Chapter 7 - The Price of Betrayal
Anthony Bellandi drove them to an abandoned veterinary clinic outside Hazleton.
Roman looked at the building.
“This is your safe house?”
Anthony shrugged.
“Elias knows every apartment, warehouse, hotel, and cabin our family owns.”
“So you picked a veterinarian.”
“No one in organized crime voluntarily goes somewhere that smells like wet Labrador.”
Natalie almost laughed.
Almost.
Inside, Anthony locked the doors.
The power still worked.
He cleared a stainless examination table.
Natalie made Roman lie down.
The bullet graze was superficial.
The abdominal wound was not.
He needed surgery.
Not immediately, perhaps.
But soon.
Anthony paced.
“I have a surgeon coming.”
Roman’s eyes snapped open.
“Who?”
“Dr. Mara Chen.”
“You involved Mara?”
“She patched you up after Baltimore.”
“She has two children.”
“And she also told me if I ever let you bleed to death because I was afraid to call her, she’d kill me herself.”
Natalie looked at Roman.
“I like her already.”
Roman ignored that.
Anthony saw the ledgers.
His expression changed.
“Are those—”
“Yes.”
Roman opened one.
“Thomas Reed kept records.”
Anthony glanced at Natalie.
“Your father?”
Natalie nodded.
Anthony’s face softened.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
He looked uncomfortable.
“Our family believed your father betrayed Roman’s dad.”
“I’ve been hearing that.”
Anthony rubbed his jaw.
“Vittorio never spoke badly about him. Other people did.”
“Elias?”
Anthony looked at Roman.
“Mostly Elias.”
Of course.
Natalie felt the story rearranging itself.
Elias had spent twelve years controlling what both families believed.
Thomas was a thief.
Vittorio was betrayed.
Roman’s father died three years later from a heart attack.
Nobody left alive could contradict Elias.
Until now.
Roman turned pages.
“Elias started laundering money through pharmaceutical distributors before Thomas died.”
Anthony leaned closer.
“This account still exists.”
“What?”
Anthony pointed.
“Northstar Medical Logistics.”
Natalie’s blood chilled.
She knew the name.
“Our hospital buys supplies from Northstar.”
Roman looked at her.
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“Medication?”
“Some. Surgical supplies. IV drugs. Pain medication.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
The counterfeit network had not merely survived.
It had become legitimate.
Anthony pulled out a laptop.
He searched corporate records through databases Natalie didn’t want to know how he accessed.
“Northstar is controlled by a holding company.”
“Which one?”
“Ward Capital Partners.”
Silence.
Roman leaned back.
“There it is.”
Natalie thought about the patients she had lost.
Families she had watched collapse in hospital hallways.
Maybe those deaths had passed through Elias Ward’s hands.
She felt sick.
Anthony continued searching.
Then his face changed.
“What?”
He rotated the computer.
A company payment register appeared.
Anthony pointed at a recurring consulting expense.
BROOKS AUTOMOTIVE SOLUTIONS.
Natalie stared.
“That’s Derek.”
“How much?” Roman asked.
Anthony calculated.
“Two hundred eighty thousand over eighteen months.”
Natalie sat down.
Derek had told family court he earned forty-eight thousand dollars a year.
He complained that child support was destroying him.
He showed up to custody hearings in a ten-year-old sedan and talked about financial hardship.
Meanwhile—
“Two hundred eighty thousand?”
Anthony nodded.
Roman’s expression hardened.
“What services?”
Anthony opened attachments.
“Transport. Vehicle acquisition. Temporary storage.”
Natalie understood.
Cars.
Unregistered vehicles.
Places to hide things.
Movement that looked ordinary.
“Derek supplied vehicles.”
“Yes.”
Anthony continued.
“Maybe more.”
A new record appeared.
LEGAL SERVICES — FAMILY MATTER.
Natalie’s chest tightened.
Payments.
Directly from a Ward subsidiary to Derek’s custody attorney.
She stopped breathing.
Roman looked at her.
“Natalie.”
She shook her head.
“The lawyer said Derek’s parents were helping.”
Anthony checked dates.
“The first payment happened two weeks before Derek filed for full custody.”
Natalie stood abruptly.
The chair toppled.
All the fear she had carried for a year transformed into rage.
The accusations.
The home inspections.
The psychological evaluation.
The nights Liam cried because a judge forced overnight visits he didn’t want.
The money Natalie borrowed.
The double shifts.
The move.
All of it.
Bought.
Orchestrated.
“Why?”
Roman said, “Leverage.”
