Chapter 15 - THE ARREST
Victor did not run.
That shocked everyone.
Mateo told him to disappear.
Adrian suggested delaying until lawyers arrived.
Dominic had three vehicles prepared within five minutes.
Victor ignored all of them.
“If I run, Gabriel wins.”
He put on his jacket.
I followed him.
“Elise.”
“No.”
“You’re staying.”
“You’re going to be arrested for murdering your wife, and you think I’m going to sit here?”
“Yes.”
“Then you still don’t know me.”
Something almost like pride crossed his face.
The federal agents met us outside the Romano estate.
Cameras already lined the street.
Another leak.
Victor stepped from the SUV.
Immediately reporters shouted.
“Victor! Did you kill Sofia?”
“Elise, did you know about the investigation?”
“Is the engagement fake?”
I stood beside him.
Victor leaned closer.
“You can walk away.”
“I know.”
“You should.”
“I know.”
I didn’t.
An agent approached.
“Victor Romano?”
“Yes.”
“You’re under arrest in connection with the murder of Sofia Romano.”
Handcuffs clicked around his wrists.
Leo was not there.
Thank God.
Victor looked at me once before they put him inside the vehicle.
Not fear.
An instruction.
Protect Leo.
I understood.
The evidence against Victor was devastating.
A new witness claimed Victor and Sofia had argued the afternoon she died.
Financial records showed Victor increased life insurance on her three months earlier.
Security footage showed someone wearing Victor’s coat near the garage where the bombed vehicle had been parked.
Worst of all, a recording surfaced.
Victor’s voice.
“If Sofia betrays me, she’s dead.”
The recording was real.
But context mattered.
Victor remembered saying it during a conversation about a business betrayal years earlier.
Gabriel had edited the surrounding discussion.
The prosecutor did not care.
Public opinion cared even less.
By evening, Victor Romano was a wife killer.
I sat in Dominic’s apartment watching television headlines until I wanted to throw the remote through the screen.
Caleb took it away.
“Good call,” I muttered.
Leo sat beside me.
“When is Daddy coming home?”
I forced a smile.
“Soon.”
“Promise?”
The word hurt.
“I promise we’re going to help him.”
Leo thought about that.
“Can I help?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
I hugged him.
“By eating dinner.”
He sighed dramatically.
Apparently pasta was a greater threat than gunmen.
Later that night, Adrian arrived carrying Sofia’s files.
“We need to prove Gabriel planted the evidence.”
“Where is he?”
“Gone.”
“Evelyn?”
“With Mateo.”
“Can we trust her?”
Adrian sat down.
“I don’t know.”
Great.
I looked through Sofia’s documents.
Dates.
Payments.
Photographs.
Then I noticed a name repeated on three receipts.
HARRIS STORAGE.
“What’s this?”
Adrian looked.
“Storage company.”
“Why did Sofia pay them?”
“Maybe a unit.”
We searched.
There was no unit number.
But there was a handwritten reference.
L-214.
Caleb looked over my shoulder.
“Locker?”
I froze.
“Hospital.”
“What?”
“Mercy Hospital uses L numbers for long-term medical archive lockers.”
Adrian stared.
“How do you know?”
“I interned there.”
Of course.
Everything led back to Mercy Hospital.
We went at midnight.
Not legally.
I decided not to ask how Adrian got us inside.
Locker L-214 sat in an old records basement.
Locked.
Adrian reached for tools.
I tried Sofia’s small key.
The one from the bookcase.
It opened.
Inside was a metal box.
Documents.
Photographs.
And a video tape.
Caleb held it up.
“Do people still own these?”
“Apparently dead mafia wives do.”
We found an old playback machine in an archive office.
The footage showed the Romano garage.
Date stamped the day Sofia died.
A man entered.
Wearing Victor’s coat.
But he turned toward the camera.
Gabriel.
Clear face.
He placed something beneath the passenger seat of Sofia’s vehicle.
I stopped breathing.
“We have him.”
Adrian grabbed his phone.
Then the video continued.
Sofia entered the garage.
She saw Gabriel.
They argued.
No audio.
Then Sofia pointed toward the camera.
She knew it was recording.
Gabriel looked up.
His face clearly visible.
He left.
Sofia approached the camera.
She held up a handwritten card.
VICTOR DID NOT DO THIS.
Then another.
GABRIEL THINKS I WILL TAKE THE CAR.
Another.
I WILL.
I gasped.
“She knew the bomb was there?”
Adrian stared.
Sofia’s final card appeared.
IF I RUN, HE GOES AFTER LEO.
Victor’s wife had entered that car knowing she might die.
Not because she was careless.
Because she believed Gabriel would target Leo otherwise.
My eyes filled.
“She sacrificed herself.”
Adrian looked sick.
“We need this to the authorities.”
I nodded.
Then every light in the basement went out.
Caleb whispered, “Please tell me that’s normal.”
“It’s not.”
A voice came from the darkness.
“You should have left the locker closed.”
Gabriel.
Adrian pushed us behind a cabinet.
“Run.”
Gunfire erupted.
We crawled through rows of storage shelves.
Caleb stayed close.
Gabriel’s voice echoed.
“You were never supposed to find that tape, Elise.”
“Maybe stop leaving evidence everywhere!”
Even in terror, sarcasm survived.
Adrian fired toward the far wall.
“Service stairs!”
We reached them.
Locked.
Caleb grabbed a fire extinguisher and smashed the emergency panel.
Alarm bells erupted.
Sprinklers activated.
Gabriel’s men shouted.
We made it upstairs.
Hospital security flooded the corridor.
Gabriel disappeared.
But we had the tape.
Within twelve hours, prosecutors dropped the murder accusation against Victor pending formal review.
He walked out of federal custody at noon.
I waited across the street.
He saw me.
Stopped.
Then crossed through reporters without answering a single question.
When he reached me, he looked at the bandage on my elbow.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Elise.”
“Small issue.”
“You were shot at.”
“Technically the shelves were shot at.”
His eyes closed.
“You are impossible.”
“Welcome home.”
He pulled me into his arms.
Cameras exploded with flashes.
This time I did not care.
Victor whispered against my hair.
“I thought I lost you.”
“You didn’t.”
Then he pulled back.
“Gabriel?”
“Gone.”
His face hardened.
“But we have proof.”
“Not enough.”
“What do you mean?”
Victor looked toward the estate.
“He doesn’t want to kill us one at a time anymore.”
“How do you know?”
Victor handed me a photograph found inside his jail cell that morning.
It showed Leo asleep.
Taken the previous night.
Inside Dominic’s supposedly secure apartment.
On the back, Gabriel had written:
ONE HOUSE.
May you like
ONE FAMILY.
ONE FUNERAL.
