Chapter 5 - The Dead Man’s Order
Roman’s father had been dead for eighteen months.
That did not make betrayal easier.
Don DeLuca built the family organization from neighborhood gambling into a national network hidden behind legitimate freight and construction.
He also adored Isabella publicly.
Called her principessa.
Sent flowers.
Bought her a lake house.
Defended her against Roman during arguments.
At least, that was what Roman remembered.
Elias gave investigators a different history.
Isabella had discovered Don used the DeLuca Children’s Foundation to wash money and fund private medical research for injured associates without oversight.
Nathan Caldwell falsified records.
Children enrolled in legitimate rehabilitation programs had their billing data used to create fake patients.
No child was physically experimented on.
But charity money was stolen.
Millions.
Isabella found it.
She threatened federal disclosure.
Don panicked.
He did not order her murder.
According to Elias, he ordered:
“Keep her unavailable until Roman gets control of her.”
The phrase made Isabella physically sick.
Roman left the room.
He made it to the parking garage before punching a concrete pillar.
Once.
Blood.
Then stopped.
Mara found him there.
“You done?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She handed him gauze.
He wrapped his knuckles.
“My father did this.”
“Yes.”
“He told me she left me.”
“I know.”
“He watched me bury her.”
“Yes.”
Roman laughed bitterly.
“What kind of man—”
Mara interrupted.
“The kind you don’t have to become.”
That sentence followed him home.
Isabella took Elias’s deal personally.
“You want to reduce his sentence?”
Mara answered:
“I want the man who can document Caldwell and Don.”
“Don is dead.”
“Caldwell isn’t.”
Isabella looked at Roman.
He expected her to want vengeance.
Instead she said:
“Get the records.”
The deal proceeded.
Elias surrendered encrypted drives.
Emails from Don.
Payments.
Instructions.
One message:
R must believe grief before anger turns toward us.
Another:
No permanent harm to I. Keep her stable.
Stable.
Three years of drugs.
Confinement.
Lies.
A blue door.
Stable.
Roman stopped reading.
Isabella did not.
She read everything.
Then closed the laptop.
“I want his portrait removed.”
Roman knew which one.
Don DeLuca’s oil portrait hung in the main hall.
Seven feet tall.
The founder.
Patriarch.
Legend.
Roman called maintenance.
The portrait came down that afternoon.
Emma watched.
“Where’s he going?”
Roman answered:
“Storage.”
“Lots of people in storage.”
Grace nearly laughed.
Isabella did.
The space on the wall remained empty.
Roman did not replace it with himself.
That mattered.
The criminal organization began changing too.
Don’s old captains resisted the investigation.
One demanded Roman protect “family history.”
Roman replied:
“My wife is family history.”
Another said exposing Don weakened the name.
Roman fired him.
Not killed.
Not beaten.
Fired.
The rumor spread:
Roman had gone soft.
Roman welcomed it.
Soft apparently meant not kidnapping women who disagreed.
His standards had changed.
Isabella stayed at a separate apartment under protection.
Not the estate.
Her choice.
Roman visited only when invited.
That discipline was painful.
Good.
Grace watched from a distance and realized Roman was learning how to love someone without controlling proximity.
One night, Isabella called Grace.
Not Roman.
“Can you come over?”
Grace hesitated.
“Yes.”
Isabella sat on the floor surrounded by old photographs.
“I don’t know who I am in these.”
Grace sat beside her.
“You don’t have to.”
“I was married to him eleven years.”
“Yes.”
“I remember loving him.”
“That sounds good.”
“I also remember wanting to leave Chicago.”
Grace stayed quiet.
“That sounds important too.”
Isabella looked at her.
“You’re not going to defend him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you didn’t ask me whether Roman is good.”
A pause.
“You asked who you are.”
Isabella smiled sadly.
“That’s why Emma tells you things.”
“Unfortunately.”
They laughed.
Later Isabella told Roman she remembered considering separation before the kidnapping.
It destroyed him.
He still listened.
“I wasn’t leaving you,” she said.
“Then what?”
“I wanted you to leave the organization.”
Roman looked down.
“And I said no.”
“Yes.”
“Would you ask again?”
She looked at him.
“Yes.”
Roman nodded.
“Then my answer is different now.”
The revelation about Don also forced Gabriel to rethink his own loyalty.
Don had trained him.
Paid for his mother’s surgery.
Put him through private security school.
Gabriel had loved him.
He had also been used by him.
One night Gabriel sat with Roman in the old wine room.
“No cameras,” Gabriel said.
“Paranoid?”
“Tradition.”
They opened a bottle Don had saved for Roman’s fortieth birthday.
Neither drank much.
Gabriel stared at the label.
“I owe him things.”
Roman nodded.
“So do I.”
“Does that make what he did less bad?”
“No.”
“Does what he did erase what he did for us?”
“No.”
Gabriel looked frustrated.
“I hate this.”
“So do I.”
They sat with contradiction.
For years the organization survived by simplifying people.
Loyal or disloyal.
Family or enemy.
Good to us or bad to us.
Don had been generous and cruel.
Protective and controlling.
Loving and dangerous.
All true.
Roman realized adulthood might be the ability to stop using one truth to erase another.
The next day he ordered Don’s name removed from the children’s foundation.
Not because Don had never done good.
Because a public institution serving vulnerable families should not depend on honoring a man who imprisoned someone to protect his own power.
Some board members objected.
Roman listened.
Then voted anyway.
The sign came down quietly.
Isabella eventually asked to visit Don’s grave.
Roman went with her only because she invited him.
The cemetery was quiet.
Don’s stone carried the same family crest carved above Roman’s childhood home.
Isabella stood before it for a long time.
Then said:
“I loved him once.”
Roman nodded.
“So did I.”
“I hate that.”
“I know.”
She looked at Roman.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Because if he were only a monster, this would be easier.”
Roman stared at the name cut into granite.
“He taught me to ride a bike.”
Isabella laughed sadly.
“He taught me how to order wine.”
“He also kidnapped you.”
“Yes.”
They stood with contradiction.
No dramatic curse.
No destruction of the stone.
No pretending memory could be purified.
Before leaving, Isabella placed nothing on the grave.
Roman did not either.
In the car she said:
“I’m glad we came.”
“So am I.”
“Why?”
Roman thought.
May you like
“Because I needed to stop arguing with a dead man.”
That was the closest thing to peace Don ever received from him.
