Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Roman clutched his phone, rereading Harper’s text as the limo pulled through the gates of Luciano Riviera’s mansion. Scratch that. Palace. His uncle’s estate put the king of Spain’s Palace of Zarzuela to shame. Luciano had knocked off the baroque architecture of the king’s home outside Madrid, too.
The Riviera home, similar to the Riviera hotel chains around Europe, brimmed with gilded statuary, rich surfaces, curves and twists in the lines of the design and had enough drama and grandeur to please Louis the XIV. And Roman hated it.
Roman had once believed his father hated it, too, assuming that was why he’d stepped away from the expectations that came with the life of being a Riviera after meeting Roman’s mother while she’d been studying abroad in Barcelona.
His dad had been twenty-four, set to co-run the Riviera empire with his brother, and then he fell in love with a pretty twenty-one-year-old Brazilian.
Luciano had no problem assuming control of the family business when Roman’s dad opted to lead a different life in America. And Roman’s grandfather, hesitant at first, agreed. He’d witnessed firsthand how family feuds over money and power could rip people apart.
But Roman’s dad never told him the real reason he desperately wanted to take his new bride out of Spain, not until he had no choice but to drop the wrecking ball on Roman’s life in 2019 with the truth he’d buried about the Rivieras for decades.
Roman had only seen his cousins, grandparents, and uncle a handful of times before turning eighteen. And the summer Roman had spent in Barcelona before enlisting in the Navy had him questioning his father’s choice to keep him away from them.
Roman had become close to Thiago that summer. And it was Roman who’d met Carmen at a bar by the beach and brought her into everyone’s lives before he stuck to his plans and shipped out to the Navy, despite his uncle’s insistence he stay in Spain.
Now, with the knowledge he had about his uncle and Thiago, it made Roman sick to his stomach to think he’d rebelled against his father’s wishes to be in their lives. And maybe if he’d heeded his father’s requests, Thiago would still be alive, and Roman would be ignorant to reality.
“Senor?” The limo driver brought Roman’s focus once again to Harper’s last text.
He pocketed his phone to see the limo had stopped on the circular path in front of the double door entrance.
He wanted to respond to Harper’s message with the truth.
Tell her that damn straight they were supposed to be together, and if he had his way, there’d never be another man she’d share a kiss, let alone a bedroom with, for the rest of her life.
He was always meant to be that man. But fate wasn’t so kind. Damn the accident that killed Thiago.
Roman’s driver, wearing a suit that was undoubtedly more expensive than any Roman owned, opened the car door before he had a chance to do it himself, and Roman growled a curse under his breath at the sight of Carmen exiting the home wearing a fur coat fit for a Russian winter.
She wasn’t the girl he’d met at eighteen.
Money and power had taken a young, adventurous eighteen-year-old and turned her into someone cold and callous.
Carmen still lived in the sprawling mansion after Thiago died, and she wasn’t eager to move. Luciano kept all of his family under one roof, though.
His two daughters and grandchildren were all Luciano had left after he lost his son and wife. He insisted on keeping his loved ones close, but Roman was wiser now, and he knew it was all about controlling them.
Roman set a hand to the side of the car to brace himself for what he was about to do—face his uncle by choice instead of how it usually happened, per his uncle’s demand.
“We were expecting you sooner. Carlos told me he bumped into you last night.”
At least Carmen always cut straight to the point. No need to sugarcoat anything between them.
Roman was well acquainted with her games. She played them well. She’d learned from the best, Luciano and Thiago, after all. But Roman played simply to survive.
She crossed her arms over her chest as her emerald cat-like eyes tightened on him.
He had yet to budge and push away from the limo. He didn’t want to reveal that he wasn’t fully healed and needed a few minutes to recover after having sat so long in the car. He also couldn’t stomach the idea of walking into that house.
But he had to because inside the gaudy palace masquerading as a home were answers he needed about Mauricio.
With a deep breath, Roman sidestepped the driver and steeled himself to face a woman he still couldn’t believe even his young self had slept with, let alone cared about. He couldn’t blame Thiago’s death on her cold heart, either. She’d become emotionally blunted long before he died.
