Chapter 4 - The Price of Saying Yes
Mother stood in the doorway holding a small pistol.
I didn't recognize it.
Roman did.
His entire posture changed.
He moved half a step in front of me.
Mother noticed.
"I'm not going to shoot my daughter."
Roman's voice was quiet.
"Then lower it."
"You don't give orders in my house."
"No."
His eyes stayed on the weapon.
"But I strongly recommend it."
Mother looked exhausted.
Not elegant.
Not composed.
For the first time in my life, Margaret Bennett looked old.
She placed the pistol on a side table.
Roman picked it up immediately and removed the magazine.
I stared at her.
"Victor owns what secret?"
Mother looked at the computer.
My father's frozen face remained on the screen.
"Your father always loved theater."
"He's dead."
"Yes."
"So maybe stop insulting him."
Pain flickered through her expression.
Then disappeared.
"Victor Rinaldi helped your father build Bennett Holdings."
I frowned.
"Dad built it with Grandpa."
"That's the story."
Mother walked toward the desk.
"Twenty-five years ago, your father was nearly bankrupt. Victor provided capital."
"Dirty money."
"Money doesn't announce where it came from."
Roman said, "Victor's does."
Mother ignored him.
"Thomas regretted the arrangement almost immediately. He spent years trying to unwind it."
"And you?"
"I helped him."
"Then why are you working with Victor now?"
She looked at me.
"Because your father made one mistake."
"What?"
"He trusted Roman's father."
Roman's face hardened.
Mother continued.
"Vittorio DeLuca promised to help Thomas push Victor out. Instead, he kept copies of every transaction."
"Insurance," Roman said.
"Blackmail."
"With my father, sometimes those were synonyms."
Mother gave him a bitter smile.
"At least you're honest."
I stepped closer.
"What does Victor have on you?"
Mother's eyes returned to mine.
"Your signature."
My stomach tightened.
"What?"
"When you were nineteen, your father transferred one of the river properties into a holding company."
"I remember signing something."
"Exactly."
The memory surfaced.
Dad had been rushing to a meeting.
Mother had placed documents in front of me.
Routine family paperwork, she'd said.
I had signed.
Mother continued.
"The company later received funds traced to Victor's network."
"I knew nothing about that."
"I know."
"Would anyone else?"
"A prosecutor might."
Roman spoke.
"If Victor has the full record, he could make it look like Claire knowingly participated."
I stared at Mother.
"You let me sign it."
Her face cracked.
"I didn't know where the money would come from."
"But when you found out?"
"I tried to fix it."
"By stealing my voting rights?"
"By keeping Victor from using you."
"That makes no sense."
"It does if Victor promised to destroy the evidence after the trust transferred."
Roman laughed softly.
Mother glared at him.
"You find this amusing?"
"No. Predictable."
He stepped toward her.
"Victor never destroys leverage."
Mother looked away.
There.
She knew.
She had always known.
"You sacrificed my future to protect me from a document you put in front of me."
"I was desperate."
"You used Ava."
Mother said nothing.
"You encouraged her affair with Ethan."
"I encouraged her to make him question the engagement."
My heart went cold.
"Why?"
"Because Victor wanted the marriage completed. I needed delay."
I stared at her.
"So your solution was to destroy me emotionally."
"I thought Ethan would remain loyal."
Roman muttered, "That was your second strategic error."
Mother snapped, "Stay out of this."
I raised a hand.
"No. Let him stay."
Mother looked stunned.
That was new too.
I returned to the video.
"Let's hear Dad."
I pressed play.
Father's voice filled the room.
"Victor's leverage against Margaret concerns Claire's signature on the South River transfer. Claire was nineteen. She had no knowledge of what the company was doing."
My eyes filled.
Father continued.
"I have evidence proving it."
Mother gasped.
I looked at her.
"You didn't know."
"No."
On-screen, Father raised a small key.
"The evidence is stored in Box 417 at Lakeshore Private Bank."
Roman moved closer to the monitor.
"The bank closed."
"When?"
"Two years ago."
Father continued.
"If the bank no longer exists, the contents were transferred to Mercer Vault Services."
Mother whispered, "Victor owns Mercer."
Roman looked at her sharply.
The video ended.
Silence.
Then Roman made a call.
"Marco. Mercer Vault Services. Find out who entered Box 417 in the last five years."
He listened.
"Now."
He hung up.
Mother sat down.
For the first time, she seemed defeated.
"I thought the evidence was gone."
"You never looked?"
"Victor told me Thomas destroyed it."
"And you believed Victor?"
"I was terrified."
I studied her.
Part of me wanted to scream.
Another part wanted to remember the mother who sat beside my hospital bed when I broke my arm at nine.
The woman who learned every teacher's name.
Who cried when I graduated.
People were rarely monsters every minute of the day.
That made betrayal harder.
"Where is Ava?"
Mother closed her eyes.
"With Ethan."
Roman and I exchanged a look.
