Harper stared at Gideon’s phone.
Her own voice echoed through the club.
“I need Vincent Romano removed before tomorrow morning.”
Then the recording stopped.
Gideon smiled.
“Still trust her?”
Harper’s pulse hammered.
Vincent looked at her.
Not accusingly.
Waiting.
That mattered.
“Play the rest,” Harper said.
Gideon’s smile weakened.
“What?”
“The rest of it.”
“That seems clear enough.”
“It’s clear because you cut the sentence.”
Murmurs moved around the table.
Harper stepped forward.
“That recording came from a call I made to the executive transportation office yesterday afternoon.”
Gideon said nothing.
Harper looked at the men around the table.
“The full sentence was, ‘I need Vincent Romano removed from tomorrow morning’s public schedule until I finish reviewing the security breach.’”
Salvatore Greco leaned back.
“Well.”
Harper held out her hand.
“Play the original.”
Gideon’s expression told everyone what they needed to know.
Vincent looked almost amused.
“You underestimated her again.”
Gideon’s anger surfaced.
“You’re standing beside the woman who spent months secretly copying your records.”
“She spent months discovering you were stealing from me.”
Harper connected her laptop to the room’s display.
Transaction records appeared.
Dates.
Amounts.
Shell companies.
Payments.
Security information.
Morello accounts.
The $250,000 transfer to Derek Sloan.
Then the payment connected to Vincent’s February convoy attack.
Gideon looked around.
“Digital records can be manufactured.”
Harper nodded.
“Correct.”
She displayed bank verification certificates.
“So I obtained independent confirmations.”
Gideon’s face changed.
Harper continued.
“Every transaction has a corresponding external record. Your signatures appear on three authorization forms. Your private authentication token approved nine transfers.”
One of the captains stood.
“You sold routes to Morello?”
“No.”
Harper changed the screen.
A message appeared.
ROUTE CONFIRMED. ROMANO LEAVES 9:40. DRIVER ANTHONY RUSSO.
Silence.
Vincent’s voice was quiet.
“You killed Anthony.”
Gideon’s control finally cracked.
“I did what was necessary.”
“For what?”
“For this family!”
Vincent stared at him.
“No. For yourself.”
Gideon slammed his palm against the table.
“You inherited everything.”
“My father inherited control because yours didn’t want it.”
“My father regretted that until the day he died.”
“And you turned his regret into an excuse.”
Gideon looked around the room.
“You think Vincent made this organization stronger? Look at him. He brings accountants into family decisions. Lawyers. Compliance officers. He closes profitable operations because they create exposure. He wants legitimacy.”
Vincent’s voice remained calm.
“Yes.”
The answer surprised several people.
Vincent continued.
“I want our children to inherit companies, not enemies. I want them to know our name from buildings we constructed instead of funerals we caused.”
Harper watched the room change.
Gideon had expected nostalgia for the old ways.
Instead, many of the older men looked tired.
Salvatore spoke first.
“I buried two sons.”
Nobody answered.
He looked at Vincent.
“If you can make the next generation different, do it.”
Another man nodded.
Then another.
Gideon stared around the room.
Everything he had built was collapsing.
His hand moved toward his jacket.
Three weapons immediately pointed at him.
Vincent didn’t reach for his own.
“Don’t.”
Gideon stopped.
For one second, Harper thought it was over.
Then the windows exploded.
Gunfire ripped through the room.
People dropped.
Vincent pulled Harper behind the heavy conference table.
“Morello!” someone shouted.
Gideon ran.
Vincent tried to follow.
His wound stopped him.
Harper grabbed him.
“You’ll tear the stitches.”
“He’s getting away.”
“Marcus!”
Marcus and two men went after Gideon.
The attack lasted less than a minute.
Then silence.
Broken glass covered the carpet.
No one at the table had been seriously injured, but two guards had been wounded.
Harper looked toward the open service door.
Gideon was gone.
Again.
Vincent sat against the wall, one hand pressed to his injured side.
Harper crouched.
“Let me see.”
“I’m fine.”
“That phrase has lost all credibility.”
She pulled his jacket aside.
Blood had begun seeping through the bandage.
“You tore something.”
“Worth it.”
“Nothing about this is worth bleeding to death in a private club.”
He looked at her.
“You came.”
“What?”
“Tonight.”
“Of course I came.”
“After everything.”
Harper’s anger softened.
“I said I loved you. I didn’t say you were easy.”
His mouth curved.
Marcus returned.
“Gideon escaped through the kitchen.”
Vincent cursed.
“But we know where he’s going.”
“How?”
Marcus held up a phone.
“Daniel planted a tracker on Gideon’s car at Bellwood.”
Harper smiled.
“Daniel?”
“He wanted to make things right.”
The signal headed north.
Vincent looked at the map.
“Lake house.”
Harper frowned.
“What lake house?”
