Chapter 3 - THE ENEMY INSIDE HIS HOUSE
Marco drove Roman to a warehouse in Yonkers that almost nobody knew belonged to the Marino organization.
Not Sabrina.
Not Anthony.
Not even half the captains.
Roman sat in the back of the SUV with blood on his palm from broken glass.
He barely noticed.
“Where is Elena?”
Marco kept his eyes on the road.
“Safe.”
“Where?”
“I told you enough.”
Roman’s voice hardened.
“I am not asking.”
Marco looked at him in the rearview mirror.
“That is exactly the problem.”
Roman went still.
Marco had worked for the Marino family for twenty-seven years.
He had carried Roman’s father out of a burning warehouse.
He had never spoken to Roman that way.
“She asked me not to tell you where she is,” Marco continued.
“I’m honoring that.”
“She is my wife.”
“And three days ago you let another woman move into her room.”
The words landed hard.
Roman looked out the window.
Marco added quietly:
“She doesn’t trust you.”
Roman hated that more than he hated the gunshots.
At the warehouse, Vivien was waiting.
His mother slapped him before he finished saying hello.
Roman stared.
Vivien’s hand shook.
“That was for Elena.”
“Mother.”
“The next one is for raising you badly enough that you thought any of this was acceptable.”
Roman rubbed his cheek.
“Good to see you too.”
Vivien’s eyes filled.
“Do you know how frightened she has been?”
“I know now.”
“No.”
Vivien stepped closer.
“You know what someone wrote in a letter. You do not know what it was like for her to sleep beside a man she loved while knowing he was leaving her bed for someone she believed was helping plan his murder.”
Roman closed his eyes.
“She should have told me.”
Vivien laughed bitterly.
“You would have believed her?”
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Exactly.
Vivien wiped her face.
“She warned me about Sabrina two years ago.”
Roman looked at her.
“What?”
“Not the conspiracy. Her.”
“What did Elena say?”
“That Sabrina enjoyed creating situations where you had to choose between her opinion and Elena’s.”
Roman remembered dozens.
Business dinners.
Travel.
Charity decisions.
Staffing.
Sabrina never demanded.
She suggested.
Elena objected.
Roman grew frustrated.
Eventually, Elena stopped objecting.
He had mistaken surrender for peace.
Marco entered carrying a laptop and a flash drive.
“Elena left this with me six weeks ago.”
Roman stared.
“For what?”
“She said if something happened to her, give it to you.”
He plugged it in.
Twenty-seven folders opened.
Bank records.
Photographs.
Emails.
Shipping manifests.
Audio.
Roman clicked the first recording.
Sabrina’s voice filled the warehouse office.
Roman still trusts me.
A man answered.
Bellandi.
And Elena?
She’s becoming a problem.
Roman stopped breathing.
Sabrina continued.
We don’t touch her yet. Roman is sentimental about the baby. If Elena gets hurt, he’ll burn everything looking for revenge.
Bellandi laughed.
Then remove her without hurting her.
Sabrina’s answer was quiet.
I’m working on it.
Roman looked away.
Move her emotionally.
Humiliate her.
Make her leave voluntarily.
His bedroom.
The robe.
The guest suite.
It had been engineered.
Another file.
Email from Sabrina to Anthony Rizzo:
If pressure does not work, create a medical scare. Nothing fatal until the child is viable. We need Roman destabilized, not enraged.
Vivien made a choking sound.
Roman stood so abruptly the chair fell.
“Where is Sabrina?”
Marco answered:
“Gone.”
“What?”
“She left the estate twenty minutes after you did. Cameras went down first.”
Roman’s blood turned cold.
“Anthony?”
“Missing.”
“Other guards?”
“Two.”
Roman reached for his gun.
Marco stopped him.
“Where are you going?”
“Finding her.”
“No.”
Roman looked at him.
Marco held his gaze.
“Elena built all of this because she knew you would react exactly like that.”
Roman stared.
“Then what?”
