“You destroyed them.”
“No.” He turned. “I exposed them.”
“That fast?”
His eyes were black glass. “I’ve had files on both families for years. Last night gave me a reason to use them.”
A chill ran through you.
“You were waiting?”
“I wait on many things.”
“And me?”
He studied your face. “You were not something I expected.”
The room went quiet.
Liam looked between you and Roman, then coughed into his fist. “Okay, this is getting weirdly intense, and I’m literally on oxygen.”
You turned red.
Roman’s mouth almost moved.
Almost.
For three days, your world became unrecognizable.
You slept in a guest suite at Roman’s townhouse on the Upper East Side because Elena refused to let you sleep in a hospital chair and Roman refused to let you return to an apartment already compromised. The townhouse was not flashy in the way you expected. No gold lions, no ridiculous fountains, no glass walls showing off money.
It was old, quiet, and guarded.
There were books in the library, fresh flowers in Elena’s sitting room, and men outside every entrance who looked like they had forgotten how to smile. Your bedroom had cream walls, heavy curtains, and a bed so soft you woke the first night in panic because comfort felt suspicious.
Elena became your anchor.
She asked about Liam. She asked about your childhood. She asked what you ate and then ignored your answer when you said you weren’t hungry. By the second day, she had the housekeeper leaving soup, toast, fruit, and tea outside your door every few hours.
Roman was harder to understand.
He was everywhere and nowhere. You saw him at breakfast, on the phone in low dangerous tones. You saw him in the hallway at midnight, jacket off, sleeves rolled, a bruise across his knuckles he refused to explain. You saw him watching you when he thought you were not looking, as if you were a question he could not solve by force.
On the fourth night, you found him in the library.
Rain tapped against the tall windows. A fire burned low in the hearth. Roman stood beside a table covered in documents, photographs, bank records, and names you did not recognize.
Vanessa’s face was on one of the pages.
