Chapter 6 - ROMAN’S CHOICE
Roman moved into a hotel.
Not my apartment.
Not Daniel’s guest house.
Not a property owned by Kane Holdings.
A hotel.
He paid with his own money.
That detail mattered to me.
For the first time, he was living somewhere his mother did not own, manage, finance, or define.
He asked to see me.
I agreed to meet in Daniel’s office.
Neutral.
Roman entered looking exhausted.
No black suit.
No Kane cuff links.
No driver.
He sat across from me.
“I filed for separation from the family office.”
I waited.
“I resigned as managing director.”
Still waited.
“I gave outside counsel every credential I had.”
“That protects you legally.”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you did it?”
He looked down.
“Partly.”
Good answer.
Not heroic.
Then:
“I also realized I don’t know who I am without my mother telling me what crisis is next.”
That was more important.
He looked at my scalp.
Hair had begun growing back in dark, uneven fuzz.
His face tightened.
“I should’ve protected you.”
I did not say yes.
I said:
“You should have believed me sooner.”
He nodded.
“That too.”
Then he said:
“I want to explain something.”
I almost stopped him.
Explanations had become dangerous territory.
But choice means choosing to hear something too.
“Go ahead.”
“When you first started saying my mother was monitoring you, I thought you were wrong because she monitored everyone.”
I stared.
He continued.
“She read my contracts. She checked Katherine’s messages. She reviewed Dad’s medical bills. I thought that was just family.”
There it was.
Normalization.
He had grown up inside surveillance and called it care.
“I thought if you joined the family, you’d adjust.”
“I was supposed to adjust to losing privacy?”
“Yes.”
The honesty hurt.
Then:
“I see how insane that sounds now.”
“Not insane.”
He looked up.
“Normal to you.”
That distinction mattered.
Calling people insane makes behavior alien.
Calling harmful behavior normalized forces us to look at how it survives.
Roman continued.
“When you resisted, I started seeing you through her eyes. Difficult. Suspicious. Ungrateful.”
“And when she shaved my head?”
His eyes filled.
“I understood too late.”
“No.”
He waited.
“You understood when it became impossible not to.”
That landed.
Growth often begins after denial runs out of room.
Then Roman asked:
“Is there any chance for us?”
I looked at the man I had loved.
Still loved, in some form.
That was the hardest truth.
Love does not disappear on schedule because evidence becomes clear.
“I don’t know.”
He nodded.
No argument.
Good.
“I’m not asking you to wait.”
“Good.”
Then he handed me a folder.
His financial exposure.
Not because I asked.
Because he wanted transparency.
Kane Holdings debt had dragged him into guarantees.
He could lose nearly everything he considered his.
One account remained protected.
Personal earnings from his own consulting work.
Enough to live.
Not enough to maintain the lifestyle.
He said:
“I’m not asking you to help.”
“That matters.”
“I know.”
Then:
“If the mansion goes, my mother has nowhere to live.”
I almost laughed.
“Your mother has options.”
“She’ll say she doesn’t.”
“She says many things.”
Roman smiled weakly.
Then his face changed.
“There’s one more problem.”
“What?”
“My mother transferred one of the family properties to Katherine yesterday.”
“Why?”
“To keep it away from lenders.”
Fraudulent transfer risk.
Daniel looked up.
“When?”
“After the foreclosure notice.”
That created new legal exposure.
Roman had discovered it and reported it.
Against his sister.
That was the choice.
Family secrecy versus truth.
He chose truth.
Late.
Still meaningful.
Katherine found out.
Called him a traitor.
Evelyn stopped speaking to him.
Roman sat in front of me and said:
“I thought loyalty meant keeping the family intact.”
“What do you think now?”
“Maybe loyalty means refusing to help people destroy themselves.”
I said nothing.
That answer belonged to him.
Then the assault case moved forward.
Katherine’s attorney offered a plea.
She would admit unlawful restraint and assault-related conduct in exchange for reduced sentencing and testimony against Evelyn’s planning.
Evelyn refused any plea.
She insisted the driveway incident was “discipline during a family crisis.”
Discipline.
A seventy? No, Bianca 29. An adult pregnant woman.
The word revealed everything.
Evelyn did not think she lost control that night.
She believed she exercised authority.
Then Katherine requested to meet me.
I refused.
Not because I hated her.
Because I did not owe every person a private audience before court.
That boundary felt clean.
Then Roman asked something else.
“My mother wants me to testify that you were emotionally unstable that month.”
I almost smiled.
“Will you?”
“No.”
“Why tell me?”
“Because I want you to know she’s still trying.”
That mattered too.
Not dramatic protection.
Information.
Then he said:
“She has one video.”
“What video?”
I knew before he answered.
The nursery.
Three weeks before the rainstorm.
I had screamed at him.
Thrown a glass.
Not at him.
Against the wall.
After discovering Katherine had gone through my medical records.
Evelyn had the clip.
Only the reaction.
Not the cause.
Capture the reaction, not the cause.
The family strategy again.
The video would hurt.
Good.
Truth sometimes hurts the person telling it.
I told Daniel:
“Don’t hide it.”
He nodded.
“Context?”
“Yes.”
“Excuse it?”
May you like
“No.”
That distinction would define the trial.
