Chapter 21 - Leo Comes Home
Roman wanted to send an extraction team.
Clara wanted Leo on the first commercial flight home.
Leo refused both.
“I am not being smuggled out of Switzerland in a cargo jet,” he said over encrypted video.
Roman’s expression suggested cargo transport remained an option.
Clara leaned toward the screen.
“Leo.”
“I’m serious.”
“Someone put a target over your photograph.”
“Yes, and I have security.”
Roman spoke.
“Two men.”
Leo blinked.
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
“They’re very large.”
“They’re inadequate.”
Adrian covered a smile.
Leo noticed him.
“Who is that?”
“My brother,” Roman said.
Leo stared.
“Excuse me?”
Clara sighed.
“It has been a complicated week.”
Leo returned voluntarily twenty-four hours later.
Roman greeted him at the estate with eighteen guards.
Leo stepped from the armored vehicle.
“You look terrible.”
Roman raised an eyebrow.
“Hello to you too.”
Leo hugged Clara fiercely.
Then met Adrian.
Within ten minutes, the two doctors were discussing medicine like old friends.
Roman watched from across the room.
Clara nudged him.
“Jealous?”
“No.”
“You’re jealous.”
“I have nothing to be jealous of.”
“They both know what a spleen does.”
“I know what a spleen does.”
Clara grinned.
“What?”
Roman looked irritated.
“It bleeds excessively when shot.”
She laughed.
For an hour, the estate felt almost normal.
Then the power failed.
Everyone froze.
Emergency generators activated immediately.
Marcus entered.
“Not an attack. Utility grid failure.”
Roman remained suspicious.
Five minutes later, every phone in the estate received the same emergency notification.
Breaking news.
An explosion had struck the Kessler Foundation headquarters in Chicago.
Twenty injured.
Three dead.
News cameras showed flames consuming the building.
Then another headline appeared.
Authorities investigating possible Duca retaliation.
Clara stared.
“He blew up his own building.”
Roman nodded.
“To turn the public against me.”
Rhodes called immediately.
“You need to stay exactly where you are.”
Roman laughed without humor.
“You think I did this?”
“No.”
“Your colleagues?”
“Some do.”
Marcus opened security logs.
“We can prove Roman was here.”
Rhodes replied through speaker.
“Doesn’t matter. People will claim he ordered it.”
Adrian looked at the footage.
“Those people…”
Clara turned.
“What?”
“I know one of the injured. Nurse from my hospital.”
His face filled with rage.
“Kessler sacrificed his own employees.”
Roman saw the shift.
Until that moment, Adrian had treated the conflict as inherited family poison.
Now it was personal.
“He wants outrage,” Roman said.
Clara watched firefighters carrying victims from the building.
“Then give people something else.”
Roman looked at her.
“What?”
“The complete truth.”
Marcus shook his head.
“Too dangerous.”
“Not the raw ledger.”
Clara began pacing.
“Independent investigators. Journalists. Historians. Let them authenticate it.”
Rhodes spoke through the phone.
“That could work.”
Roman looked toward the screen.
“You are encouraging me to leak evidence?”
“I am encouraging transparency through counsel.”
Marcus muttered, “Very federal answer.”
Clara continued.
“We create a public trust. Freeze disputed Duca assets voluntarily. Open the books.”
Roman looked at her as though she had suggested burning the estate.
“You want me to invite auditors into my companies.”
“Yes.”
“Horrifying.”
“More frightening than gunmen?”
“Considerably.”
Adrian laughed.
Roman glared at him.
Then Clara took Roman’s hand.
“You cannot defeat Kessler by being scarier than he is.”
Roman’s dark eyes searched hers.
“Then how?”
“By becoming something he cannot predict.”
“What?”
“Accountable.”
Silence.
Marcus looked impressed.
Roman looked nauseated.
But twenty minutes later, he made the call.
The Duca organization would open its legitimate financial records to independent review.
Historical profits tied to corrupt contracts would be placed into a restitution fund.
For the first time in generations, a Duca was voluntarily giving power away.
That evening, public opinion began shifting.
Then Marcus received another message.
This one contained coordinates.
And one sentence.
COME ALONE, CLARA.
OR THE NEXT BUILDING WILL BE A HOSPITAL.
Roman read it.
“No.”
Clara looked at him.
“We’re not going to argue about whether I go.”
“Yes, we are.”
“No.”
Roman stepped closer.
“Clara.”
She met his stare.
“Kessler finally made a mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“He thinks I’m the weakness.”
May you like
She smiled without humor.
“He still hasn’t understood that I’m the reason you stopped being one.”
