Chapter 3 - WHY OWEN ASKED FOR SIENNA
Sienna stared at me.
“No.”
I nodded.
“Good.”
She blinked.
“You’re not going to tell me I have to?”
“No.”
Owen’s condition was his problem.
Not hers.
That seemed to surprise her.
Sienna had worked at the estate for four years.
Twenty-nine.
Widowed.
Quiet.
Efficient.
She cleaned rooms people assumed she did not understand.
That made her invisible.
I had learned invisible people often saw the most.
“Do you know Owen well?”
“No.”
“Has he ever approached you?”
Her expression changed slightly.
“A few times.”
“How?”
“Friendly.”
Too fast.
“Sienna.”
She looked toward the room where Elsie was coloring beside Nero.
Then lowered her voice.
“He asked about my husband.”
I frowned.
Sienna's husband, Michael Brooks, had died before she came to work for me.
Car accident, I thought.
“What about him?”
“He asked where Michael worked.”
“And?”
“I told him.”
“Where?”
Sienna looked at me.
“Romano Freight.”
Everything inside me stopped.
My company.
“Your husband worked for us?”
“Before Elsie was born.”
“What did he do?”
“Dispatch.”
I had thousands of employees.
I did not know every name.
That suddenly felt inadequate.
“How did he die?”
Sienna swallowed.
“His car went off an overpass.”
I remembered the incident.
Three years earlier.
A dispatch supervisor died after a late shift.
Police called it fatigue and winter conditions.
“What did Owen ask?”
“If Michael had ever brought home company papers.”
My skin prickled.
“What did you say?”
“No.”
“Was that true?”
Sienna looked away.
There.
“Mostly.”
“What does mostly mean?”
She sighed.
“After Michael died, I found a notebook in his work bag.”
“What kind?”
“Numbers.”
“Truck numbers.”
“Dates.”
“Initials.”
“I didn't understand it.”
“Where is it?”
“I threw it away.”
My instincts tightened.
Sienna saw.
“I had a three-month-old baby.”
“I was behind on rent.”
“I was trying to plan a funeral.”
“I didn't know I was supposed to preserve a notebook because maybe my husband had discovered a mafia conspiracy.”
Fair.
Then:
“But I kept one page.”
“Why?”
“Michael had written Elsie’s name on the back.”
She had folded it into a photograph album.
The page still existed.
Owen must believe she had more.
“What did the page contain?”
Sienna went home under police escort to retrieve it.
I stayed with Elsie.
An absurd sentence.
The head of one of Chicago’s most feared organizations sat at a kitchen table cutting apple slices for a three-year-old while a seventy-pound black dog watched me suspiciously.
Elsie pointed.
“Too big.”
I recut them.
Nero approved.
When Sienna returned, she carried a plastic sleeve.
The page contained six freight container numbers.
Dates.
Initials:
OG
Owen Gray.
VK
Victor Kane?
Victor’s face went pale when he saw.
“I wasn't here three years ago?”
He checked his employment date.
He had joined seven years ago.
So yes.
Could be him.
One notation:
B17 — medical / reroute / no scan
Medical.
Romano Freight transported medical supplies for charitable organizations.
I looked at Sienna.
“Did Michael say anything before he died?”
Her eyes filled.
“One thing.”
“What?”
“He said somebody was stealing from people who would never know enough to complain.”
That sentence landed.
Then she added:
“He told me if anything happened, don't trust the accident report.”
My stomach turned.
Sienna had been carrying that for three years.
“Why didn't you tell anyone?”
She laughed bitterly.
“Who?”
Fair again.
Police?
Maybe.
My company?
Potentially involved.
Me?
A name she knew from television as much as from payroll.
“Why take a job here?”
I asked.
Her face tightened.
“I didn't.”
“What?”
“I applied to a hotel.”
The Romano family office reassigned her.
After background screening.
To my estate.
I had never known.
Someone placed Michael Brooks’s widow inside my house.
Why?
To watch her?
Search her things?
Keep her close?
Owen requesting her now made more sense.
Sienna finally agreed to hear what Owen wanted.
Not alone.
Police interview room.
Attorney present.
I watched remotely with permission.
Owen Gray looked twenty years older than the man who managed my estate.
He saw Sienna.
Started crying.
“I’m sorry.”
She did not sit.
“For what?”
“Michael.”
My blood turned cold.
Sienna went completely still.
“You killed my husband?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I changed his route.”
“What route?”
“The night he died.”
Silence.
Owen said he had been operations supervisor at Romano Freight before moving to my estate.
Michael discovered certain medical-aid shipments were being redirected.
Boxes removed.
Replaced with lower-value goods.
High-value medications sold elsewhere.
Michael began documenting container numbers.
He told Owen.
Owen panicked.
Not because he ran the scheme.
Because he had signed several rerouting orders.
On instructions from above.
“Who?”
Sienna asked.
Owen shook.
“Victor Kane.”
Victor stood behind me in the monitoring room.
His face emptied.
Owen continued.
“Victor told me the shipments were security diversions.”
“I believed him.”
“At first.”
Then Michael started asking why charitable medical cargo needed no-scan routes.
Victor told Owen to send Michael on a late-night delivery.
Michael’s car crashed afterward.
Owen always suspected it was arranged.
“But you said nothing.”
Sienna’s voice was dead.
“I was scared.”
“You moved into Alessio’s estate.”
“Why?”
“To watch Victor.”
Victor shouted:
“That’s a lie!”
Police turned toward him.
I raised one hand.
He stopped.
Owen said he had slowly collected evidence.
Then, two months ago, he learned Victor was planning something connected to the winter gala.
He tried to access security systems.
Used Victor’s unattended tablet to see what files Victor was viewing.
Nero caught him near the service corridor.
Owen feared the dog would alert security.
So—
He drugged him.
My rage arrived so fast the room narrowed.
Owen cried.
“I wasn't trying to hurt him.”
“You injected my dog four times.”
“I needed him to stop recognizing me as a threat.”
Wrong.
Terrible.
But coherent.
“Why hire Gavin?”
“To make the aggression look medical.”
“So Nero would be removed before Friday.”
“Yes.”
I wanted to break the monitor.
Instead I asked through the interviewer:
“Why remove Nero?”
Owen looked into the camera.
He knew I was watching.
“Because Victor’s people won't enter if the dog is loose.”
Victor laughed.
“Convenient.”
Then Owen reached into his lawyer’s folder.
Produced a photograph.
Victor Kane.
Standing beside a man at a private airfield.
The other man:
My cousin, Carlo Romano.
The person who would inherit operational control of Romano Holdings if I died without a direct heir.
My stomach went cold.
Date:
Six weeks earlier.
Then another image.
Carlo handing Victor an envelope.
Another:
Victor entering a warehouse tied to the stolen medical shipments.
Victor stopped talking.
Police looked at him.
He stepped backward.
Then ran.
Wrong choice.
He made it twelve feet.
Officers took him down in the corridor.
No gunfire.
No dramatic execution.
Just cuffs.
Victor shouted:
“Owen is setting me up!”
Maybe.
Evidence would decide.
Then Owen said one last thing.
“The gala isn't the real target.”
I leaned toward the monitor.
The interviewer asked:
“What is?”
Owen looked directly into the camera.
“Alessio’s car.”
My blood chilled.
“Friday isn't when they plan to kill him.”
May you like
He swallowed.
“It’s when they plan to make him leave the estate.”
