Chapter 4 - The Debt Roderick Never Knew He Owed
“Open the door, nephew.”
Roderick did not move.
Elena held Leo behind the bed.
Dominic spoke again.
“We need to talk.”
Roderick’s men positioned themselves.
“How many?” Roderick whispered.
One guard checked the hallway camera.
“Eight.”
Dominic laughed from outside.
“You were always stubborn.”
Roderick looked at Victor.
Still breathing.
Barely.
“Why are you here, Dominic?”
“For the same reason you are.”
“Leo?”
“No.”
A pause.
“The letter.”
Roderick looked down.
Samuel’s letter.
Dominic knew.
“You killed Samuel.”
“I made mistakes.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting through a door.”
Roderick’s anger rose.
Then Leo whispered something.
“Mr. Roderick?”
Roderick looked at him.
“The bathroom has another door.”
Everyone turned.
Leo pointed.
“I saw it.”
Roderick checked.
An adjoining service corridor.
Old hotels were full of them.
He moved Elena and Leo first.
Two guards carried Victor.
They escaped seconds before Dominic’s men entered.
By dawn they were inside a safe house outside New Orleans.
Victor survived surgery.
Roderick sat beside his bed.
Elena remained nearby with Leo asleep against her shoulder.
When Victor woke, Roderick asked the question again.
“What killed my father?”
Victor looked exhausted.
“Dominic.”
“How?”
“Medication.”
Vittorio had discovered Dominic’s betrayal years after Samuel died.
He had quietly begun collecting evidence.
Before he could expose his brother, his health deteriorated.
Dominic had manipulated his medication.
The poison weakened him.
The final dose stopped his heart.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Your father ordered me not to.”
“That makes no sense.”
“He was protecting you.”
“From my uncle?”
“From yourself.”
Roderick frowned.
Victor explained.
At twenty-seven, Roderick had been impulsive.
Violent when betrayed.
Vittorio believed that if his son learned Dominic had murdered Samuel and attempted to poison him, Roderick would start a war.
Hundreds might die.
So Vittorio waited.
Then he died before he could finish gathering proof.
Roderick stood.
“My father let his murderer walk free to protect me.”
“No,” Victor said. “He was waiting until you could destroy Dominic without becoming Dominic.”
The words stayed with him.
Roderick looked toward Elena.
She had spent years searching for justice.
He had spent years believing power meant retaliation.
Perhaps both of them had misunderstood something.
Leo woke.
He walked toward Roderick.
“Are you mad?”
Roderick crouched.
“Yes.”
“At me?”
“No.”
“At Mama?”
“No.”
Leo seemed satisfied.
He held out a cookie.
“You want half?”
Roderick accepted it.
Elena watched.
Later, when Leo slept again, she approached him.
“You’re good with him.”
“No, I’m not.”
“He likes you.”
“He also likes a stuffed dinosaur missing one eye.”
“That’s a very exclusive club.”
Roderick smiled.
Then Elena’s expression softened.
“Thank you for bringing him back.”
“I promised.”
“You almost got killed.”
“So did you.”
“I’m his mother.”
“And?”
“And mothers are allowed to do stupid things when their children are in danger.”
“Apparently mafia bosses are too.”
She laughed quietly.
It was the first genuine laugh he had heard from her.
He liked it more than he should have.
The feeling frightened him.
Not because Elena was his employee.
Not because Samuel had saved his life.
Because Roderick had spent years making sure nobody could become important enough to hurt him.
Leo had crossed that wall in a day.
Elena had crossed it without permission.
That evening, Benjamin arrived.
He carried the remaining documents from the storage unit.
One file contained Samuel’s personal records.
Inside was Elena’s birth certificate.
Roderick noticed something.
Father: Samuel Moretti.
Mother: Maria Moretti.
Then another document.
A guardianship agreement signed three months before Samuel died.
If both Samuel and Maria died, Elena was to be placed in the care of Vittorio Sabatini.
Roderick stared.
“My father was supposed to raise you?”
Elena looked shocked.
“I never knew.”
“What happened?”
“My mother died two years after my father. I went into foster care.”
Roderick felt sick.
His father had promised Samuel.
Then somehow Elena disappeared.
A twelve-year-old girl whose father had died saving Roderick had entered the foster system while the Sabatini family lived behind guarded gates.
Another debt.
Another failure.
Benjamin opened another file.
“There’s a reason.”
Dominic had intercepted the guardianship documents.
He had made certain Vittorio never learned Maria had died.
Why?
Because Elena might someday inherit Samuel’s evidence.
Dominic had been watching her since childhood.
Elena went pale.
“All those foster homes…”
“Yes.”
“Were they because of him?”
“Some.”
Her knees weakened.
Roderick caught her.
For a second she allowed herself to lean against him.
Then she pulled away.
“I need air.”
He followed her outside.
The Louisiana night was warm.
Elena stood on the porch.
“My whole life,” she said, “I thought nobody came because nobody wanted me.”
Roderick said nothing.
“My father died. My mother died. Then strangers kept moving me from house to house. I kept thinking maybe someone would remember me.”
“My father would have.”
“But he didn’t.”
“He never knew.”
“I know.”
She wiped her face angrily.
“That almost makes it worse.”
Roderick understood.
Some pain needed someone to blame.
Accidents offered no target.
He stood beside her.
“I remember Samuel.”
Elena looked at him.
“He taught me to drive.”
“What?”
“I was fourteen.”
“You said he died when you were nineteen.”
“I was nineteen. He apparently decided driving lessons should begin five years earlier.”
She laughed through her tears.
“That sounds like him.”
“He made terrible coffee.”
“He did.”
“He sang when he cleaned his gun.”
Elena stared.
“You remember that?”
“Yes.”
“My mother hated it.”
Roderick smiled.
For the first time, Elena was hearing pieces of her father that had not come from documents.
“He talked about you.”
Her smile vanished.
“What did he say?”
“That you were smarter than everyone.”
“I was eight.”
“He was extremely biased.”
Elena laughed again.
Then she cried.
Roderick did not touch her.
He simply stayed.
After a while, she reached for his hand.
He let her.
Inside, a phone rang.
Benjamin answered.
His expression changed.
“Roderick.”
Roderick entered.
“What?”
Benjamin handed him the phone.
A video had arrived.
Dominic sat behind a desk.
Behind him was Roderick’s penthouse.
He had taken the house.
Dominic smiled into the camera.
“You have something that belongs to me.”
Then he placed an object on the desk.
Roderick recognized it.
His father’s wedding ring.
Dominic leaned toward the camera.
“And I have something that belonged to your father.”
He opened a hidden compartment beneath the desk.
Inside was a ledger.
Samuel’s missing ledger.
But Dominic was not alone.
Someone stepped into frame behind him.
Elena gasped.
It was Thomas Mercer.
May you like
The first man she had visited.
And he was holding a gun.
