Chapter 9: The Husband My Father Feared

The Kade estate looked exactly like I remembered from high school. 

Cold. Too big. Full of windows that showed everything and doors that locked from the outside. 

We did not use the front door. 

Singh’s team went in first. Three officers, guns drawn, sweeping the marble hall where Roman’s father used to host parties that ended with someone crying. 

The chandelier was still there. So was the blood on the floor from when Roman was seventeen and refused to break my fingers.

“Clear,” Singh said through the radio. “No heat signatures upstairs. The panic room is open.” 

Roman stood beside me in the driveway. His hospital gown was gone. Singh had given him tactical pants and a black tee that pulled against the fresh stitches on his side. 

He looked like the CEO he used to be, except CEOs did not bleed through their shirts for me. 

“You do not have to go in,” he said. His voice was quiet. “Singh can clear it. We can wait.” 

“He is waiting for us,” I said. “Your father. He wants us in that house.” 

Roman’s hand found mine. His fingers were cold. 

“Then we do not give him what he wants.” 

I looked at him. Really looked. 

In high school he was the boy who shoved me into lockers and called me trash so his father would not kill me. In Vegas he was the eighteen year old who signed a marriage license to put his money between me and a bullet. Now he was the man who stood bleeding in his own driveway, asking me to choose safety over him. 

“I am done letting Kade men decide who I get to be,” I said. “That includes you.” 

Something shifted in his eyes. Not hurt. Pride. 

“Then we go in together,” he said. “No more protection. No more lies. Just us.” 

Us. The word hit harder than it should have. 

Singh came out the front door. “The main floor is clear. The second floor is clear. The basement has one heat signature. Panic room. The door is steel. Three inches of steel. We cannot breach without codes.” 

“I have the codes,” Roman said. 

“Are you sure you want to use them?” Singh asked. “If he is in there, he is armed. And he has been planning this for ten years.” 

“He has been planning longer than that,” Roman said. “He started planning the day Isla overheard him at the testing site.” 

The flash drive. It was in my pocket. 

I had gone home before we left the hospital. Dug it out of the shoebox under my bed. It was silver, scratched, with a piece of pink tape on it. I used to think it held my favorite songs from fourteen. 

My dad had given it to me. “Never lose this, kid,” he said. “No matter what.” 

He died two weeks later. 

“Isla,” Roman said. “You do not have to come down there.” 

“Yes I do.” I pulled the flash drive out. “This is mine. He killed my dad for it. He used your whole life to keep me from looking at it. It ends now.” 

Roman’s eyes went to the drive. For a second, I saw it. The boy who took beatings to keep me safe. The man who lost his inheritance because he would not hurt me. 

“You trust me?” he asked. 

It was the same question from ICU Room 7. Do you trust me? 

I had kissed him then. Now I slid my hand into his. “I trust that you will not let him make me small again.” 

His breath hitched. He lifted my hand and pressed his mouth to my knuckles. Not my palm. My knuckles. Like I was worth fighting for. 

Singh cleared her throat. “Save it for when the building is not wired to blow. Let us move.” 

We went down to the basement. 

The Kade estate basement was not a basement. It was a bunker. Concrete walls. No windows. The panic room was at the end of a long hall, behind a vault door that needed a code and a thumbprint. Roman’s thumb. 

He pressed it to the scanner. The light went green. 

He typed the code. 6-2-1-9. My birthday. 

I looked at him. 

“I changed it after Vegas,” he said. “In case you ever needed to hide.” 

He had been planning for me even then. 

The door hissed open. 

The panic room was small. A bed. A desk. Monitors showing every room in the house. And in the center, sitting in a leather chair like he owned it, was Victor Kade. Roman’s father. 

He was older. Grayer. But his eyes were the same. Cold. Calculating. The eyes that watched Roman break my arm in tenth grade and smiled. 

“Hello, son,” he said. “You are late.” 

Roman stepped in front of me. Even bleeding, even weak, he blocked me with his body. 

