Sophie looked down at her cereal, then back up. “Are you fixing it?”
He answered the only way he could. “I’m trying.”
She accepted that, not because it satisfied her, but because children are often kinder with unfinished honesty than adults are with polished lies.
Roman’s final mistake came three nights later.
He called Leah.
The number was blocked.
She almost did not answer, but pain medication had left her restless and Frank was asleep in the next room.
When she heard the voice, she knew instantly who it was from the smoothness alone.
“You’ve caused quite a civic awakening, Miss Hart,” Roman D’Angelo said.
Leah’s pulse kicked. “You’re brave, calling an unarmed schoolteacher.”
“I just wanted to say I admire your timing. Men have toppled governments with less.”
She forced her voice steady. “Did you shoot at a child because you were afraid of her father, or because you’re too cowardly to face him directly?”
A soft laugh. “I didn’t need the child dead. I needed Nico broken.”
“So you admit it.”
“I admit nothing. But I will tell you this: men like Nico don’t get redeemed. They get replaced.”
Leah’s eyes moved to the kitchen doorway where Frank’s old notepad sat beside the phone base.
She grabbed it and began writing with her good hand as Roman spoke, buying time, scratching down phrases, cadence, street names he slipped without meaning to.
“You should ask him about the harbor account,” Roman said. “Ask him what happened to the witness in Gary. Ask him how many times—”
Leah cut in. “You’re angry because he chose his daughter over you.”
The silence on the line changed.
Men like Roman could endure accusation more easily than irrelevance.
“I built half his city,” Roman said softly. “And now he wants applause for cleaning his shoes on the courthouse steps.”
“No,” Leah said. “He wants his daughter to survive him.”
Roman exhaled. “That little girl is going to grow up with his blood on her name no matter what he does.”
Leah heard it then.