"Where?" I asked.
"I don't know."
"You were with them."
"She left me after the hotel."
"Why?"
"Because she finally understood Ethan doesn't love her."
That should have satisfied something ugly inside me.
It didn't.
"Does she know about Victor?"
"Some of it."
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph loaded.
Ava.
Sitting inside a car.
Her face streaked with mascara.
Someone had photographed her through a windshield.
Below it:
Tell Roman to withdraw from Bennett Holdings before 9:00 a.m.
I showed him.
Mother stood abruptly.
"Victor."
Roman studied the image.
"Probably."
I looked at the time.
7:12 a.m.
Less than two hours.
"Can you find her?"
Roman was already calling Marco.
"Yes."
His confidence frightened me.
"How?"
He glanced at Mother.
"Methods Rebecca doesn't want described in writing."
Twenty minutes later, we knew the car was parked in an underground garage beneath a residential tower owned by one of Victor's companies.
Police?
Mother refused.
"If Victor knows we're involving them, he'll release the files."
Roman looked at me.
"Your choice."
Everyone looked at me.
That felt strange.
My whole life, decisions had been made around me.
Now the room waited.
"Get Ava."
Roman nodded.
"And the shares?"
I looked at the unsigned marriage agreement on Rebecca's digital portal.
If I married Roman, we'd have majority control by market opening.
If I didn't, Victor and Mother still held forty-four percent.
He could pressure minority investors.
Take control.
Destroy evidence.
Destroy me.
I thought about Ethan kissing my sister.
Mother's warning.
Father's letter.
Roman's ridiculous offer.
"Call Rebecca."
Roman's eyes sharpened.
"Claire."
"I have conditions."
"You already gave them."
"I have another."
"What?"
"If we're doing this, we're not hiding."
Mother stood.
"Claire, don't."
I looked directly at her.
"You told me not to embarrass the family."
My voice was calm.
"So I won't."
Then I looked at Roman.
"We announce it publicly."
For the first time, Roman DeLuca looked surprised.
An hour later, Rebecca arrived with a judge who owed neither family anything.
No flowers.
No orchestra.
No guests.
I wore the same ivory gown in which I'd watched Ethan kiss Ava.
Roman wore the same black suit.
The ceremony happened in my father's study.
When the judge asked if I took Roman as my husband, I looked at him.
This was insanity.
Strategic.
Dangerous.
Possibly the biggest mistake of my life.
"I do."
Roman's eyes never left mine.
"I do."
At 8:43 a.m., Claire Bennett became Claire DeLuca.
At 8:47, Bennett Holdings received legal notice that Roman and I had executed a joint voting agreement.
At 8:51, Chicago financial reporters received a photograph.
Roman and me.
Married.
At 8:55, Ethan called seventeen times.
I answered on the eighteenth.
"What the hell did you do?"
I looked at Roman.
He was speaking with Marco near the window.
"I got married."
"To my brother?"
"You're very quick."
"This isn't funny."
"No."
"Claire, Roman is using you."
"So you've mentioned."
"You don't know him."
"Neither did you, apparently."
"Don't do this because you're angry."
I looked at my wedding ring.
Roman had refused to use Ethan's.
Instead he'd given me a simple platinum band that had belonged to his grandmother.
"I'm not angry anymore."
That was mostly true.
"I'm awake."
I ended the call.
At exactly 9:00, trading opened.
At 9:02, Victor Rinaldi requested an emergency Bennett board meeting.
At 9:03, Roman and I rejected it with our combined majority.
At 9:05, Victor lost access to the river properties.
At 9:07, someone set fire to one of Bennett's empty warehouses.
Roman's phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed.
"Where?"
He listened.
Then grabbed his coat.
"They found Ava."
I stood.
"Is she okay?"
Roman didn't answer.
"Roman."
He looked at me.
"She's alive."
My knees weakened.
"But?"
"She's carrying something."
"What?"
"She won't give it to anyone except you."
Thirty minutes later, a black SUV stopped outside my father's house.
Ava stepped out.
Her dress was torn at the shoulder.
Her feet were bare.
She ran toward me.
I caught her before she fell.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed.
I held her because instinct won before anger could object.
"What happened?"
"Ethan left me."
"Where?"
"At Victor's building."
Roman stepped closer.
Ava recoiled.
"No."
"It's okay," I said.
She shook her head violently.
"No, Claire. You don't understand."
Her trembling hand reached beneath her dress.
She pulled out a small brass key.
Around its ring was a metal tag.
Roman stared.
"The vault key."
Ava pushed it into my hand.
"Victor had it."
"How?"
"I stole it."
My mouth fell open.
She grabbed my wrist.
"Claire, he knows Dad left evidence."
"Our dad?"
She nodded.
"And he's going to Mercer Vault."
"When?"
Ava looked toward the street.
Headlights turned the corner.
Black sedans.
Three of them.
May you like
Her face went white.
"Now."