“We think.”
The word felt insulting.
Then Roman’s phone rang.
Vivien.
Her own phone was already in her hand.
She frowned.
“It’s the hospital.”
Roman went still.
She answered.
Listened.
Her face lost color.
“What happened?” Roman demanded.
Vivien lowered the phone.
“Elena is at St. Agnes.”
Roman stopped breathing.
“The baby?”
“Heart rate stable.”
“What happened?”
“She started bleeding.”
Everything inside Roman narrowed to one thought.
Go.
He drove.
No escort.
No plan.
Marco came anyway.
At St. Agnes, a nurse stopped Roman outside maternity.
“Mrs. Marino has restricted visitors.”
“I’m her husband.”
“She listed Mrs. Vivien Marino.”
Roman stared at his mother.
Vivien did not look triumphant.
Only sad.
“She asked for me.”
Roman sat in the hallway.
For three hours.
The most powerful men in New York called.
Roman ignored them.
Sabrina could be destroying his organization.
Bellandi could be moving men.
Anthony could be planning another attack.
Roman sat outside a hospital room because Elena had finally found a door he could not order open.
At midnight, Vivien came out.
“She’ll see you.”
Roman stood too fast.
Elena looked small in the hospital bed.
Pale.
No makeup.
Her stomach rose beneath the blanket.
Roman stopped near the door.
“Are you all right?”
“The bleeding stopped.”
“The baby?”
“Fine.”
He nodded.
Relief almost dropped him.
“Elena.”
“Don’t apologize.”
He froze.
“Not tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re afraid.”
Her eyes held his.
“Fear makes men promise things they mean for six hours.”
Roman said nothing.
She continued.
“If you want to apologize, do it when you’re not afraid I’m going to die.”
He sat.
Fair.
She looked exhausted.
Then asked:
“Why her?”
Roman’s chest tightened.
“Sabrina?”
“Yes.”
He could have lied.
Could have blamed distance.
Stress.
Work.
Anything.
Instead:
“She made me feel easy.”
Elena looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
“She agreed with me.”
A sad smile touched her mouth.
“Of course she did.”
“You challenged everything.”
“Because half your decisions were insane.”
“I know.”
“No. You know now.”
Roman lowered his head.
“You noticed things I didn’t want noticed.”
His voice became quieter.
“With Sabrina, I didn’t have to feel wrong.”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“So you punished me for knowing you.”
“Yes.”
That answer broke something open.
Elena looked away.
“When we were twenty-nine, you had fourteen hundred dollars.”
Roman swallowed.
“I remember.”
“You slept on a mattress on the floor.”
“Yes.”
“I sold my grandmother’s earrings so you could make payroll.”
“I know.”
“I lied to federal agents before we were even married.”
“Yes.”
“I spent nine years helping you build a life.”
Her voice cracked.
“Why wasn’t that enough?”
Roman’s eyes burned.
“You were enough.”
She laughed softly.
“That sentence is almost insulting now.”
“I was the one who wasn’t.”
She looked back.
Roman continued.
“I thought loyalty was something people owed me after I earned it once.”
His throat tightened.
“I didn’t understand I had to keep deserving it.”
Elena stared at him.
The silence lasted.
Then his phone buzzed.
Marco.
SABRINA LEFT ESTATE. CAMERAS DISABLED. TWO GUARDS MISSING.
A second message.
BELLANDI MEN MOVING ON THREE LOCATIONS.
Elena saw Roman’s face.
“What?”
He showed her.
She read.
Then went still.
“Oh no.”
“What?”
Elena pushed herself higher despite the monitor wires.
“Sabrina knows your emergency captains.”
“Yes.”
“She knows who controls each region.”
“Yes.”
“She isn’t running.”
Roman understood.
“She’s giving Bellandi the organization.”
Elena nodded.
May you like
“And if he has the captains’ names, he’ll know exactly who to hit first.”
Outside, somewhere across New York, the first Marino warehouse exploded.
