Chapter 4 - The Truth in the Dark
The lower study was situated two floors beneath the main house, behind a reinforced steel door requiring biometric clearance. It didn't look like a dungeon or a torture chamber; it looked like a high-end board room with stone walls, leather chairs, and a massive mahogany table.
Miles sat at the center of the table. He was no longer wearing his grey wool coat. His hands were handcuffed behind his back, his silver hair disheveled, a dark bruise forming along his jawline. Yet, despite his captivity, his face held an unsettling, cynical calm.
Roman sat at the far end of the table, sipping black coffee from a porcelain cup. Two armed guards stood silently by the door.
When Sophia escorted me into the room, Miles looked up. His eyes locked onto mine, and a bitter, mocking smile spread across his lips.
"Ah," Miles drawled, his voice raspy. "The little waitress from Bellamore’s. The righteous Samaritan who didn't know when to mind her own business."
"Shut your mouth, Miles," Roman said softly, without raising his voice. The command hung in the room like a drawn blade.
I took a seat across from Miles, forcing myself not to look at his hands or the bruises on his face. "Why did you do it, Miles? You were his right hand. You had everything."
Miles laughed—a dry, hollow sound. "Everything? I was the servant in a silk suit, Clara! For fifteen years, I managed Roman’s legal shields, cleansed his money, bought his judges, and kept his empire out of federal court! And what was my reward? Watching him prepare to hand forty billion dollars in assets to a sixteen-year-old boy who spends his weekends playing classical piano!"
"Ethan is my son," Roman said coldly.
"Ethan is weak!" Miles shouted, his composure snapping for a second, his eyes flashing with raw jealousy. "He doesn't have the stomach for this life! The Morettis offered me fifty percent of the shipping routes if I delivered the encryption key and let them handle Ethan. It was business, Roman! Pure, necessary business!"
"Where is the secondary ledger, Miles?" Roman asked, leaning forward, resting his forearms on the table. "The one you stole from my vault in Rhode Island three days ago."
Miles sneered. "Find it yourself. Leo Moretti already has the access codes to the offshore accounts. By noon tomorrow, half your liquidity will be wiped out. You're finished, Roman. The Duca dynasty dies with you."
I sat listening to them, the pieces of the puzzle spinning in my head. The Rhode Island vault. The shipping routes. The numbers.
Suddenly, something clicked.
"0-4-1-9-8-2," I blurted out.
Miles’s sneer froze mid-air. The color drained from his face so fast it was as if he had been slapped with an iron glove.
Roman slowly turned his head to look at me, his eyes wide with sharp realization. "Clara... what did you just say?"
"That's the code Ethan gave me," I said, staring directly at Miles. "He didn't give me the key to the ledger, did he, Miles? He gave me the date. April 19th, 1982."
Miles began to sweat, his breathing turning fast and shallow. "Shut up... shut your mouth, girl..."
"That's the date your father died, isn't it, Miles?" I continued, reading the sheer panic in his posture. "You didn't hide the secondary ledger in Rhode Island. You hid it in your father’s old estate in South Boston. The house right down the street from where I work."
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Roman stood up from his chair. The aura around him was no longer just dangerous—it was absolute, terrifying power.
"Sophia," Roman commanded calmly. "Get the strike team ready. We're going to South Boston."
