Chapter 7 - The Unfinished Business
Tessa stared at Roman, stunned into complete silence.
For three agonizing years, every dime she made from eighty-hour workweeks, every skipped meal, every cramped studio apartment had gone toward keeping Clara on experimental therapies.
It had been a slow, crushing suffocation.
And with one phone call, this terrifying, enigmatic man had simply erased the weight from her shoulders.
"Why?" she choked out, wiping an angry tear from her cheek. "You don't do charity, Roman. Men like you always demand collateral."
"It wasn't charity," Roman answered, rising to his feet and walking to the window.
He looked down at the snow-covered park below, his silhouette sharp against the city lights.
"It was an equalizer. You don't owe me anything. You don't work for me. You can take the morning flight to Boston, sit by your sister’s bedside, and never look back."
Tessa set her mug down on the marble table with a soft clatter.
She stood up, letting the heavy cashmere blanket pool around her feet.
"There's a 'but' coming," she said, watching his back. "I can hear it in your voice."
Roman turned slowly to face her.
"Marcus Vance was not acting alone."
The silence in the penthouse stretched, cold and sharp.
"What do you mean?" Tessa asked.
"Marcus was a mid-level operator," Roman said, crossing the room until he stood barely three feet from her. "He didn't have the resources to buy the silenced firearms his men carried tonight. He didn't have the encryption codes to hack Marlowe's private reservation server."
Roman reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, tarnished silver lapel pin.
It was shaped like a broken wheel.
Tessa felt the blood drain from her face instantly.
Her breath stopped in her throat, cold nausea twisting her stomach into knots.
"Where did you get that?" she demanded, her voice barely a whisper.
"Dante pulled it off the driver of the lead chase vehicle outside the restaurant," Roman said, holding the pin up between two fingers. "The broken wheel. The emblem of the South Boston Irish syndicate that ran the waterfront fourteen years ago."
Tessa took a step back, her hands trembling violently.
"Declan Murphy," she whispered.
"Murphy survived the federal indictments in 2014," Roman confirmed, his voice dark and deadly serious. "He moved his operations south into New Jersey five years ago. He was the one who funded Vance’s attempt to assassinate me tonight."
Roman stepped closer, his intense gaze locking onto hers with unwavering certainty.
"Murphy didn't just want to eliminate me to control the northeastern freight routes, Tessa. He wanted the Marlowe Room cleared because he knew who was serving booth eleven."
"He knew I was there?" Tessa cried, terror lacing her voice.
"He found out three weeks ago," Roman said. "You were Sean Callahan's daughter. You were the only witness who escaped the warehouse fire the night your father was murdered. Murphy wasn't just helping Vance kill me tonight."
May you like
Roman held the silver pin toward her.
"He was tying up the last loose end from Boston."