“You were supposed to stay dead,” Roman said. 

“I was supposed to do a lot of things,” Victor said. He looked at me. “You got tall, Isla. Last time I saw you, you were on the ground. Your father’s blood was all over your hands.” 

My knees almost gave out. Roman’s hand found my back. Holding me up. 

“You do not talk to her,” Roman said. “You talk to me.” 

“Fine.” Victor stood. He was not armed. He did not need to be. Men like him used words as weapons. “You ruined everything. I told you to keep her away. I told you to make her hate you. And what did you do? You married her. You put my money in her name. You made her untouchable.” 

“You made me cruel,” Roman said. “I made myself a husband.” 

Victor laughed. “Husband. You think that piece of paper matters? She is here because of that.” He pointed at the flash drive in my hand. “Give it to me, and maybe I'll let you both walk out.” 

“Maybe?” I said. My voice shook. I hated it. 

Victor’s gaze sharpened. “Your mother begged better than you do. On her knees in my office. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘She is just a child. She does not know what is on it.’” 

The room tilted. My mom. On her knees. Begging. For me. 

“Why?” I whispered. “Why did she owe you?” 

“Because your father was going to turn me in,” Victor said. “He worked on my site. He saw the weapons. He copied the files. And he gave them to a fourteen year old girl because he thought I would not search for a child.” 

My dad. He knew. He had been trying to protect me. 

“Your mother found out,” Victor went on. “She came to me. She offered to keep you silent if I let you live. So I took her deal. She let you think your dad died of a heart attack. She let you think you were crazy when you had seizures. She let Roman bully you because it kept you from asking questions.” 

Every year of my life reordered itself. The bullying. The crash. Amnesia. The Vegas wedding. All of it. For a flash drive. 

I looked at Roman. His face was white. He had not known this part. He had thought his father beat him because he failed to isolate me. But his father beat him because my mom made a deal. 

“You are lying,” Roman said. But his voice was wrong. Uncertain. 

“Am I?” Victor stepped forward. “Ask her yourself. She is upstairs. I invited her. Thought it was time for a family reunion.” 

My mom was here. In the house where my dad was condemned. 

Singh’s voice came through the radio. “We have movement upstairs. Single female. Matches description of Diane Monroe.” 

My mom. She had told me not to come. He is already there. She had not been warning me. She had been buying him time.

Roman moved before I could. He grabbed Victor by the collar and slammed him into the wall. The monitors shook. 

“You used her,” Roman said. His voice was lethal. The CEO. The son. The man who buried his father once. “You used Isla’s mom. You used her dad. You used me.” 

“I made you,” Victor said. Blood ran from his lip. “I made you strong. I made you cruel enough to survive me.” 

“You made me love her,” Roman said. “That was your mistake.” 

He let Victor go. Victor slumped, laughing. “You cannot kill me, boy. You do not have the guts. You never did. That is why you married her instead of putting her in the ground like I told you.” 

Roman did not flinch. He turned to me. 

“Isla,” he said. “Give me the drive.” 

I held it out. He did not take it. He closed my fingers around it. 

“This is yours,” he said. “Your dad died for it. You decide what happens to it. Not me. Not him. You.” 

Choice. He was giving me a choice. After ten years of everyone else choosing for me. 

I looked at Victor. At the man who made my life hell. 

“Was it worth it?” I asked. “All of it. My dad. Roman’s childhood. My mom’s soul. Was it worth it?” 

Victor smiled. “Check the drive. Then ask me.” 

The monitors behind him flickered. One screen changed. The front hall. My mom was there. On her knees again. 

And behind her, holding a gun to her head, was a man I had never seen before. 

He looked right at the camera. Right at us. 

“Hello, Roman,” he said. “Miss me?” 

Roman’s blood went cold under my hand. He knew that voice. 

And from the way his face broke, so did I. 

It was not Victor’s voice. It was his. 

The Roman Kade who died in the car crash. The real one.