Chapter 5 - The Truth Behind My Husband’s Funeral
We returned to Baltimore before sunrise with David hidden in the rear vehicle.
I kept looking at him.
Not romantically.
Not yet.
Mostly to confirm he did not vanish whenever I blinked.
Every few minutes he caught me staring.
The third time, he whispered, “I'm real.”
“That remains under review.”
He nodded.
“I understand.”
“No, you don't.”
“I probably don't.”
Better answer.
We moved to a different safe property owned through one of Alessandro’s legitimate businesses. This one was a restored townhouse behind an unmarked courtyard.
Logan slept upstairs.
When David entered the room, he stopped breathing.
Our son was curled around Captain Bear.
Three years old.
Not six weeks.
David touched the doorframe.
“He's huge.”
“He's normal.”
“I know.”
“No. You don't.”
Again.
Always that sentence.
Logan woke.
He stared at David.
David knelt slowly.
“Hi.”
Logan looked at me.
“Mommy?”
I sat beside him.
“Remember the pictures of Daddy?”
He looked at David.
Then the framed photograph Samantha had brought from my wallet.
Back.
Forth.
“You're Daddy?”
David cried instantly.
“Yes.”
Logan frowned.
“You were in heaven.”
“I…”
David looked at me helplessly.
I did not rescue him.
This was his truth to carry.
“I wasn't in heaven, buddy.”
“Mommy said.”
“Mommy thought I was.”
“Why?”
David swallowed.
“Because I made a bad choice trying to keep you safe.”
Three-year-olds understand emotion better than explanation.
Logan touched David’s beard.
“You scratchy.”
David laughed through tears.
“Yes.”
Then Logan asked:
“Are you staying?”
David looked at me.
I said nothing.
He turned back to his son.
“I hope so.”
Good.
Not a promise he could not make.
Logan crawled forward.
David opened his arms.
My son hugged the father he had never remembered.
I stepped into the hallway because I could not breathe.
Alessandro was there.
Hospital gown replaced by black shirt and trousers despite medical advice.
“You should be resting.”
“So should you.”
“I'm not recovering from gunshots.”
“Emotional injuries count.”
I stared at him.
“That sounded almost healthy.”
“I dislike it too.”
Silence.
Then I asked, “Did David really choose this?”
“Yes.”
“You could have stopped him.”
“No.”
“You're Alessandro Romano.”
“Apparently that means less than people think.”
I thought about him being pronounced dead.
“My husband thought disappearing was safer than trusting me with the truth.”
“He thought DeLuca would use you.”
“He was right.”
“That doesn't mean he was right to take the choice from you.”
I looked at Alessandro.
That was not what I expected.
“You're defending me?”
“I am criticizing him.”
“Why?”
“Because I made the same mistake.”
“When?”
“My wife.”
I had not known he was married.
“She died eight years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She wanted me out of the organization.”
“Were you?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“She left.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
That surprised me.
“She took our daughter.”
“You have a daughter?”
“Seventeen now.”
“Do you see her?”
“Twice a year if she allows it.”
His face tightened.
“I told myself I stayed in this world to keep them protected.”
“And?”
“I eventually understood I was protecting the thing that made them leave.”
I thought about David.
Protection could become another word for control when the protected person never got to choose.
That morning, federal agents arrived.
Not Agent Voss.
A woman named Nora Campbell led the team.
David trusted her.
Barely.
She showed us evidence Voss had disappeared.
His apartment empty.
Bank accounts drained.
DeLuca was preparing to run.
But first he needed the decrypted ledger.
“What is in it?” I asked.
David replied, “Everything.”
Hospital administrators.
Corrupt procurement officers.
Shell companies.
Politicians receiving money.
Officers.
Judges.
DeLuca’s private crews.
Enough evidence to cause chaos across three states.
“And Alessandro?”
David looked at him.
“Some Romano operations are in there.”
The room became silent.
Alessandro nodded.
“Good.”
Enzo stared at him.
“Boss.”
“You heard me.”
Federal Agent Campbell narrowed her eyes.
“You understand disclosure may expose you to prosecution?”
“Yes.”
“Your attorney would advise—”
“My attorney has spent twenty years advising me how to stay exactly what I am.”
He looked toward Logan upstairs.
“Maybe I need different advice.”
I never expected to respect him.
That worried me.
The missing wedding photograph still mattered because the decryption phrase was split into two parts.
David remembered neither in full.
He had intentionally designed it so memory could not betray him under pressure.
“Could DeLuca decrypt it now?”
“If he has the photograph and copied Captain Bear’s card before we recovered it, yes.”
Agent Campbell looked at her team.
“How long?”
“Hours.”
Then David said something worse.
“There is a dead-man protocol.”
“What?”
“If the ledger opens using the wrong authentication sequence, it sends copies to three recipients.”
“Who?”
“Federal servers, Alessandro’s secure archive, and me.”
“That sounds good.”
“It was.”
“Was?”
“My receiving account no longer exists.”
“Then two copies.”
David shook his head.
“The federal endpoint was managed by Voss.”
Agent Campbell cursed.
“And Alessandro’s archive?”
Enzo went pale.
“Our primary server is beneath Romano House.”
Alessandro stood.
“He will go there.”
“Why?” I asked.
“To destroy it before opening the ledger.”
Agent Campbell was already calling tactical units.
Then Samantha came down the stairs.
“Catherine.”
Her face was wrong.
“What?”
“Logan's gone.”
Everything inside me stopped.
We ran upstairs.
Open window.
No broken glass.
Captain Bear on the bed.
A note pinned beneath it.
CATHERINE BRINGS DAVID.
ALESSANDRO BRINGS THE SERVER KEY.
NO POLICE.
The townhouse had been guarded.
Federal agents outside.
Romano security inside.
Yet somebody had reached my son.
I stared at Samantha.
“How?”
She looked horrified.
“He was sleeping. I stepped into the bathroom for maybe two minutes.”
David picked up Captain Bear.
His hands shook.
Alessandro turned toward Enzo.
“Who knew this location?”
“Seven people.”
Agent Campbell snapped, “Nobody leaves.”
Then a voice came from the doorway.
Marla Keene.
Bruised cheek.
Hospital scrubs replaced by a borrowed coat.
Everyone reached for weapons.
She raised her hands.
“I know who took Logan.”
I wanted to attack her.
Instead, I froze.
“Who?”
Marla looked at Agent Campbell.
“Agent Voss.”
David went pale.
“He's alive?”
“Yes.”
“And DeLuca?”
“Romano House.”
Alessandro’s expression hardened.
Marla lowered her hands.
“They're going to trade the boy for the server key.”
David stepped toward her.
“Where is Logan?”
“Safe for the moment.”
“For the moment?”
Marla began crying.
“Voss said if Catherine doesn’t arrive by noon, DeLuca stops needing him alive.”
David lunged.
Alessandro grabbed him.
“Not helping.”
“LET GO!”
“That is your son. Use your head.”
It was the most human thing Alessandro had said.
David stopped fighting.
I looked at the clock.
8:47 a.m.
Three hours.
A husband returned from the dead.
A Mafia boss who should have died hours earlier.
A corrupt federal agent.
A traitor who had spent years hiding behind hospital contracts.
And my three-year-old child somewhere between all of them.
I wiped my tears.
“No more hiding me.”
David looked at me.
“Cat—”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“You decided everything two years ago.”
He lowered his eyes.
“This time, I decide.”
May you like
“What?”
“We get our son back.”
