Chapter 9 - The Terms of Trust
They returned to the mansion without speaking. Roman placed the microfilm in a locked drawer, then stood in the study with both hands braced against the desk.
Claire faced him across the room. “Is my father alive?”
“Peter says he is.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I believe Peter is terrified.”
“That is not the same thing.”
Roman looked up. “No.”
Lily sat near the window, copying the warehouse coordinates into her notebook. Susan had gone to question Peter. Ellis and Mateo guarded the doors, though Claire had begun to understand that guards were not walls. They were reminders that danger existed whether she saw it or not.
“I need to know everything before I make another decision,” Claire said.
Roman nodded. “Then ask.”
“Were you negotiating with federal investigators?”
“Yes.”
“Were you planning to use me as part of the arrangement?”
“No.”
“Did you ever call me your girlfriend because you wanted to?”
Roman’s expression shifted. “At first, I used the claim as protection. Later, I used it because I wanted people to understand you mattered to me.”
Claire’s heart beat painfully. “That was not yours to decide.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I know now.”
The simplicity of the answer disarmed her more than a defense would have.
Claire sat opposite him. “Here are my terms. No lies about my role. No guards inside my bakery unless I ask. No public claims about me. And if you want something from me, you ask directly.”
Roman nodded after each one. “Agreed.”
“You’re not going to argue?”
“You made reasonable terms.”
“I expected at least one dramatic objection.”
“I can object to the guards.”
“You hired them.”
“They are overpaid.”
Mateo, from the doorway, said, “We can hear you.”
For the first time in days, Claire laughed.
Roman watched her laugh as if it were something rare. The look made her want to reach for him, but she held still.
“There is something else,” he said. “I want you to help decode the ledger.”
“Because I’m Daniel Bennett’s daughter?”
“Because you are intelligent and because the code was built around recipes you know better than anyone.”
“And what do I get?”
“The truth about your father.”
“That is not enough.”
“Name your price.”
Claire thought of the bakery’s broken window, the ruined ingredients, and the fear on Lily’s face. “You shut down every illegal operation connected to you.”
Roman did not hesitate. “Done.”
“Even if it costs your family?”
“Especially if it does.”
The door opened. Susan entered with Peter behind her. “There is a problem,” she said.
Peter dropped a phone on the desk. A video played. Daniel Bennett sat in a dim room, older but unmistakable. His face was thinner, his hair silver at the edges.
“Claire,” he said to the camera. “If you see this, I am sorry.”
She moved toward the screen.
Daniel continued. “Victor is not holding me because of the ledger. He is holding me because I know what Susan did the night Dominic died.”
Susan went rigid.
“She did not betray the family,” Daniel said. “She saved Roman from becoming its heir. But the cost was Mara’s life.”
Lily stood. “What does that mean?”
The video ended before Daniel could explain.
Claire turned to Susan. “What happened to Mara?”
Susan’s voice broke. “I sent her away with Daniel. Dominic followed them.”
Roman’s face was pale. “You told me Mara died in a car accident.”
“She did.”
“Because of you?”
Susan looked at him. “Because of Dominic.”
“You knew he was coming.”
“I knew he suspected her. I did not know he would follow.”
Lily backed away from Susan. “You let my mother die.”
Susan’s eyes filled. “I tried to save her.”
“You failed.”
Roman moved toward Lily, but Claire stepped in first. “Give her space.”
He stopped and listened.
Outside, a car engine started.
Ellis looked through the window. “Victor is leaving.”
Roman grabbed his coat.
Claire caught his arm. “No. We don’t chase him blind.”
Roman looked at her hand on his sleeve, then at her face. “He has your father.”
“And he wants you angry.”
“What do you suggest?”
May you like
Claire opened Daniel’s recipe notebook. The orange-zest markers formed a new pattern beneath the warehouse coordinates.
“We find where Victor is taking him,” she said. “Then we decide whether saving my father is worth becoming the people he warned us about.”