Carmen lifted her chin, motioning for the driver to leave. “What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into, Roman?”
He stabbed a finger to his chest. “Are you kidding?”
Carmen curled her lips into one of her fake smiles she knew ticked him off, then turned in her tall black boots and climbed the steps to the entrance. Roman balled his fists at his sides and followed her.
“Father is in the study,” she said as she faced him inside the massive foyer that had an arched ceiling like that of the Sistine Chapel.
“Which one?” Roman asked through clenched teeth. “And he’s not your father anymore.”
“I’m still his daughter-in-law. He doesn’t turn on family so quickly like—”
“Don’t talk about my father,” he seethed, predicting what she was about to say, encroaching on her personal space for extra effect.
Carmen’s mouth twisted with loathing. “You know how I feel about him. What he took from me.”
Her hot, angry breath hit his face, and he stepped back, not wanting to be so close to her.
He didn’t trust her not to try and kiss him again.
He’d jerked his face back and caught her wrist mid-strike when she’d attempted to hit him for rejecting her right there in that very foyer last August. Even if he hadn’t been sleeping with Harper at the time, he’d never let that woman’s mouth anywhere near him again.
“You should be angry with him as well. He ruined your life,” she hissed.
Roman ignored her and turned to see Antonio striding toward them down the hall, working to remove a pair of boxing gloves.
His white T-shirt was soaked in sweat, and his black hair slicked back.
Antonio was a few years younger than Roman and married to his cousin, Rosario.
He was also the only person in this house Roman considered a friend.
He had no idea why Antonio put up with Luciano or Rosario.
He was smart, a good person, and he had a strong business acumen.
Roman was confident Antonio was behind every genius business decision Luciano made in the last few years, but Roman’s uncle didn’t give Antonio the credit, not even an official company title.
“There you are. Are you two at it again?” Antonio smiled.
“We’re not at anything.” Roman nodded his hello to Antonio.
“I heard what happened. I’m glad you’re okay. And your, um, lady friend, is she going to be okay?” Antonio slapped an arm around Roman’s shoulder as they walked, and this was a time he wouldn’t pull away. He could use the help moving without drawing Carmen’s attention that he was still healing.
“Roman works for that woman. Colleagues one day. Bodyguard for her the next. Which is it, Roman? Who do you take your orders from?” The woman was pushing him, and it’d become a much more dangerous game for her if she tried to pull Harper into the mix.
“Does she look like Whitney Houston? Because you, my friend, don’t look like Kevin Costner.” Antonio shot him a wry smile as Roman quickly stole a glance his way.
Roman ignored the joke, not wanting to draw attention to the fact he cared about Harper as more than a colleague, knowing Carmen’s goal was to bait him into revealing information.
She didn’t need any more ammunition to use against him, especially not when it came to Harper. This situation was already worse than he’d imagined.
Antonio stopped walking once they reached an open door, and he released his arm from Roman’s shoulder. “Good luck. Luciano is not in the best of moods today.”
“When is he ever in a good mood?” Roman asked.
Antonio grinned before punching him lightly in the arm with one of his puffy gloves. “Be seeing you.”
Hopefully not.
“I’ll talk to my uncle in private.” He shut the door in Carmen’s face before she had a chance to protest.
“Roman.” Luciano, in his expensive tailored gray suit, sat behind his mammoth oak desk. The desk had belonged to Luciano’s grandfather. Passed down from son to son. And now, only two of the three remaining adult male Rivieras stood inside this room.
“Sit.” Luciano opened a palm in gesture.
His uncle was a slightly younger, dark-haired version of that actor from the Dos Equis commercials.
Roman hesitantly sat, his large frame filling one of the two red wingback leather seats opposite the desk.
Off to his left, the window gave a view of Rosario and Antonio’s two kids running around with kites in the open fields.
His cousin’s nanny watched over them instead of Rosario, who was most likely off screwing one of her bodyguards instead of Antonio.
