Chapter 14 - Clara Refuses to Run
Tessa reached Clara’s Boston apartment before midnight.
Roman had wanted Clara moved immediately into one of his secure properties.
Clara refused.
“I spent years living like the sick sister everybody had to protect,” she said as Tessa entered the apartment. “I’m not spending the rest of my life being moved from one fortress to another.”
Tessa hugged her tightly.
“Somebody broke into your home.”
“And apparently has terrible taste in gifts.”
Clara pointed toward the dining table.
The broken-wheel pin sat inside a clear evidence bag.
Roman stood near the door, speaking quietly with Dante.
Two private security specialists searched the apartment without touching anything.
Nothing had been stolen.
No drawers emptied.
No computer taken.
Whoever entered had wanted Clara to know they could.
That made it worse.
“You’re coming to New York,” Tessa said.
Clara folded her arms.
“No.”
“Clara.”
“I mean it.”
“You could have been here.”
“But I wasn’t.”
“That is not reassuring.”
Clara’s expression softened.
“Tess, look at me.”
Tessa did.
For years Clara had been fragile.
Thin.
Exhausted.
Dependent on doctors, medication, and the money Tessa could barely earn fast enough.
Now she stood straight.
Color in her cheeks.
Strength returning.
“You spent your entire adult life protecting me,” Clara said. “I’m grateful. But I’m not your responsibility anymore.”
“You’re my sister.”
“Exactly. Sister. Not daughter.”
Roman stepped into the room.
“Clara is right.”
Tessa turned.
“Dangerous time to agree with her.”
“I’m not saying she stays unprotected.”
Clara rolled her eyes.
“Here it comes.”
Roman ignored that.
“But forcing her somewhere she doesn’t want to be makes her easier to manipulate.”
Clara smiled.
“I knew I liked him.”
“You like anyone who disagrees with me.”
“Also true.”
Dante approached holding a small laptop.
“We found something.”
Everyone gathered around.
The building’s hallway camera showed a maintenance worker entering Clara’s floor at 2:17 that afternoon.
Baseball cap.
Tool bag.
No clear face.
He stayed eleven minutes.
At 2:28, he left.
Dante froze the image.
“Same height and build as the fake technician from Marlowe.”
Roman studied the screen.
“One contractor?”
“Maybe.”
Clara leaned closer.
“Wait.”
She pointed at the man’s tool bag.
A hospital identification sticker was attached to the side.
BOSTON NEUROLOGICAL INSTITUTE.
Tessa looked at Clara.
“Why would a maintenance worker have that?”
Clara’s expression changed.
“I’ve seen that bag.”
“Where?”
“At the hospital.”
She grabbed her coat.
“Absolutely not,” Tessa said.
Clara was already heading toward the door.
“You want answers? So do I.”
Twenty minutes later, they entered the institute through a private staff entrance arranged by Clara’s physician.
Dr. Evelyn Shaw met them inside her office.
She looked furious.
“I pulled the access logs after Clara called me,” she said. “Someone has been viewing her medical file.”
Tessa stiffened.
“Who?”
“That’s the strange part.”
Dr. Shaw turned her monitor.
“The credentials belong to someone who hasn’t worked here in eight years.”
Roman leaned closer.
“Name?”
“Dr. Martin Vale.”
Dante typed the name into his tablet.
“Deceased?”
“No.”
Dr. Shaw shook her head.
“Disappeared.”
“Disappeared how?”
“He was involved in one of the institute’s earliest private drug trials. There were allegations of falsified billing records. The hospital settled quietly. Vale resigned before the investigation.”
Clara stared at the screen.
“What does that have to do with me?”
Dr. Shaw hesitated.
“The foundation that funded those trials was Halcyon Medical Trust.”
Roman went still.
Tessa saw it.
“You know the name.”
Roman nodded.
“Halcyon used to be one of Arthur Ward’s charities.”
Clara sat down slowly.
Her treatment had been paid off only three months earlier.
Roman had sent the money.
But the clinic itself had apparently been connected to Ward’s family years before that.
Dr. Shaw opened another file.
“There’s more.”
Clara’s records showed an unexplained payment of $214,000 deposited toward experimental treatment eighteen months before Roman had ever met Tessa.
Tessa stared at the number.
“That’s impossible.”
“I didn’t pay it,” Clara said.
“Neither did I.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“Who did?”
The payment source was disguised behind multiple charitable entities.
Dante started tracing them.
Ten minutes passed.
Then he looked up.
His face had gone pale.
“It came from Bellamy Family Holdings.”
Roman stared at the screen.
“My company never authorized that.”
Tessa felt anger replace fear.
Someone had been watching Clara long before the night at Marlowe.
Long before Tessa slipped Roman that receipt.
Maybe years.
“Why would Ward pay Clara’s medical bills?” she asked.
Roman looked toward the dark hospital window.
“Because he wasn’t helping her.”
Clara understood first.
“He was tracking us.”
Silence filled the office.
Roman nodded slowly.
“The payment wasn’t charity.”
His voice became cold.
“It was a marker.”
Tessa thought about her apartment.
Her fake surname.
Her waitress job.
Her carefully invisible life.
She had believed she had escaped South Boston.
She never had.
Somebody had simply allowed her to believe it.
Her phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
It showed Tessa and Clara standing outside their father’s old house fourteen years earlier.
The message beneath contained seven words.
YOUR FATHER SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE DEAL.
Tessa stared at it.
Then another message arrived.
ASK ROMAN WHAT VICTOR OFFERED HIM.
She slowly raised her eyes.
May you like
Roman was already watching her.
And for the first time, she wondered whether the secrets between their fathers were about to become secrets between them.
