Chapter 4 - The Father She Was Never Supposed to Find
“Sadi, your mother lied about who your father was.”
Daniel’s voice came through the narrow opening.
Sadi didn’t move.
Roman’s hand remained on the door handle.
Her phone was still glowing with her mother’s warning.
DON’T OPEN IT.
“Back away from the door,” Roman said.
Daniel gave a dry laugh from the hallway.
“You’re protecting the wrong person.”
Roman’s expression didn’t change.
“Back away.”
A pause.
Then footsteps retreated.
Roman waited.
Five seconds.
Ten.
He opened the door.
The hallway was empty.
Sadi stepped out behind him.
“Daniel?”
Nothing.
Roman checked the nearest doorway.
Empty.
Another door.
Empty.
The service corridor stretched toward the accounting wing, fluorescent lights humming overhead.
Daniel had vanished.
Again.
Roman looked at Sadi.
“Call your mother.”
Sadi stared at the message.
“I haven’t spoken to her in eleven years.”
“Tonight seems like a good time.”
“You don’t know my mother.”
“Neither do you, apparently.”
Sadi shot him a look.
Roman lifted one hand.
“Bad phrasing.”
“Very.”
“But call her.”
Sadi pressed the number.
It rang once.
Disconnected.
She tried again.
Nothing.
Then a text appeared.
NOT SAFE TO TALK.
Sadi typed immediately.
WHERE ARE YOU?
Three dots appeared.
Stopped.
Appeared again.
Then:
INSIDE.
Sadi went cold.
Roman read her face.
“What?”
“She’s still here.”
He looked down the corridor.
“Ask where.”
Sadi typed.
WHERE INSIDE?
The answer arrived.
THE PLACE THEY DON’T KNOW YOU FOUND.
Sadi stared at it.
“I don't understand.”
Roman did.
“The accounting archive.”
She looked at him.
“What?”
“There’s a secondary records room behind accounting.”
“I’ve worked here two years. There’s no secondary records room.”
“There is.”
“Where?”
Roman hesitated.
That was enough.
Sadi folded her arms.
“You knew about a hidden room.”
“My father built it.”
“And you forgot to mention that while we were discussing secret networks infiltrating your companies?”
“I haven't used it in years.”
“Convenient.”
“I didn't know it mattered.”
“Everything matters tonight.”
Roman accepted that.
They headed toward accounting.
Sadi kept several feet between them.
Not because she thought Roman would hurt her.
Because she still didn't know what Roman was.
Owner.
Son of the man who had hired Daniel.
Possible Marrow target.
Possible Marrow participant.
And now Daniel had dropped another secret between them.
Her father.
Sadi had spent most of her childhood believing her father was Rafael Morales.
A man whose presence in her life consisted mostly of a name on a birth certificate and three photographs.
Her mother said he had left when Sadi was a baby.
Sadi stopped asking about him when she was twelve.
At eighteen, she had stopped caring.
Or convinced herself she had.
Now Daniel was saying that story was a lie.
Roman opened the accounting office.
The computer was dark.
Daniel was gone.
The black storage device was still missing.
Roman crossed to a built-in filing cabinet.
He opened the bottom drawer.
Empty.
Then pressed two fingers against the back panel.
A click.
The cabinet shifted outward.
Sadi stared.
“You've got to be kidding.”
Roman pulled it aside.
Behind it was a narrow steel door.
No handle.
Only a keypad.
He entered a code.
Red.
“Changed.”
Sadi examined the keypad.
“Your father’s room?”
“Yes.”
“Who knew the code?”
“My father. Me. One attorney.”
“Name?”
“Charles Vale.”
Sadi looked at him.
“Still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Still works for you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“He resigned after my father died.”
Of course he did.
“Call him.”
Roman pulled out his phone.
No service again.
Sadi checked hers.
Same.
Someone was controlling communications inside the building.
She studied the keypad.
“Move.”
Roman stepped aside.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking.”
“For?”
“People are predictable.”
She examined the buttons.
Four showed slightly more wear.
One.
Seven.
Nine.
Zero.
Roman watched her.
“You can determine the code from that?”
“No.”
“Then—”
“But your father probably chose something he could remember.”
Roman crossed his arms.
Sadi tried 1970.
Red.
“Birth year?”
Roman nodded.
She tried another combination.
