on that waterfront.”
“Anthony.”
“Yes.”
I still struggled saying it.
My father.
Not Thomas.
Anthony.
“I want to finish what he started.”
Roman smiled.
“You’ve already prepared the projections.”
“Obviously.”
“How many spreadsheets?”
“Twenty-three.”
He looked horrified.
“I take back everything romantic I’ve ever thought about you.”
I hit him with a pillow.
He grabbed it.
I laughed.
He pulled me toward him carefully.
Then winced.
I immediately froze.
“Roman!”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re impossible.”
“And yet.”
“And yet what?”
His eyes held mine.
“And yet you’re still here.”
The playfulness faded.
I touched his face.
“Yes.”
He kissed me.
Months earlier, I might have wondered why a man like Roman Costa wanted a woman like me.
I no longer asked that question.
Not because Roman had convinced me I was beautiful.
Though he had.
Frequently.
Sometimes very creatively.
But because I finally understood the question itself had been wrong.
Love wasn’t a prize awarded to women who became small enough, thin enough, quiet enough, useful enough.
Roman did not complete me.
He did something more important.
He made room for me while I learned to stop abandoning myself.
Three months later, construction began on the first waterfront development.
Six hundred homes.
A school.
A public park.
And a community center bearing one discreet name:
ANTHONY COSTA CENTER.
I stood beneath the temporary sign on opening day.
Roman came beside me.
“You did it.”
“We did it.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“You did.”
Behind us, workers applauded.
Elena cried openly.
Mom stood beside her.
Our relationship was complicated.
Healing had not erased history.
But she had started therapy.
More importantly, she had stopped asking me to forgive before she had learned how to apologize.
Gregory called me once a week from the federal facility where he was serving a reduced sentence after cooperating.
Some calls were awkward.
Some were painful.
But he was trying.
For now, trying was enough.
Roman slipped his hand into mine.
“Dinner?”
“Where?”
“My house.”
“Elena cooking?”
“Obviously.”
“Then yes.”
He looked offended.
“You know I own restaurants.”
“And yet you can’t boil pasta.”
“That allegation remains unproven.”
I laughed.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
Roman immediately became serious.
I answered.
“Hello?”
A woman spoke.
“Is this Sadie Costa?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Rebecca Shaw. I’m an attorney in Boston.”
I frowned.
“How can I help you?”
“It concerns your father.”
My stomach tightened.
“Thomas?”
“No.”
I stopped breathing.
“Anthony Costa.”
Roman turned toward me.
May you like
The attorney continued.
“There is something he left for you.”
