Chapter 9 - What the Storm Revealed
The second storm arrived on a Thursday, strong enough to shut down ferries and turn the harbor into a wall of white water. Inside Naomi's office, the weather mattered less than the sudden realization that a senior police official might be watching their movements. Her team documented Gabriel's phone without answering it, moved the witnesses to separate secure locations, and contacted federal authorities through channels Pell could not easily control. Sienna had wanted justice to feel like acceleration. Instead, it felt like learning to stop before every door.
Roman did not sleep. Neither did Sienna. At four in the morning, they found each other in the legal office's small kitchen, each holding a cup of coffee that had gone cold. The fluorescent light made Roman look younger and more exhausted than he ever did beneath the chandeliers. Sienna asked what he remembered of his father. It was a dangerous question, but she needed to understand how a man could love someone and still confront his failings.
“He made me take sailing lessons even though I got seasick,” Roman said. “He said nobody with our name should be afraid of the water. My mother told him that was the stupidest thing she'd heard in her life.”
Sienna smiled. “What happened?”
“I threw up on his shoes, and he canceled the lessons. He took me for ice cream instead.” Roman stared into his cup. “I knew he was ruthless with people outside the family. I convinced myself that what he did at work had nothing to do with the father who drove me home.”
“Michael told me honesty was everything. But he kept secrets that got him killed.” She paused. “Maybe our parents were people instead of lessons. Maybe that's all we can afford to let them be.”
Roman reached across the counter and covered her hand with his. There was no announcement, no promise, only a moment of quiet agreement. Sienna allowed herself to hold on. When his phone vibrated, they moved apart reluctantly, and she felt the loss of the contact as an unpleasantly clear fact.
Naomi had received news from a federal investigator: the mechanic's statement matched archived vehicle inspections, and financial investigators had connected Gabriel's consultancy to payments routed through Pell's relatives. A formal inquiry was underway. But the same investigator warned that Marcus had scheduled a public news conference alleging that Roman diverted charitable funds for his private use. He also planned to reveal that Roman had employed Michael's daughter under a false pretense. The story would be designed to destroy their credibility before authorities could announce anything.
Roman could have counterattacked with threats, planted stories, or the private intimidation his organization had once used without hesitation. Instead, he attended the news conference accompanied by Naomi and an independent company director. He acknowledged that Castellion Freight required a full forensic audit, temporarily stepped aside from executive authority, and publicly committed to making the company's records available to investigators. He did not declare himself innocent of every impropriety. He said he would answer for his own choices and expected everyone else to do the same.
Marcus watched the announcement from his office and shattered a glass against the wall. Roman knew because David received a message from one of Marcus's frightened assistants, who had watched the broadcast beside him. For five years, Marcus had expected his nephew to defend the family name even when defending it required lying. Roman's public statement did the one thing Marcus had not anticipated. It gave other employees permission to come forward.
By evening, three former Castellion accountants had contacted Naomi. One supplied copies of pension statements. Another remembered Gabriel ordering records destroyed after Michael vanished. The third had a photograph of Marcus meeting Anthony Pell behind the courthouse a week before Elena died. None of the evidence was sufficient alone. Together, it made the conspiracy harder to dismiss as Roman's personal vendetta.
Sienna returned briefly to the manor to collect the last of her belongings from the staff wing, accompanied by David and two officers. Her small room looked different without the uniform hanging from its hook. She had slept here while listening through vents for conversations that might save her father's name. She had imagined leaving in triumph. Now she understood that recovery seldom arrives on the schedule people deserve.
On her pillow lay a new envelope. She opened it with gloved hands provided by the officers. Inside was a photograph of herself with Roman in the office kitchen, taken through the window that very morning. The accompanying note read: HE WILL CHOOSE HIS FAMILY OVER YOU. THEY ALWAYS DO. A second sheet listed the address of a seaside cottage her mother had once rented, a place that appeared nowhere in Sienna's current records. Whoever sent the package knew far too much.
Roman arrived before the officers finished photographing the evidence. Sienna held the note toward him. “I used to think they were following me because I was close to the truth,” she said. “Now I think they're following me because they can't decide whether I'm more useful alive.”
Roman wanted to keep her at the manor under constant guard. She refused. “I will not live in a beautiful prison while the people who killed my father get to walk around free.” It frightened him that she was right. After a long discussion, they agreed on a protected apartment where Sienna would make her own decisions and receive updates directly from Naomi, not filtered through Roman.
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The next morning, Naomi called to report that a search warrant had been issued for Gabriel's consultancy. Investigators had found records connecting Marcus to the three deaths. Roman heard the news while standing beside Sienna on the apartment balcony. For a moment, the truth seemed finally within reach. Then Sienna's phone rang from the seaside cottage's landline—an old number she had not dialed in years. She answered and heard a woman whisper, “Your father left one last recording. Marcus is on his way here. If you want it, come before he does.”
Sienna knew the voice. It was Dr. Voss's wife, the woman who had once worked in the hospital where Elena Castellion died. And for the first time, she was offering to testify.