Red.
“Your mother's birthday?”
Roman gave her the date.
Red.
“Your birthday.”
He told her.
Red.
Sadi stepped back.
“What mattered to him?”
Roman’s expression became guarded.
“Work.”
“No. Something he wouldn't put in a corporate biography.”
Roman looked at the door.
“My sister.”
Sadi turned.
“You have a sister?”
“Had.”
His voice changed.
Sadi immediately regretted the question.
“I'm sorry.”
“She died when she was nine.”
Sadi waited.
Roman stared at the keypad.
“October seventeenth.”
Sadi entered 1017.
Green.
The lock released.
Neither spoke.
Roman opened the door.
A small archive room appeared.
Shelves.
Banker boxes.
Old computers.
Paper files.
No windows.
A single desk lamp illuminated the room.
Elena Morales sat behind the desk.
Sadi stopped.
Her mother looked older.
That was the first thing Sadi noticed.
Not dramatically.
Just enough to make eleven years suddenly feel cruel.
Dark hair streaked with gray.
Lines around her eyes.
A heavy coat buttoned to her throat.
But it was her.
Elena stood.
“Sadi.”
Sadi stayed in the doorway.
Her mother took one step forward.
Sadi took one back.
Elena stopped.
“Okay.”
Roman remained beside Sadi.
Elena looked at him.
“You look like your father.”
Roman’s expression hardened.
“You knew him?”
“Yes.”
Sadi laughed softly.
Of course.
Another person her mother knew.
Another life Sadi had apparently never been allowed to see.
“Let's skip the reunion,” Sadi said. “Daniel says you lied about my father.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Daniel shouldn't have told you like that.”
“So it's true.”
“Sadi—”
“Is Rafael Morales my father?”
Silence.
That was enough.
Sadi felt something hollow open inside her.
She had expected anger.
Instead there was only exhaustion.
“Who is?”
Elena looked toward Roman.
That frightened Sadi.
“Why are you looking at him?”
Roman frowned.
“I'd also like to know.”
Elena walked to the desk and removed a brown envelope.
“I came here for this.”
She placed it down.
Sadi didn't touch it.
“What is it?”
“Something Roman's father kept.”
Roman stepped closer.
“My father kept information about Sadi?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Elena looked at Sadi.
“Because he promised someone he would protect you.”
Sadi's patience broke.
“Who is my father?”
Elena swallowed.
“His name was Mateo Serrano.”
Sadi waited.
Nothing.
The name meant nothing.
Roman, however, reacted.
Sadi turned toward him.
“You know that name.”
Roman stared at Elena.
“Mateo Serrano worked for my father.”
Elena nodded.
“What did he do?” Sadi asked.
Roman answered.
“He was an auditor.”
Sadi almost laughed.
An auditor.
Of course.
“What kind?”
“Forensic.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Sadi looked at her mother.
“You told me Rafael worked construction.”
“I needed you to stop looking.”
“Why?”
“Because Mateo disappeared before you were born.”
Sadi froze.
“Disappeared?”
Elena's eyes filled.
“He discovered something.”
Sadi already knew the answer.
“Marrow.”
Elena nodded.
Roman swore under his breath.
Sadi looked at the envelope.
“What's inside?”
“His work.”
She opened it.
Photographs.
Account sheets.
A handwritten notebook.
And a small cassette tape.
Sadi picked up the notebook.
The first page contained columns of numbers.
Her pulse quickened.
She recognized the logic immediately.
Not the specific accounts.
The structure.
The way anomalies were marked.
The symbols in the margins.
She had developed almost identical methods years later.
Nobody had taught her.
Roman watched her.
“What?”
“This is how I work.”
Elena whispered, “I know.”
Sadi looked up.
“You knew what I could do.”
“I recognized it when you were sixteen.”
“You never said anything.”
“I was terrified.”
“Of your own daughter?”
“Of what would happen if the wrong people recognized it too.”
Sadi closed the notebook.
“So you spent eleven years pretending I didn't exist?”
Elena flinched.
“I watched.”
That hurt worse.
“You watched?”
“From a distance.”
“That's supposed to make it better?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Elena's eyes filled, but she didn't defend herself.
Sadi respected that more than an excuse.
Roman picked up one photograph.
Two men stood beside a warehouse.
One was Roman’s father, younger.