She turned.
“Against who?”
“That’s what we need to determine.”
“My father was dead. I didn’t know about the ledgers.”
“Elias may not have known that.”
Anthony looked through more records.
“Maybe he thought Thomas gave them to you.”
Natalie remembered something.
“Sixteen months ago, someone broke into my apartment.”
Roman looked up.
“What was taken?”
“Nothing.”
Anthony and Roman exchanged glances.
“At least nothing I noticed,” Natalie corrected.
“Was it reported?”
“Yes.”
“What did police say?”
“Probably teenagers.”
Roman shook his head.
“They were searching.”
“For documents I didn’t have.”
“And when they found nothing, Elias needed control over you.”
Natalie stared at the custody payments.
“So he funded Derek.”
Anthony nodded slowly.
“Derek gets custody, Elias controls the parent with access to Liam.”
Natalie’s blood turned cold.
“Why would Liam matter?”
Roman looked toward the room where the boy slept beside Goliath.
“Because parents keep secrets from children.”
Natalie understood.
Elias believed that if Thomas had given Natalie something, she might have hidden it for Liam.
Anthony opened another file.
Then froze.
“Roman.”
“What?”
“This payment was made yesterday.”
“To who?”
Anthony stared at the screen.
“Derek.”
“How much?”
“One million dollars.”
Natalie couldn’t breathe.
“For what?”
Anthony opened the invoice.
No description.
Just a project code.
Roman read it.
GRAVEYARD.
Natalie’s knees weakened.
One million dollars.
Derek had sold them for one million dollars.
Not in panic.
Not accidentally.
Not because dangerous men cornered him.
For money.
Liam appeared in the doorway.
Nobody had heard him enter.
His face was pale.
“How much did Dad get?”
Natalie’s heart broke.
“Baby—”
“One million?”
Nobody answered.
Liam looked toward the screen.
Then at his mother.
“Did he sell me too?”
Natalie crossed the room and pulled him into her arms.
“No.”
“But they paid him because of us.”
“No.”
She held his face.
“Listen to me. Adults make choices because of who they are, not because of what children deserve.”
His eyes filled.
“Why doesn’t he want me?”
“He does.”
The lie almost escaped.
Natalie stopped.
No more lies.
“He wants things from you,” she whispered. “That is not the same as loving you the way you deserve.”
Liam began crying.
Natalie held him.
Roman looked away.
Anthony did too.
Goliath walked over and pressed against Liam’s back.
After a few minutes, Dr. Mara Chen arrived.
She was small, sharp-eyed, and furious.
Her first words to Roman were, “You look terrible.”
His answer was, “Good to see you too.”
She examined him.
Then looked at Natalie’s work.
“Who packed this?”
“I did.”
Mara nodded.
“You saved his life.”
Roman said, “I told her.”
Mara looked at Natalie.
“He usually takes longer to admit when someone else was useful.”
“Good to know.”
Mara prepared for a minor emergency procedure using equipment Anthony had somehow acquired.
Roman looked at Natalie before sedation.
“If something happens—”
“No.”
“Natalie.”
“You don’t get a dramatic death speech.”
“I wasn’t giving one.”
“You absolutely were.”
Roman’s mouth curved.
“Fine.”
Mara sedated him.
The procedure took almost two hours.
No major organs had been punctured.
The blade had damaged muscle and caused significant blood loss, but Roman would live.
When Mara finally finished, dawn had turned the windows gray.
Anthony approached Natalie.
“There’s something else.”
Of course there was.
He held out a burner phone.
A video had arrived.
Natalie pressed play.
Derek appeared.
He was standing in front of her father’s cabin.
Elias stood beside him.
Derek looked directly at the camera.
“Natalie, you have until noon.”
Her skin crawled.
Elias entered the frame.
“We want the ledgers.”
He smiled.
“If you refuse, Derek will file an emergency custody petition this morning claiming you abducted Liam during a psychotic episode and fled with a violent criminal.”
Natalie stared.
Elias continued.
“The paperwork is already prepared. Witnesses are ready. Law enforcement contacts are ready.”
Anthony whispered, “Jesus.”
Elias smiled toward the camera.
“At noon, every police department in Pennsylvania will be looking for Natalie Brooks.”
A pause.
“And they will believe Roman Bellandi kidnapped her son.”
The video ended.
Natalie looked toward Liam.
Roman lay unconscious on the surgical table.
Derek had already helped bury one man.
May you like
Now he intended to bury Natalie beneath something harder to escape than dirt.
A lie everyone was prepared to believe.
