Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Shouldn't Know Her Name
Roman stopped at the threshold.
Marcus drew his jacket aside instinctively, but Roman lifted one hand.
“Wait.”
The ringing continued.
Sadi remained ten feet behind them.
Every instinct she possessed told her to leave.
Instead she followed.
The hidden room was narrow and windowless.
A steel desk stood against one wall.
There were no filing cabinets.
No dealership records.
Only a laptop.
A printer.
Three burner phones.
And a counting machine.
Roman looked at Gina.
“What is this?”
“I don't know.”
Sadi almost admired how quickly Gina lied.
Roman walked to the laptop.
The screen requested a password.
Marcus tried the key card.
Nothing.
Sadi saw the keyboard.
She saw wear patterns on four keys.
Old instincts awakened.
She hated how familiar it felt.
Roman noticed her staring.
“You know something.”
“No.”
“You're a terrible liar.”
“I'm actually very good at it.”
That surprised him.
Sadi immediately regretted the sentence.
Roman leaned against the desk.
“Then why are you bad at it with me?”
“Maybe you're irritating.”
Marcus looked away to hide a smile.
Roman didn't.
“Possible.”
The burner phone stopped ringing.
A second later, Sadi's phone vibrated.
UNKNOWN NUMBER:
Still pretending, Ghost?
Her face emptied.
Roman saw it.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Show me.”
“No.”
“Sadi.”
“My phone.”
His expression changed slightly.
“Fair.”
That answer surprised her.
No grabbing.
No demand.
He simply turned back toward the laptop.
Sadi looked again at the message.
Ghost.
Nobody had called her that in five years.
Not since Chicago.
Not since Arturo Vega.
She deleted the text.
Then another arrived.
WE FOUND YOU.
She stopped breathing.
Roman glanced back.
This time he didn't ask for her phone.
“What are you afraid of?”
She forced a shrug.
“Tonight? Mostly unemployment.”
“You're not unemployed.”
“I resigned.”
“I rejected it.”
“You can't reject a resignation.”
“I own the company. Let me enjoy discovering my limitations.”
She stared at him.
His shirt was soaked red now.
“You're going to pass out.”
“Probably.”
“Roman.”
It was the first time she'd used his name.
He looked at her.
“Hospital.”
“After this.”
Sadi stepped toward the laptop.
“Move.”
Marcus raised an eyebrow.
Roman moved.
She sat.
The login screen was generic.
But the security layer beneath it wasn't.
She pressed two keys.
A diagnostic window opened.
Marcus leaned closer.
“How did you do that?”
“Accident.”
Roman said nothing.
Sadi typed again.
A directory appeared.
Encrypted.
Her pulse climbed.
She recognized the architecture.
She had designed an earlier version.
Years ago.
For people she had spent half a decade hiding from.
Roman saw the color drain from her face.
“Sadi?”
She clicked a folder.
MONZA.
Inside were hundreds of transaction files.
Vehicle identification numbers.
Customer names.
Financing records.
Payments routed through shell companies.
Roman's expression hardened.
Someone had been using his dealership.
Not for ordinary theft.
For laundering money.
Sadi opened another folder.
Three million dollars had moved through Monza Motors in fourteen months.
Marcus swore softly.
Roman's voice remained level.
“Can you trace it?”
Sadi's hands froze.
That question belonged to another life.
“I run a register.”
“No.”
Roman looked at the screen.
“You pretend to run a register.”
Her heart hammered.
“What does that mean?”
“You opened an encrypted directory in forty seconds.”
“Lucky.”
“You recognized Gina's card.”
“I didn't.”
“And whoever is texting you knows something.”
Sadi stood.
“I need to leave.”
Roman blocked neither doorway nor path.
“Okay.”
That stopped her.
“Okay?”
“Yes.”
“You're just letting me go?”
“You told me you were mistreated here because people believed they could control you.”
His gaze held hers.
“I won't prove them right.”
Something inside her shifted.
Tiny.
Dangerous.
Hope often was.
Sadi picked up her bag.
She walked past him.
Gina watched her from the showroom.
Sadi kept moving.
Almost at the entrance.
Almost free.
Then Gina whispered something.
Barely audible.
“Still running, Isabel?”
Sadi stopped.
Her real name hit harder than a slap.
Nobody at Monza knew it.
Sadi turned.
Gina smiled.
Roman saw everything.
“Who is Isabel?”
Sadi stared at Gina.
“Where did you hear that?”
Gina's smile widened.
“Maybe you're not as invisible as you think.”
Roman moved between them.
“Answer her.”
Gina laughed.
“You have no idea who you're protecting.”
“Then educate me.”
“She isn't Sadi Morales.”
Sadi felt the room closing.
“She isn't a cashier.”
“Gina.”
Sadi's voice shook.
“Stop.”
Gina looked delighted.
“The woman you've decided to rescue used to clean money for Arturo Vega.”
Roman went completely still.
Marcus did too.
The name changed the air.
Sadi looked at Roman.
Recognition was unmistakable.
“You knew him.”
Roman's jaw tightened.
“My brother did.”
“Did?”
Roman didn't answer.
Gina did.
“Arturo killed him.”
Sadi closed her eyes.
Five years of hiding collapsed in five seconds.
Roman stared at her.
“You worked for Vega?”
“I worked for his companies.”
“Same thing?”
“No.”
Gina laughed.
“She was his Ghost.”
Roman's gaze sharpened.
Sadi hated that name.
The Ghost could enter a financial network and leave no footprint.
The Ghost could find money hidden beneath twelve shell companies.
The Ghost had helped federal investigators destroy half of Arturo's operation.
But before that, she had built some of the systems he used.
Not willingly at first.
Later, survival had made distinctions difficult.
Roman asked quietly, “Why are you here?”
“I disappeared.”
“Why Monza?”
“I didn't know you owned it.”
“That part I believe.”
A siren sounded outside.
Marcus looked toward the glass doors.
Roman tensed.
“Not ours.”
Two police cars stopped outside.
Gina smiled.
Roman looked at her.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
Officers entered.
One approached Roman.
“Mr. Costa?”
“Yes.”
“We received a report of an armed hostage situation.”
Roman glanced at Marcus.
Neither man appeared surprised.
Sadi was.
The officer continued.
“Everyone needs to step away from each other.”
Gina raised her hands.
“I called.”
Roman's eyes settled on her.
“Of course you did.”
While attention shifted, Sadi's phone vibrated again.
A photograph appeared.
Her apartment.
Taken from across the street.
The timestamp was three minutes old.
Below it:
YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT RUNNING.
Then another image loaded.
Someone was standing inside her bedroom.
Holding the red notebook Sadi had hidden beneath her floorboards.
The notebook containing the one account number that could destroy Arturo Vega's remaining empire.
Sadi's hands began shaking.
Roman saw the screen from beside her.
His face changed.
“Whose apartment?”
“Mine.”
“What's in that notebook?”
Sadi couldn't answer.
The final message appeared.
COME HOME ALONE OR WE BURN THE LEDGER.
Roman read it.
Then the hidden room behind them suddenly went dark.
A printer activated by itself.
One sheet slid slowly into the tray.
Roman picked it up.
May you like
There were only four words printed across the page.
WELCOME BACK, ISABEL VEGA.