The other had dark hair and a familiar face.
Sadi took the photograph.
Mateo.
Her biological father.
She stared.
His eyes were hers.
Or hers were his.
She couldn't decide which thought hurt more.
On the back was a handwritten date.
Three months before Sadi was born.
And four words:
IF I DISAPPEAR, FIND VALE.
Roman read it.
“Charles Vale.”
Sadi looked at him.
“The attorney.”
Roman nodded.
Elena whispered, “He knows what happened to Mateo.”
“Then why haven't you asked him?”
“I did.”
“When?”
“Eleven years ago.”
“And?”
“He told me Mateo was dead.”
Sadi's fingers tightened around the photograph.
“Do you believe him?”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
Sadi looked at the cassette.
“What's on that?”
“I don't know.”
Roman found an old tape recorder on the shelf.
He inserted the cassette.
Pressed play.
Static.
Then a man's voice.
Mateo.
“If Elena is hearing this, I failed.”
Sadi gripped the desk.
The recording continued.
“Marrow isn't stealing money. Money is how they hide movement. The real purpose is control.”
Roman leaned closer.
Mateo coughed.
“If a company can be infiltrated through accounting, legal, security and financing, ownership becomes irrelevant. You don't have to buy a business if you can control the people who operate it.”
Sadi thought of Gina.
Security access.
False transactions.
Daniel.
The tape crackled.
“I found the person coordinating the placements.”
Elena covered her mouth.
Sadi stared at the recorder.
Mateo continued.
“He works close to the Costa family.”
Roman's jaw tightened.
“I gave proof to Charles Vale.”
Roman looked at Sadi.
The recording skipped.
Then Mateo said:
“If my daughter is ever forced into this, tell her I'm sorry.”
Sadi's eyes burned.
She refused to cry.
Not here.
Not yet.
Mateo's voice softened.
“She deserves an ordinary life.”
The tape ended.
Silence filled the archive.
Sadi stared at the machine.
All those years she'd believed ordinary meant failure.
A register.
A cardigan.
A small apartment.
A life designed not to attract attention.
Maybe someone had once wanted exactly that for her.
Roman picked up his phone.
Signal.
One bar.
He dialed.
“Who?” Sadi asked.
“Charles Vale.”
The call connected.
Roman put it on speaker.
A man's voice answered.
“Roman?”
Roman looked at Sadi.
“Charles. I need to ask about Mateo Serrano.”
Silence.
Then:
“Where are you?”
“Monza.”
Charles breathed sharply.
“Are you alone?”
“No.”
“Who's with you?”
Roman looked at Sadi.
“His daughter.”
The line went completely silent.
Then Charles whispered:
“Get her out of there.”
Sadi leaned toward the phone.
“Why?”
“Because Mateo didn't disappear.”
Her heart stopped.
“What happened to him?”
Charles didn't answer.
A loud sound came through the call.
A door slamming.
Roman straightened.
“Charles?”
Breathing.
Then another voice in the background.
A voice Sadi recognized.
Daniel.
“Hang up, Charles.”
The call ended.
Sadi stared at Roman.
Before either could speak, the archive door slammed shut behind them.
The keypad beeped.
Locked.
Roman grabbed the handle.
Nothing.
Then one of the old computers powered on by itself.
White text appeared.
WELCOME BACK, ISADORA.
Sadi approached slowly.
Another line appeared.
YOUR FATHER LEFT YOU ONE FINAL FILE.
A folder opened.
One video.
Recorded six months ago.
Sadi couldn't breathe.
Six months.
Not thirty years.
Six months.
Roman whispered, “That's impossible.”
Sadi clicked the file.
The screen went black.
Then a man appeared.
Older.
Gray-haired.
Alive.
Sadi recognized his eyes immediately.
Mateo Serrano looked directly into the camera.
“My daughter,” he said, “if you're watching this, Daniel has already betrayed you.”
Sadi stepped closer.
Mateo looked off-camera.
His expression changed.
“There's one more thing you need to know about Roman Costa.”
Roman went still.
The video suddenly paused.
A sound came from behind the archive wall.
Three knocks.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Elena turned pale.
“That wall doesn't lead anywhere.”
Another three knocks came.
Then a hidden seam appeared between the shelves.
May you like
The wall began to open.
And someone on the other side said Roman's name.