Surely, Antonio knew about her indiscretions, but his hands were tied since his father-in-law was a Riviera.
“You know why I’m here.” Roman set his palms on his dark-jeaned thighs and pinned his back to the seat, hoping not to give away any signs of weakness. His uncle would sniff it out, probably quicker than Bear would.
Luciano stood, picked up a USB drive from his desk, then walked around it with his head held high on his well-built frame.
“What is this?” Roman took the small black device from him and closed his hand around it.
“It’s what Carlos found inside Mauricio’s pocket when he showed up to question him last night.”
“And was Mauricio already dead when he got there?”
Luciano sat next to him, crossed his leg over the other, and held on to his ankle as he stared at his nephew.
His uncle’s beard was still black, and his hair just as dark and thick as when he was Roman’s age. But his eyes were harder. Colder now. His cheeks hollow as he became a bit thinner the closer he approached seventy.
He’d never again be able to look at Luciano and see the man he’d once idolized, the man who’d played football with Roman and Thiago—the European version—in those very fields outside the study when he spent his summer there at eighteen.
“Mauricio’s death was an unfortunate accident. Self-defense. Carlos was a police officer before he joined our security team. Mauricio put up a fight before Carlos could question him. But Carlos said a group of men showed up shortly after, and he was surprised to see you in the street.”
“Let’s just say I was equally shocked.” His heartbeat quickened the longer he sat there. “Why’d you send him? The truth.”
“You could have died from that car bomb. How would that look if I didn’t find out whether someone tried to kill you but failed? You’re a Riviera, Son, and with that comes as much hate as there is love.”
He knew all about the hate, and the love was fake. At least, undeserved, even if his uncle did provide so many jobs for the city.
“Don’t call me your son,” he gritted out, doing his best to stay calm. Stick to the course. Get what he came for. “How’d you find Mauricio?”
“I have people all over the city. Eyes and ears everywhere.”
Roman wanted to wipe the smug look off the bastard’s face.
“You know this. Old-school methods still work. Clearly faster than whatever supercomputer you must have used to find him.” He pointed to Roman’s closed hand. “That was all Carlos found at his apartment.”
“Carlos killed our best lead. Do you have any idea what that means?” Roman wanted to stand and go to the window. To set his palms to the glass and bow his head, but he remained steady. As controlled as possible, which was hard to do under Luciano’s intense stare.
“I suspect you’re still a Boy Scout trying to save the world.” Luciano tipped his chin, urging Roman to look toward the window where his grandkids played. “But you’re fighting for another country when your fight should be here where you belong.”
Roman tensed, his breathing picking up as he fought to remain calm.
“You didn’t need to talk to Mauricio, anyway. What you need is in your hands. You might also want his laptop, which he had inside the restaurant’s employee locker room where he worked. We retrieved it for you.”
“How’d you know about it?”
He stood and straightened his paisley tie. “I own the restaurant.”
“Of course you do,” he said bitterly and did his best to stand without showcasing his pain. “And you have the laptop?”
“My people went through it. Nothing of apparent interest.” He rounded his desk, opened a drawer, and retrieved a white MacBook.
“What’s on the USB?”
“I was under the impression you were targeted because of me, and the killer failed. That perhaps someone at my restaurant was selected to do the job. The bomb went off near you, after all.” He tucked his hands into his slacks pockets.
Roman lifted his brows. “And now?”
“It looks like they weren’t after you. I guess you should be relieved Mauricio is a horrible bomb maker, and he didn’t kill both his targets. I’m still waiting for the police to identify the remains from the vehicle, but—”
“Who was his second target?” Roman rasped.
“That USB has photos and videos of only one person, and they could not have been taken by Mauricio. He’s never been to America.”
Roman’s stomach clenched, and he almost dropped the laptop he had tucked under his armpit.
“I guess you were right to protect that pretty colleague of yours, but it appears she’s going to need more help since the job was left unfinished.
” A white slash for his mouth appeared before he added in a dark tone, “Now tell me, Son, tell me what kind of favor you think I’ll ask of you to help keep her safe—a woman I think you just might love? ”