Chapter 3 - THE SECRET HIDDEN IN OWEN’S LOCKET
Dr. Mercer ordered Mara back into bed.
Roman did not argue.
That alone frightened her.
The Roman she had married argued with storms.
He had once made a hotel manager reopen a kitchen at two in the morning because Mara had quietly mentioned she wanted pancakes.
Back then, she had mistaken his ability to command the world for an ability to protect the people inside his heart.
She understood the difference now.
Power noticed threats.
Love noticed suffering.
Roman had been excellent at the first and terrible at the second.
A nurse helped Mara into a wheelchair.
Roman approached.
“Can I—”
He stopped.
Mara looked at him.
He gestured to the handles.
“May I?”
She nodded.
He wheeled her into the private room.
Celeste was escorted to the visitors’ lounge after hospital security informed her she could not remain near Mara without the patient’s consent.
Mara had simply said, “I don’t want her near me.”
Roman had repeated nothing.
He had not threatened anyone.
He had only made a call to his attorney and instructed him to preserve every relevant record.
That surprised Mara more than rage would have.
Inside the room, Roman helped position the wheelchair beside the bed but did not touch her.
The nurse did that.
Again, he waited.
Again, he asked.
Again, Mara found herself aching over how little it would have taken for him to behave this way six months earlier.
After the nurse left, Roman stood near the window.
Manhattan glittered beyond the glass.
“I didn’t know.”
Mara stared at the blanket.
“I know.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“No.”
He turned.
“I thought you hated me.”
She almost laughed.
“Why?”
“Celeste said you blamed me for Owen’s death. She said you regretted marrying into my family. She showed me messages.”
Mara looked up.
“What messages?”
“From your number.”
“What did they say?”
His silence answered before his mouth did.
“That you were afraid of me.”
Mara swallowed.
“That you wanted to leave but didn’t know how.”
Her eyes filled.
Roman moved instinctively toward her.
She raised one hand.
He stopped.
“Did it ever occur to you to ask me?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Every night.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Roman looked away.
Because the truth was humiliating.
“I was afraid you’d say it was true.”
Mara stared at him.
This man frightened half the city.
Yet he had allowed his marriage to die because he had been afraid to ask his wife a question.
“That is the cruelest thing you’ve said to me tonight.”
He looked back.
“You were afraid I would leave, so you abandoned me first.”
Roman had no defense.
The room filled with the quiet beep of the fetal monitor.
Mara rested her palm over the small movement beneath the blanket.
Roman stared.
His throat worked.
“Does the baby move often?”
Her anger cracked around the question.
“Every evening.”
He stepped closer.
Then stopped three feet away.
“Can I…”
His hand lifted slightly.
Mara looked at it.
Months ago she would have grabbed his wrist and placed his palm against her stomach.
Tonight she shook her head.
“Not yet.”
His hand fell.
The pain on his face was real.
Mara hated that part of herself still cared.
“I understand.”
A knock came.
Roman’s chief of security entered.
Elliot Vance had worked for Roman for nine years. He was forty-three, broad, quiet, with the permanently exhausted eyes of a man responsible for anticipating disasters before powerful people created them.
Tonight he looked sick.
“We found Mrs. Sloane’s phone.”
Mara sat straighter.
“Where?”
Elliot looked at Roman.
“In Miss Harrow’s locked desk.”
Roman went very still.
“There’s more.”
He placed an evidence bag on the table.
Inside lay Mara’s rose-gold phone.
The screen was cracked.
Beside it was a small notebook.
Elliot opened the notebook without removing it.
Dates.
Times.
Names.
Mara recognized Celeste’s handwriting.
12:30 tea.
R asleep.
M restless.
Phone retained.
R told she refused dinner.
M asked for husband again.
Roman read each line.
His jaw trembled.
“What does ‘tea’ mean?”
Elliot looked toward Dr. Mercer, who had returned quietly behind him.
The doctor spoke.
“We won’t know until laboratory confirmation. But given Mrs. Sloane’s blood screen, we need to investigate whether she was being given medication without her knowledge.”
Mara’s stomach turned.
Every night.
Chamomile tea.
Celeste had brought it herself after dismissing the evening staff.
For your nerves.
For the baby.
For sleep.
Mara covered her mouth.
Roman took one step backward.
“Mara.”
She looked at him.
“The tea.”
His face changed.
“She gave it to you?”
“Almost every night.”
“How long?”
“Five weeks.”
Roman turned toward the door.
Mara knew that movement.
She had seen it once when a man threatened his brother.
“Roman.”
He stopped.
“Look at me.”
He did.
“If you walk out of here wanting revenge, don’t come back.”
His expression hardened.
“She drugged my pregnant wife.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“She stole your phone. Forged your signature. Tried to transfer you out of the hospital.”
“And if you destroy her before the truth is proven, then she still controls what happens to us.”
His nostrils flared.
Mara’s voice broke.
“I have spent six months in a house where everybody decided what I felt, what I wanted, where I slept, what I wore, who could speak for me. I will not survive another man deciding what justice looks like for me.”
The anger went out of Roman’s face.
Not because it disappeared.
Because he forced it somewhere else.
He looked at Elliot.
“Preserve everything.”
“Yes.”
“No one touches Celeste.”
Elliot blinked.
“Sir?”
“Call our attorneys. Call the appropriate investigators. Hospital security handles the building. We give them evidence, not bodies.”
Mara closed her eyes.
It should not have felt like victory.
But it did.
Then Elliot said, “There’s something else.”
Roman’s attention sharpened.
“The notebook contains references to Owen.”
Roman’s face lost color.
“What references?”
Elliot turned two pages.
O file still missing.
S.C. says wife may have it.
Check pendant.
Roman looked at Mara.
“Pendant?”
She instinctively touched her throat.
A silver chain disappeared beneath the hospital gown.
Her fingers closed around the small oval locket hanging from it.
Roman recognized it immediately.
“Owen gave you that.”
“Two weeks before he died.”
“Why?”
“He said it belonged to your mother.”
Roman frowned.
“It didn’t.”
Mara stared.
“What?”
“My mother never owned anything like that.”
The room seemed to narrow.
Mara lifted the chain over her head.
The locket was old, silver, scratched along the edge.
She had worn it for almost three years because Owen had given it to her with an odd request.
Keep this somewhere my brother will never look.
She had assumed it was a joke.
Owen had always joked when he was frightened.
Roman took the pendant but did not open it.
His thumb traced the seam.
“There’s a second hinge.”
Mara leaned forward.
He pressed it.
The back released.
Inside, beneath the faded photograph compartment, sat a tiny black memory card.
Nobody spoke.
Roman looked at Mara.
May you like
She looked at him.
And three years after Owen Sloane had been buried, his final secret opened between them.
