Chapter 5 - The Board of Wolves.
The emergency board meeting began at noon beneath a painting of Roman's grandfather holding the first Blackwood hotel deed.
Charles Blackwood sat at the head of the table with silver hair, perfect posture, and the expression of a grieving patriarch.
Graham Voss arranged documents to his right.
Celeste joined by video from her penthouse, claiming emotional trauma prevented her attendance.
Roman entered with Naomi and Malik before the vote could begin.
Charles looked at the bruises across Roman's knuckles.
“You should be at the hospital.”
“I was.”
“And the waitress?”
“Her name is Della Hart.”
A small change moved through Charles's eyes.
Roman saw it because he was finally looking for guilt.
Graham closed the folder in front of him.
“This meeting concerns Evan's corporate interests, not a service employee.”
“She is Evan's wife.”
Silence spread around the table.
Several directors looked toward Charles.
Celeste's image on the screen remained perfectly still.
Charles folded his hands.
“Evan was not married.”
“He was.”
“Do you have proof?”
“Someone erased the courthouse record and killed both witnesses.”
Graham stood.
“That accusation is outrageous.”
Roman placed a photograph of the burned name tag on the table.
“Your foundation credentials were used to destroy Della's apron.”
Graham glanced at Charles before answering.
“Anyone could forge credentials.”
Roman connected Malik's laptop to the boardroom display.
The hidden mirror recording began.
Celeste's voice filled the room.
You were warned to disappear.
Then Graham appeared in the reflection and touched his earpiece.
The directors watched Celeste push Della into the mirror.
They watched Graham steal the envelope.
They watched Charles receive it.
When the recording ended, nobody spoke.
Charles did not deny what they had seen.
He only removed his glasses and polished them slowly.
“You do not understand what was in that envelope.”
“Then explain it.”
“Evan's recklessness endangered thousands of employees.”
Roman felt grief sharpen into rage.
“My brother died because he found theft inside the foundation.”
“Your brother died because he believed morality could exist without consequence.”
Naomi leaned forward.
“That sounds remarkably close to an admission.”
Charles looked at her with contempt.
“Counselors should know when family matters exceed their place.”
Naomi smiled.
“Crimes have no family boundary.”
Graham attempted to end the meeting, but two directors refused to leave.
Roman demanded an independent audit and suspension of the trust vote.
Charles invoked emergency authority under the family charter.
A majority of directors still supported him, either through loyalty or fear.
The vote would proceed unless Roman produced legal proof of Della's marriage and the child's paternity.
Naomi requested seventy-two hours.
Charles granted six.
“The trust requires certainty, not stories.”
Roman understood that Charles expected the remaining evidence to disappear before evening.
He left the boardroom and called the county courthouse again.
A clerk quietly admitted that paper marriage ledgers from the relevant month had been transferred to an off-site archive after the computer failure.
The archive occupied an old municipal building near the river.
Roman, Naomi, and Malik drove there under heavy rain.
The building manager led them to a basement room filled with shelves and damp cardboard.
They found the correct ledger box empty.
A checkout card showed that a records contractor named Peter Saye had removed it three months earlier.
The address belonged to a vacant warehouse.
Malik traced Saye's tax number and found no living person attached to it.
Another false identity had moved through the case.
Roman searched the shelf and noticed a rectangle of dust where the box had rested.
Behind it, someone had scratched two letters into the metal.
EH.
Evan had been there.
Naomi found a loose panel at the back of the shelving unit.
Inside lay a sealed courthouse envelope.
The original marriage certificate had been folded around a photograph of Evan and Della smiling outside the clerk's office.
Della wore a simple blue dress.
Evan held the ring box above his head as if he had won something impossible.
Roman had never seen his brother look so free.
A handwritten note covered the back.
Roman, if you found this, I was right to trust you last.
Protect Della and our child.
Do not trust Charles.
The lights went out.
Malik drew his weapon.
A door slammed at the far end of the basement.
Smoke rolled beneath it.
Someone had set fire to the archive.
Roman shoved the certificate beneath his shirt while Naomi called emergency services.
Flames climbed the stairwell before they reached it.
Malik led them toward a maintenance tunnel marked on an old evacuation map.
The metal door had been chained from the outside.
Roman kicked it until the frame bent, but the chain held.
Smoke thickened around them.
Naomi coughed and dropped to one knee.
Malik fired twice at the lock.
The chain broke.
They emerged into an alley as windows exploded above the river wall.
Roman looked down at the certificate beneath his shirt.
Water and sweat had blurred the ink but not the signatures.
His phone rang.
Della's doctor spoke before he could say hello.
“Mr. Blackwood, Della is missing.”
The police officer guarding her room had been found unconscious in a stairwell.
Hospital cameras showed Della leaving in a wheelchair pushed by a nurse who did not work there.
The baby monitor had been disconnected eleven minutes earlier.
Roman stared at the burning archive.
May you like
Charles had not been trying to destroy only paper.
He had used the fire to pull Roman away from the hospital.
