Chapter 7 - The Summit of ShadowsThe meeting was held in a neutral location—a high-end hotel in Chicago, just blocks away from the restaurant where I had first found Roman bleeding in an alley. It felt like a lifetime ago, a different century.
We arrived in a car we had rented, wearing simple, elegant clothes that screamed power without needing the trappings of wealth. Roman walked into the room with his head held high, his hand firmly holding mine.
The members of the Commission were there—four elderly men who looked like artifacts of a dying era. They were surrounded by guards, their faces etched with the bitterness of defeat.
“Roman,” the lead man, a creature named Moretti, said, his voice raspy. “You’ve caused a lot of trouble.”
“I’ve caused a lot of truth,” Roman corrected, sitting down at the head of the table.
“The ledger,” Moretti demanded. “We want it back.”
Roman leaned forward, his hands clasped on the mahogany surface. “You don't want the ledger back. You want to save yourselves from the consequences of what’s in it. But the evidence is already with the federal authorities, secured in an unbreakable vault. If anything happens to me, or to my wife, or to my daughter… it goes live.”
The room went silent. The threat hung in the air, thick and undeniable.
“What do you want, Roman?” Moretti asked, his voice shaking with suppressed rage.
“I want the Kane estate to be dissolved, officially,” Roman said. “I want every cent of the Kane assets to be transferred to the public trust I’ve established. And I want the Commission to stay out of Chicago, and out of my life, forever.”
Moretti laughed, a dry, rattling sound. “You think you can just dismantle a system that’s been in place for a hundred years?”
“I think I already have,” Roman replied. “Check your accounts, Moretti. Check your ports. Check the status of your holdings in Europe.”
The men began to frantically check their phones, their faces turning from rage to terror.
“You… you hacked our accounts?”
“I did what you taught me,” Roman said. “I took what was mine, and I burned what was yours.”
He stood up, his presence filling the room. “We’re leaving now. If you try to follow us, the authorities get the files. If you stay in your lanes, you get to live out your days in obscurity. It’s your choice.”
We walked out of the hotel, the Chicago air hitting us like a cold, bracing tonic. The city was still busy, still loud, still oblivious to the battle that had just been won in a quiet room on the top floor.
“Did they agree?” I asked, as we reached the car.
“They didn’t have a choice,” Roman said, opening the door for me.
We drove through the city, past the restaurant where it all began. The neon sign was flickering, a dusty, forgotten relic. I looked at it, feeling nothing but a distant, quiet pride.
“You’re a good man, Roman Kane,” I said, as we pulled onto the highway.
May you like
He smiled, a genuine, warm expression that reached his eyes. “I’m just a man who learned what matters.”
We were headed back to the cabin, back to the life we had built, back to our daughter. The journey had been long, but we had finally arrived.
