Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN WHO CALLED HER DAUGHTER
Roman’s mother answered on the second ring.
“Merry Christmas.”
Roman said nothing.
“Roman?”
“Did you tell Vincent Norah was pregnant?”
Silence.
Norah felt cold despite the heated lounge.
Finally, Elena DeLuca sighed.
“Come home.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one I’m giving over a telephone.”
Roman’s face hardened.
“We’re coming.”
Norah grabbed his sleeve.
“We?”
Roman looked toward the twins.
“I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
“That sounds dangerously close to the old Roman.”
He paused.
“You’re right.”
That answer disarmed her.
He corrected himself.
“I would like you and the children to come with me because I believe you’re in danger. But I won’t force you.”
Norah stared.
Roman DeLuca asking instead of commanding might have been the strangest event of Christmas.
She agreed.
By afternoon, Roman had chartered a large aircraft cleared to depart once the storm weakened.
They landed outside Chicago after sunset.
The DeLuca estate looked exactly as Norah remembered.
Stone walls.
Iron gates.
Christmas lights.
Armed guards.
Home and prison wrapped into one beautiful package.
Elena waited inside.
At sixty-three, she remained elegant and intimidating.
Then she saw the babies.
Her composure collapsed.
“Oh, my God.”
She stepped forward.
Norah moved backward.
Elena stopped immediately.
That tiny gesture mattered.
“I deserve that,” Elena whispered.
Roman shut the doors.
“Start talking.”
Elena looked at her son.
“I found the pregnancy test.”
“Why tell Vincent?”
“Because I was afraid of you.”
Roman actually recoiled.
“Of me?”
“Of what fatherhood would make you do.”
She sat.
Roman’s father had built the DeLuca organization through brutality.
When Roman was eight, an enemy kidnapped him for two days.
His father retaliated by killing four men.
The war lasted six years.
Elena had watched childhood disappear from both her sons.
“When I discovered Norah was pregnant, I panicked,” Elena said. “I thought enemies would use those children exactly as they used you.”
“So you went to Vincent?”
“I asked him to quietly increase security around Norah.”
Norah’s voice trembled.
“And instead he terrorized me.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“I didn’t know until later.”
“How much later?”
“After you disappeared.”
Roman slammed his palm against the table.
Lily startled and cried.
Roman immediately stopped.
The sound affected him more effectively than any threat.
Norah lifted Lily.
Elena cried silently.
“I tried finding you myself,” she said. “Then Vincent warned me that if Roman discovered the babies, he’d start a war looking for you.”
“You believed him?”
“I believed what my family had taught me to believe.”
Roman looked away.
There it was again.
The legacy.
Not one villain.
A machine built from generations of fear.
Roman’s phone rang.
Carlo.
Vincent had taken Matteo from the Denver hospital.
And he wanted an exchange.
The evidence for Matteo.
“No,” Norah said immediately.
Roman looked at her.
“He’ll kill him.”
“And he’ll kill you if you go.”
“Matteo took a bullet because he refused to betray me.”
Norah understood.
That was the terrible thing.
Roman’s loyalty was genuine.
So was his capacity for violence.
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Where?”
“The old freight terminal.”
Elena went pale.
“Roman, no.”
He turned toward Norah.
“I’m not asking you to approve.”
She nodded.
“I know.”
“I have to go.”
“I know.”
He looked surprised.
Norah stepped closer.
“But go as the man you claim you were becoming before I left.”
Roman stared at her.
“No executions.”
“Norah—”
“No revenge.”
“He killed Claire.”
Her eyes filled.
“I know exactly what he did.”
She pressed the microSD card into Roman’s palm.
“That’s why I want him alive long enough to answer for it.”
Roman looked at the card.
Then at his sleeping children.
“I don’t know if I know how to be that man.”
Norah’s expression softened.
“Then start tonight.”
Two hours later, Roman entered the abandoned freight terminal alone.
Vincent stood beneath the hanging lights.
Matteo was tied to a chair.
Blood covered his shirt.
Vincent smiled.
“Merry Christmas, brother.”
Roman stopped ten feet away.
Vincent held a pistol against Matteo’s head.
“You brought my evidence?”
Roman raised the microSD card.
Vincent smiled wider.
“Good.”
Roman dropped it onto the concrete.
Vincent kicked Matteo forward.
Roman caught him.
Then Vincent laughed.
“You really have changed.”
Roman looked up.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why Norah?”
Vincent’s smile vanished.
“Because she gave you something none of us could survive.”
Roman understood.
“A reason to leave.”
Vincent raised the gun.
“Exactly.”
A red laser suddenly appeared on Vincent’s chest.
Then another.
Then ten more.
Vincent froze.
Federal agents poured through every entrance.
Roman looked toward Ward standing behind them.
Vincent stared in disbelief.
“You brought the FBI?”
Roman’s expression remained cold.
“No.”
May you like
He glanced toward the tiny microphone hidden in his cuff.
“My wife did.”
