Chapter 2 - THE LIFE ROMAN MANAGED FOR ME
Christmas morning began with me vomiting into Lena’s sink.
Pregnancy.
Stress.
Possibly both.
Sophia held my hair.
“This is glamorous.”
I muttered.
“You married a Mafia boss.”
“You chose glamour years ago.”
I laughed weakly.
Then cried again.
Hormones had apparently formed a union.
Lena checked the baby.
Heart rate good.
My blood pressure had improved.
“No labor.”
She said.
“Yet.”
I looked around the apartment.
“What now?”
Sophia answered before Lena.
“Breakfast.”
Practical women saved civilization.
We ate toast.
At 9:00 a.m., Lena left for the hospital.
At 9:13, an attorney called me.
Not Roman’s.
Mine.
Claire Donnelly.
I had met Claire three years earlier at a museum fundraiser. She handled high-asset divorces and family trusts and had once told me over champagne:
“If you ever need my number professionally, memorize it before somebody else controls your phone.”
At the time I laughed.
Apparently every smart woman in Chicago had been trying to warn me in sentences I filed under dramatic.
Claire arrived by noon.
No makeup.
Wool coat.
Legal pad.
She looked at my stomach.
“Before we discuss marriage, do you feel safe?”
“Yes.”
“From Roman physically?”
“Yes.”
That answer mattered.
Roman had never hit me.
Never threatened me physically.
Never shouted close enough to make me afraid he would.
His violence belonged to other rooms.
That did not make our marriage healthy.
“Do you believe he would force you to return?”
I thought of the security gates.
“No.”
Then reconsidered.
“I don’t know.”
Better.
Claire wrote it down.
“Do you have independent money?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“I…”
I stopped.
Embarrassment burned.
“I don’t actually know.”
“Okay.”
No judgment.
“Accounts?”
“Joint investment accounts.”
“One checking account in my name.”
“How much?”
“Maybe twenty thousand.”
She pulled up the bank website.
I logged in.
Balance:
$2,416.
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
Three large transfers had occurred in November.
VASCARI FAMILY OFFICE – CONSOLIDATION
I had not authorized them.
Or perhaps I had.
Some form buried in annual paperwork.
Claire looked at me.
“Did Roman steal your money?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
“I don’t know.”
That became the phrase of the day.
I didn’t know.
Because Roman managed everything.
Because he called it security.
Because men at the family office explained documents while I signed.
Because if I asked a question, someone said:
“Roman has already handled it.”
Claire began requesting records.
My personal checking.
Investment accounts.
Property titles.
Trusts.
Insurance.
Healthcare directives.
Security agreements.
Then she found the first document that made me physically cold.
VASCARI PROTECTED FAMILY CONTINUITY PROTOCOL.
Signed four years earlier.
After a bomb exploded beneath one of Roman’s company vehicles.
I remembered that month.
Roman sleeping with a gun inside the bedside table.
Security doubled.
A man photographed me leaving my design studio.
Roman begged me to stop working temporarily.
I did.
The temporary pause became permanent.
The protocol authorized the Vascari family security office to implement emergency relocation measures if a credible threat existed against me or our future children.
Reasonable in context.
Then:
Travel may be restricted pending security clearance during active threat conditions.
Another:
Primary protected individual agrees not to disable tracking systems during designated alert periods.
My signature.
I stared.
“I signed this.”
“You did.”
“I don’t remember this language.”
“Did you have your own attorney?”
“Roman’s lawyer explained it.”
Claire’s face said enough.
Another document.
Limited financial power of attorney for “security continuity.”
Another.
Authorization for the family office to consolidate cash accounts during threats.
That explained my missing money.
A threat level had been raised three weeks earlier.
Without anyone telling me.
“Why was there a threat alert?”
Claire asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Celeste?”
“Maybe unrelated.”
The phone I had switched off suddenly felt heavier.
There was a whole security reality around my life nobody had bothered to explain.
I had signed the architecture of my own cage during a moment when I was terrified.
Roman had maintained it long after the terror faded.
Claire said:
“You can revoke these.”
“All of them?”
“Some immediately.”
“Some require notice.”
“Security agreements are not prison orders.”
“You remain an adult.”
I almost cried from the stupidity of needing a lawyer to say that.
We revoked the financial power.
The tracking consent.
Travel restrictions.
Emergency relocation authority.
Then Claire asked about my career.
“What did you do before marriage?”
“I’m still married.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I was an architect.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“Licensed?”
“Yes.”
“Commercial interiors and restoration.”
“You worked?”
“I had a small firm with my friend Molly.”
“What happened?”
I laughed.
“Roman happened.”
Not entirely fair.
But close.
After the security incident, I left the office.
Then we renovated the estate.
Then fertility treatments.
Then miscarriage.
Then another.
Then this pregnancy.
Life narrowed.
I told myself I had chosen every step.
Maybe I had.
