Chapter 24 - THE LIST OF FAMILIES
There were eighty-seven names.
Not six.
Eighty-seven families harmed by Vascari-controlled businesses over thirty years.
Injured workers.
Evicted tenants.
Small contractors bankrupted through coercive agreements.
Union members blacklisted.
People whose property had been purchased under threats.
Some claims were weak.
Some impossible to verify.
Others made me close the file and walk outside.
Roman read every one.
No shortcuts.
No attorneys summarizing.
No assistants.
Every page.
Three nights.
On the fourth, I found him sitting on our kitchen floor at 2:00 a.m.
“What are you doing?”
He looked up.
“My father had a building on Kedzie.”
“I know.”
“A family lost their restaurant because he wanted the block.”
“Roman.”
“He paid them sixty percent of market value.”
“You were twelve.”
“He bought my first car two years later.”
I understood.
Money moved across time.
A victim loses something.
A child elsewhere receives something.
The child never knows.
Then grows up believing privilege arrived naturally.
Roman whispered:
“How much of my life belonged to somebody else first?”
There was no answer.
I sat beside him.
After a while, he said:
“I thought prison was accountability.”
“It was.”
“Not all of it.”
“No.”
We created a plan.
If the court allowed, the children’s trust would be converted.
Not into our foundation.
Too personal.
Not Roman’s charity.
Too easy to turn into redemption theater.
An independent restitution fund.
Victims first.
Environmental cleanup second.
Community ownership third.
Our children received nothing.
Agent Avery warned us:
“You’re voluntarily giving away generational wealth.”
Roman looked at him.
“It was never theirs.”
That sentence reached the media forty-eight hours later.
We had told no reporters.
Someone leaked it.
Headlines exploded.
VASCARI HEIRS TO SURRENDER $180 MILLION.
Some people praised Roman.
Some accused us of laundering reputation.
Some victims said money could not erase harm.
They were right.
Then Martin Devereux went on television.
He looked saddened.
Concerned.
He claimed Roman was “emotionally manipulating his wife into destroying assets legally intended for their children.”
I stared at the screen.
There it was.
The oldest weapon.
Savannah has no agency.
Roman controls her.
The story that once might have been true.
Now being weaponized because it no longer was.
Roman turned off the television.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“People will think—”
“I know what I think.”
He stopped.
I smiled.
“Remember choice?”
He nodded.
“Good.”
I picked up my phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling a press conference.”
Roman looked terrified.
“Savannah.”
“Yes?”
May you like
“Please don’t become better at this than me.”
“Too late.”
