Chapter 12 - The Secret in the Safe and the Ledger of the Past
Later that afternoon, Roman summoned Nora to his private study on the ground floor of the main house.
Unlike the clinical, heavily guarded fortress it had been before the fire, the room now felt lived-in and warm, filled with the rich aroma of roasted coffee beans and leather-bound books.
Roman sat behind his massive oak desk, wearing a charcoal dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing the pale, healing scars across his skin where the cedar shed’s flames had licked at his arms.
As Nora walked in, carrying a fresh portfolio of security audits, Roman looked up from a thick, vintage leather ledger that looked decades old.
“Close the door, Nora,” he instructed quietly.
She closed the heavy oak panel behind her and walked over to the desk, laying the security audit down before pausing to look at the vintage book resting between his hands.
“What’s that?” she asked, tilting her head.
“My father’s personal journal,” Roman said, his voice dropping into a rare, contemplative register.
“He started writing in it the year we immigrated from Sicily. Back when the DeLuca name didn't mean Westchester mansions and multi-million-dollar shipping lines—back when it meant working seventy-hour weeks on the docks of East Boston just to put bread on the table.”
Roman opened the yellowed pages, running his thumb along the margin of a handwritten entry in Italian.
“Why are you looking at this now?” Nora asked, sitting down in the leather armchair opposite his desk.
“Because cleaning house after Julian Cross and Frank Marcone made me realize something,” Roman said, lifting his dark eyes to meet hers.
“For twenty years, I spent my entire life building walls. I surrounded myself with bodyguards, lawyers, and encrypted security grids because I believed that if I let anyone get close to me, they would use it as a weapon against my family.”
He paused, a faint, self-deprecating smile touching his lips.
“And then, a three-year-old girl in one pink sock dragged a garden hose across my lawn, and a widowed maid with a pair of pruning shears walked straight into a burning building to cut me loose.”
Nora felt her heart skip a beat.
“We didn't do it because we were brave, Roman,” she whispered.
“We did it because you were stuck.”
“Which brings me to why I called you in here,” Roman said, reaching over to pull a heavy, brass-bound metal box from the open bottom drawer of his desk.
He placed it on the polished wood surface between them and slid it across toward her.
“What’s in the box?” Nora asked, frowning as she reached out to lift the latch.
“Everything,” Roman answered simply.
“The primary deeds to the Westchester estate. The portfolio for the DeLuca Foundation trusts. The security access codes that override every single terminal in this house, including the ones in my private vault.”
Nora’s eyes widened in sheer astonishment. She pulled her hands back as if the box were electrified.
“Roman, no. I can’t take this. This is your entire empire—!”
“It’s not my empire anymore, Nora,” Roman corrected, his voice ringing with absolute, unshakeable finality.
“It’s our empire. Legally, structurally, and personally.”
May you like
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the desk, his dark gaze locking onto hers with an intensity that made the rest of the world vanish.
“I’m not giving you a job promotion, Nora. I’m giving you my name, my house, and my life. If you’re willing to take a chance on a man whose hands are stained with more than just woodsmoke.”
