Chapter 3 - NICHOLAS’S LAST MESSAGE
Roman did not move me into his bedroom.
That probably sounds like a small detail.
It was not.
The wedding contract had reduced marriage to control before we ever said our vows.
Roman seemed determined not to repeat Charles’s mistake.
I received a separate suite in his Gold Coast residence.
My own key.
No staff entered without permission.
Olivia took the room across from mine.
For three nights, I slept with a chair beneath my doorknob anyway.
On the fourth morning, Roman noticed.
He did not mention it.
That afternoon, a locksmith arrived and installed a deadbolt that could only be opened from inside.
I almost cried.
I hated him slightly for understanding.
The investigation into Whitmore Transportation expanded quickly.
Elena’s auditors discovered assets moving through shell companies.
Nothing dramatic by itself.
A warehouse sold below value.
Contracts reassigned.
Insurance liabilities transferred.
Together, they formed a pattern.
Charles had spent months preparing for collapse.
The marriage was supposed to place Roman directly beneath part of that collapse.
“He expected you to become responsible for cleaning it up,” I said.
Roman stared at the financial map across his conference table.
“He expected me to be too angry at you to notice.”
That was exactly my father’s style.
Give two enemies reasons to hate each other.
Then stand behind whichever one survives.
Roman’s investigators also recovered Nicholas’s old phone backup.
The device itself had been damaged.
Most records were ordinary.
Messages.
Photographs.
Restaurant reservations.
Then they found a voice memo.
Created forty-seven minutes before Nicholas entered the warehouse.
Roman listened alone first.
Afterward, he came to find me.
His face looked wrong.
Too still.
“Evelyn.”
I stood.
“What happened?”
“I need you to hear something.”
The recording began with Nicholas breathing hard while traffic moved nearby.
Then Charles’s voice came through a phone speaker.
“You have the wrong entrance.”
My skin turned cold.
Nicholas answered:
“Roman said east loading.”
“Roman doesn’t know the building. I do.”
“Security?”
“Gone until midnight.”
A pause.
Then Charles:
“If you want the ledger, use the north side. Third office.”
The recording ended.
Roman stood beside the window.
“He redirected him.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know?”
“No.”
He nodded.
Not because he doubted me.
Because he needed to ask.
I understood.
“What was at the north side?”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“A crew Charles never mentioned.”
I did not need more detail.
“Nicholas believed him.”
“Yes.”
“Why would Dad give him the ledger?”
“He didn’t.”
Roman looked at the city.
“There was no ledger there.”
It had been bait.
Charles had not simply failed to protect Nicholas.
He had directed him toward danger while promising evidence that did not exist.
Roman had spent six months dismantling Charles’s businesses because of that lie.
But there was still a problem.
A voice recording proved Charles misdirected Nicholas.
It did not necessarily prove he intended Nicholas to die.
Roman knew that.
His restraint impressed me more than rage would have.
“We prove what we can,” he said.
The phrase sounded familiar.
I had lived by a version of it for years.
That evening Olivia found me in the kitchen.
“Roman scares me less now.”
I smiled faintly.
“That may be because he stopped threatening us.”
“He never threatened me.”
“Low bar.”
She sat on the counter.
“Do you like him?”
“No.”
She grinned.
“That was fast.”
“I’ve known him four days.”
“You married him.”
“Technicality.”
Olivia laughed.
Then the laughter disappeared.
“Dad called.”
My body reacted before my mind did.
“What?”
“He used somebody else’s phone.”
“What did he say?”
“That I have to come home.”
“No.”
“I told him no.”
I stared at her.
Olivia looked terrified.
But proud.
“He said you were poisoning me.”
“Of course.”
“He said you’ve always been unstable.”
That word.
Charles loved that word.
Dramatic.
Unstable.
Sensitive.
Difficult.
Different labels for the same strategy.
Make the injured person sound unreliable before anyone asks why she is injured.
“What else?”
Olivia hesitated.
“He said Roman will get bored protecting you.”
That hurt because it was probably what Charles believed.
“And then?”
Olivia looked at me.
“He said when that happens, you’ll have nowhere left to go.”
Roman’s voice came from the doorway.
“She’ll have somewhere.”
Neither of us had heard him arrive.
I stood.
“You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.”
His eyes met mine.
“I can keep that one.”
I hated the warmth that moved through me.
This was not a romance.
Not yet.
Maybe never.
He had still married me as punishment.
He had still looked at me at the altar and seen an instrument.
Changed behavior did not erase origin.
Roman seemed to know it.
He never asked me to forgive him.
That helped.
The next breakthrough came from my photograph of the ledger.
A forensic accountant enhanced the page enough to identify several handwritten initials.
One set belonged to a private security company Charles used.
Another appeared beside the warehouse number.
M.R.
I recognized them.
“Malcolm Reed.”
Roman frowned.
“Who?”
“My father’s chief of staff.”
Malcolm had worked for Charles since I was twelve.
He controlled access to the mansion.
Staff schedules.
Drivers.
Security cameras.
When Charles locked my bedroom door from outside, Malcolm was often the man who brought breakfast the next morning and pretended not to notice.
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“He knew.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
Malcolm disappeared before investigators could question him.
His company phone went dead.
His apartment was empty.
Then Elena discovered a flight reservation purchased under his name.
International departure.
The next morning.
Roman could have sent men.
Instead he called investigators already working the Whitmore financial case.
Malcolm was stopped before boarding.
No violence.
No spectacle.
Just two officers and a warrant.
He asked for a lawyer immediately.
Then he asked a stranger question.
“Does Charles know you found Nicholas’s recording?”
When Roman told me, my stomach tightened.
“Why would that matter?”
“We’re about to find out.”
Malcolm negotiated for limited cooperation.
His first statement lasted three hours.
He admitted Charles knew Nicholas would not find the ledger at the warehouse.
He admitted Charles had deliberately altered the security information he gave Roman’s family.
Then Malcolm said something neither of us expected.
Nicholas had not been the original target.
Roman leaned forward.
“Who was?”
Malcolm looked toward the investigators.
Then answered:
“Evelyn.”
Roman turned toward me.
I stopped breathing.
Malcolm explained that five months earlier, Charles discovered someone had photographed pages from the black ledger.
He did not know who.
At first.
Then he checked household camera access.
My phone had connected to the study Wi-Fi at the exact time one photograph was taken.
My father had known.
For months.
The wedding had never simply been a way to save his businesses.
May you like
Charles had been looking for somewhere to put the daughter who had begun collecting evidence against him.
And Nicholas’s death had occurred in the middle of his attempt to find out exactly what I knew.
