Chapter 10 - The Night I Thought I Lost Him
Roman survived.
The bullet passed through his shoulder.
No major artery.
No lung.
No spinal damage.
The surgeon used phrases like fortunate trajectory.
I used phrases the hospital chaplain probably pretended not to hear.
I sat beside his bed until sunrise.
Dad sat with Chloe down the hall.
He had a concussion but no serious injuries.
Preston was in custody.
For once, there was nothing I needed to fix immediately.
So I watched Roman breathe.
At six in the morning, his eyes opened.
“You look terrible.”
I started crying.
He frowned.
“That was a joke.”
“I know.”
“It wasn’t very good.”
“No.”
He shifted and immediately regretted it.
“Did they get him?”
“Yes.”
“Your father?”
“Safe.”
“Chloe?”
“Safe.”
He relaxed.
Then looked at me.
“You?”
I laughed through tears.
“Obviously not safe from emotionally constipated mafia bosses jumping in front of bullets.”
“I didn’t jump.”
“You walked dramatically.”
“That sounds more dignified.”
I took his hand.
“You scared me.”
His expression changed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.”
“For getting shot?”
“For making apologies sound reasonable.”
He smiled faintly.
Then silence settled.
I looked at our hands.
“When I thought you might die…”
Words failed.
Roman waited.
He never rescued me from sentences.
That was one of the things I had begun to love about him.
Love.
The word frightened me.
Maybe he saw it.
His thumb moved across my knuckles.
“You don’t owe me anything because I got shot.”
“I know.”
“Not affection.”
“I know.”
“Not loyalty.”
“Roman.”
“Not—”
I kissed him.
Very gently.
Because hospital.
Because bullet wound.
Because I needed him to stop talking.
When I pulled away, his eyes remained closed for half a second.
“That was manipulative.”
“Effective?”
“Extremely.”
Our first kiss was not fireworks.
It was quieter.
Better.
A choice.
Preston’s arrest changed public opinion overnight.
Video from the police operation leaked.
Not the gunshot.
Enough to show him holding me and refusing police orders.
Then investigators searched Kensington properties.
They found records connecting him to the DuPont warehouse fire.
Payments to the men who followed Chloe.
Financial documents proving deliberate sabotage of our company.
And files inherited from Charles Kensington.
Files about my mother.
Preston had known.
For years.
Charles wrote letters documenting Evelyn’s investigation.
One sentence destroyed any remaining possibility that Preston was ignorant:
If the DuPont girl ever learns what her mother owned, secure Northstar through marriage before her thirtieth birthday.
Preston had not fallen in love with me.
He had executed his father’s plan.
Maybe parts of our relationship were real.
I stopped caring which.
The truth was enough.
Roman remained hospitalized for four days.
On the fifth, he tried leaving without permission.
I caught him buttoning his shirt.
“What are you doing?”
“Leaving.”
“You have discharge papers?”
“I have a car.”
“That is not medically equivalent.”
He sighed.
“You’re becoming difficult.”
“Be grateful I’m not your wife.”
His eyes held mine.
Something passed between us.
I looked away.
Too soon.
Far too soon.
At DuPont Atlantic, the board unanimously confirmed me as permanent CEO.
Not because I was Robert DuPont’s daughter.
Because during the worst quarter in company history, our new contracts increased projected revenue by twenty-two percent.
That felt better than inheritance.
Northstar remained locked until my birthday.
But now I knew what I wanted to do with it.
Not sell.
Not surrender.
Build.
A modern harbor facility jointly operated by multiple companies under strict oversight.
No one family controlling everything.
Not DuPont.
Not Moretti.
Certainly not Kensington.
Roman read the proposal while recovering at his apartment.
“You reduced Moretti Maritime’s share.”
“Yes.”
“By nine percent.”
“Yes.”
“You kissed me four days ago.”
“That is not a recognized negotiating clause.”
He stared at me.
Then laughed.
A real laugh.
I had never heard it before.
I loved that too.
The investigation into my mother’s death reopened.
Malcolm Voss agreed to testify.
Charles was dead, so he could not be prosecuted.
Vincent Moretti was also gone.
But the public record would finally change.
Evelyn DuPont had not died because of bad weather.
She died because powerful men feared what she knew.
Dad struggled with that.
One evening we sat at the Gloucester house.
He held Mom’s final letter.
“I should have protected her.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have known.”
I understood that sentence too well.
“Dad.”
He looked at me.
“You spent years thinking keeping us financially safe mattered more than telling us the truth.”
His eyes lowered.
“Yes.”
“That hurt us.”
“I know.”
“But Preston made those choices. Not you.”
He cried.
So did I.
Forgiveness did not happen in one conversation.
But it began there.
Two weeks later, prosecutors offered Preston a deal.
He refused.
Of course.
He wanted a trial.
His attorneys announced he would prove that Roman orchestrated everything to seize Northstar.
Preston was still convinced he could control a room if enough people listened.
He had not learned.
Then Sofia called.
“There’s a problem.”
“What?”
“One of the key financial witnesses disappeared.”
“Who?”
A DuPont accountant named Henry Sloane.
He had records showing Kensington payments.
“When?”
“This morning.”
I felt the old fear.
Then Sofia added:
“And before disappearing, he transferred two million dollars from a Kensington account.”
Roman, sitting across from me with his arm in a sling, looked up.
“That doesn’t sound like a kidnapping.”
“No.”
I stared at the phone.
“It sounds like Henry was never our witness.”
Sofia agreed.
May you like
“He was Preston’s man.”
And if Henry had spent years inside DuPont Atlantic, then Preston’s sabotage went even deeper than we had discovered.