“My father’s place near Lake Geneva.”
“Why there?”
“Cash. Documents. Passports.”
Marcus nodded.
“Gideon helped maintain the emergency reserves.”
Harper closed the laptop.
Vincent stopped her.
“You’re not coming.”
She stared.
He sighed.
“Sorry. Reflex.”
“Work on it.”
“I am.”
She touched his bandage.
“You’re not going either.”
“Harper.”
“You need a doctor.”
“Gideon—”
“Marcus can handle Gideon.”
Vincent looked at Marcus.
Marcus shrugged.
“She outranks me now, apparently.”
Harper nearly smiled.
Vincent finally surrendered.
At the hospital, the doctor confirmed that two stitches had torn.
Harper stayed.
At three in the morning, Marcus called.
They had reached the lake house.
Empty.
Gideon had abandoned the car.
But he left something behind.
A photograph.
Vincent and Gideon as boys, maybe ten years old, standing beside Vincent’s father on a dock.
Across the photograph Gideon had written:
YOU TOOK MY LIFE. NOW I’LL TAKE YOURS APART PIECE BY PIECE.
Vincent stared at the picture for a long time.
Harper sat beside him.
“You didn’t take his life.”
“I inherited what he wanted.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“To him it is.”
Vincent put the photograph down.
“What if he’s right about one thing?”
“Which thing?”
“That everyone close to me becomes a target.”
Harper understood immediately.
“This again?”
“I nearly got your mother and sister killed.”
“Gideon did that.”
“Because of me.”
“No. Because of Gideon.”
Vincent looked at her.
“You can’t keep taking responsibility for other people’s choices.”
“I can take responsibility for putting you in danger.”
“And I can decide whether I’m willing to face that danger.”
He shook his head.
“You deserve normal.”
Harper almost laughed.
“Normal?”
“Yes.”
“You locked me in an office twelve hours ago, I crawled through ventilation ducts, my family was kidnapped, you got shot, I exposed a financial conspiracy to twenty-two men, and now you’re explaining that I deserve normal?”
“When you say it like that—”
“I’m not finished.”
Vincent closed his mouth.
Harper leaned toward him.
“You don’t get to confess that you love me and then decide for me that loving you is too dangerous.”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“You’re trying to protect yourself.”
That silenced him.
Harper’s voice softened.
“If I leave because I choose to leave, you have to accept it. But if you push me away because you’re afraid of losing me, that isn’t sacrifice.”
She touched his hand.
“That’s fear.”
Vincent looked down at their fingers.
“You really do see everything.”
“Occupational hazard.”
He lifted her hand to his lips.
The kiss against her knuckles was so gentle that it nearly broke her heart.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“Neither do I.”
“I’ve never had a relationship that wasn’t complicated by my name.”
“Then don’t have one with your name.”
He frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“Be Vincent.”
“Who’s that?”
Harper smiled.
“The man who secretly puts sugar in his coffee after nightmares.”
His eyes widened.
“You know about that?”
“I know everything.”
“That is deeply concerning.”
“It should be.”
For the first time in twenty-four hours, they laughed.
Then Vincent grew serious.
“Your resignation.”
“What about it?”
“Is it still effective?”
Harper thought about the cream envelope.
“Yes.”
Pain flashed across his face.
She squeezed his hand.
“I cannot be your secretary anymore.”
He nodded slowly.
“I understand.”
“But that doesn’t mean I’m leaving you.”
Vincent looked up.
Harper continued.
“If this becomes something real, I need my own life. My own authority. My own choices.”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Take Romano Logistics.”
She stared.
“Vincent.”
“As CEO.”
“You cannot solve every emotional problem by giving me a company.”
“I’m learning.”
Despite herself, she smiled.
“We’ll discuss my career after Gideon is caught.”
“Fair.”
“And no locking doors.”
“Understood.”
“No ordering me into safe rooms.”
“That one is negotiable.”
“It isn’t.”
“Harper—”
Her phone rang.
Emily.
Harper answered immediately.
“Hey.”
Her sister sounded frightened.
“Harper, where are you?”
“Hospital. Why?”
“There’s someone outside Mom’s house.”
Harper stood.
“What?”
“The security guys saw him on the camera.”
Vincent was already reaching for his phone.
Emily continued.
“He left something at the front door.”
“What?”
“A box.”
“Don’t touch it.”
“We didn’t.”
Harper heard her sister breathing.
Then Emily said, “There’s a note taped to the top.”
“What does it say?”
Emily hesitated.
“It says, ‘Ask Vincent what really happened to your father.’”
Harper stopped breathing.
Her father had died eighteen months earlier.
A heart attack.
At least that was what everyone had told her.
Slowly, Harper turned toward Vincent.
His face had gone pale.
And she knew immediately that Gideon had finally found the secret Vincent Romano was genuinely afraid she would discover.