But choices made inside fear deserved reexamining.
My phone remained off.
At 2:00 p.m., Sophia’s phone rang.
Paul.
She looked at me.
I nodded.
She answered on speaker.
“Sophia.”
“Is she safe?”
“Yes.”
Roman’s voice was not on the line.
Paul.
“Is the baby safe?”
“Yes.”
“Does she need anything?”
“No.”
Pause.
“Roman has not slept.”
Sophia looked at me.
I felt nothing comforting about that.
“Tell him to sleep.”
I said.
Paul became silent.
Then:
“He heard you.”
Of course Roman was beside him.
I closed my eyes.
“Paul, do not put him on.”
“I won’t.”
Good.
Then Roman spoke anyway from farther away.
“I’m sorry.”
I froze.
Paul swore quietly.
“Roman—”
I answered.
“Sorry for what?”
Silence.
Good question.
“The affair.”
Roman said.
“Lying.”
“Leaving.”
“Making you think you imagined it.”
My throat tightened.
“And?”
He hesitated.
He did not yet know.
The accounts.
Tracking.
Security protocol.
Career.
“And what?”
He asked.
I laughed without humor.
“That’s the problem.”
Then I ended the call.
Three hours later Celeste Armand requested to speak with me.
I nearly threw Sophia’s phone.
Then I accepted.
Not because I wanted an apology.
Because I wanted information.
Celeste sounded exhausted.
“I’m not calling to ask forgiveness.”
“Good.”
“I’m calling because Roman lied to me too.”
“Join the line.”
She accepted that.
“How long?”
I asked.
“Five months.”
Physical affair.
Five months.
Not one kiss.
“Did he tell you he was leaving me?”
“No.”
That surprised me.
“What did he tell you?”
“That he loved you.”
My stomach twisted.
Celeste continued.
“He said he would never leave you while you were pregnant.”
“Comforting.”
“I know.”
“Why continue?”
Silence.
Then:
“Because I wanted him anyway.”
At least no mythology.
“Did he love you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he say it?”
“No.”
That should not have mattered.
It did.
I hated that it did.
“Why Christmas Eve?”
Celeste hesitated.
“Because I told him it ended that night.”
“What?”
“I was done being something hidden.”
“I asked him to come tell me whether he intended to continue after the baby was born.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“And?”
“He came.”
Of course.
“I kissed him.”
“I saw.”
“He held me.”
“I saw.”
“He told me he couldn’t promise anything.”
That sounded like Roman.
Possession without decision.
“He left?”
“After eleven.”
“Did you sleep together?”
“No.”
“Other nights?”
“Yes.”
Truth.
Painful.
Clean.
Then Celeste said:
“There’s something else you should know.”
I almost laughed.
Everyone in my life had recently acquired that sentence.
“What?”
“Roman is trying to leave part of the Vascari organization.”
I frowned.
“What part?”
“The illegal part.”
Silence.
“He hired me to structure the legitimate holdings.”
So her consulting role was real.
And the affair was real.
Both.
Celeste explained Roman had spent eighteen months moving construction, logistics and real-estate assets into independently audited companies.
He intended to shut down unlicensed lending and private gambling operations after the baby was born.
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“I asked him that.”
“What did he say?”
“That knowing would put you at risk.”
There it was.
Again.
Protection.
Control.
“Was there a threat against me three weeks ago?”
Celeste became silent.
“Yes.”
My blood cooled.
“From whom?”
“Roman’s uncle Domenic.”
I knew the name.
Everyone did.
Domenic Vascari had helped raise Roman after his father died.
Old-school.
Brutal.
“He thinks Roman going legitimate will destroy the family.”
“What did he threaten?”
“I don’t know exact language.”
“Try.”
Celeste exhaled.
“He said Roman was forgetting that wives and children are what make powerful men cooperative.”
My free hand went to my stomach.
Now the security alert made sense.
Roman increased tracking.
Moved my money.
Probably doubled guards.
And told me nothing.
“He thought he was protecting you.”
Celeste said.
I almost screamed.
Instead:
“Stop explaining him to me.”
“You’re right.”
She was quiet.
Then:
“I’m sorry.”
“For sleeping with my husband?”
“Yes.”
“For helping him hide it?”
“Yes.”
“For knowing there was a threat to me that I didn’t know about?”
A longer silence.
“Yes.”
Good.
I ended the call.
Sophia looked at me.
“What now?”
I stared at the snow outside.
Roman had cheated.
Roman had lied.
Roman had also been trying to dismantle the world that made lies feel necessary.
That complicated him.
It did not excuse him.
I put my hand over my daughter.
“What now?”
I repeated.
Then I looked at Claire.
“I want every decision about my life back in my name before this baby is born.”
She nodded.
“Good.”
And for the first time since I left the estate, I stopped thinking about whether Roman could earn me back.
May you like
I started thinking about who I had been before I learned to ask permission for my own life.
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