Chapter 1 – The Signature On The Deed

The silence in the dining room was absolute, thick enough to suffocate us.

“Did you make your daughter believe she’d cost her mother the last home her grandmother ever owned?”

Roman’s question hung in the air, cold and lethal. Steven’s polished facade, the charming armor he wore to navigate high society, completely shattered. His face drained of color, his jaw working silently as he looked for a way out.

“Laura,” Steven began, his voice taking on that familiar, placating tone. The tone he used right before he lied. “It’s a misunderstanding. A clerical error with the title company.”

I didn’t let him finish. I took a step toward him, dropping my hand from Emma’s.

“You told her she signed it away?” I demanded, my voice shaking with a rage so profound it felt like I was vibrating. “Emma was eighteen when my mother died, Steven! She couldn’t have signed anything without my authorization!”

“Unless someone forged it,” Roman said quietly.

Steven flinched. The reaction was subtle, but in that room, under the gaze of a mafia boss, it was as loud as a gunshot.

Isabella covered her mouth with both hands, stepping further away from the man she had planned to marry. “Steven? What did you do?”

Steven shot a desperate look at his fiancée. “Isabella, sweetheart, don’t listen to them. I bought that house for us. Fair and square. I wanted to surprise you with it because I know how much you loved the neighborhood.”

“I didn’t love the neighborhood, Steven,” Isabella said, tears spilling over her lashes. “I loved that you were supposedly buying a home for us with your own money. Not stealing it from your ex-wife and daughter!”

“I didn’t steal it!” Steven shouted, finally losing his temper. He pointed a finger at me. “She couldn’t afford the property taxes! I was trying to save her from bankruptcy! I facilitated a private sale to an LLC.”

“An LLC you control,” Roman deduced smoothly.

Steven’s mouth snapped shut.

Roman turned to his security chief, a massive man named Marco who was still blocking Steven’s exit.

“Marco,” Roman ordered. “Pull the property records for the house at 412 Elm Street. Find out who owns the LLC.”

Marco nodded, immediately pulling a sleek smartphone from his jacket.

“You can’t do that!” Steven panicked, lunging toward Marco.

Roman moved faster than I thought a man his size could. He grabbed Steven by the collar of his expensive charcoal suit, hauling him backward and slamming him against the mahogany dining table. Crystal glasses rattled, and a silver fork clattered to the floor.

“You don’t tell my men what they can and cannot do in my house, Steven,” Roman whispered, his face inches from my ex-husband’s.

Emma gasped, shrinking behind me. I reached back, wrapping my arm protectively around her waist.

“Boss,” Marco said after a tense thirty seconds. “The LLC is registered to a shell company in Delaware. But the initial funding transfer to acquire the property came from a personal account.”

“Whose account?” Roman asked, not taking his eyes off Steven.

Marco looked up from his phone, his expression grim.

“It came from a student loan disbursement account,” Marco announced. “Registered to Emma Mitchell.”

My knees almost gave out.

He didn’t just forge my signature to sell the house to himself. He used the student loans he forced our daughter to take out to fund the purchase.

He made Emma buy her own grandmother’s house from us, and then he kept the deed.

“You monster,” I choked out, tears of absolute disgust burning my eyes. “You took her college money to buy a house you were going to give to another woman?”

Steven struggled against Roman’s grip. “I was going to pay it back! The commercial contract I’m bidding on next month—it’s worth millions! I just needed collateral to secure the performance bond! I was going to pay the loan off before she graduated!”

“And if you didn’t win the contract?” Roman asked coldly.

Steven swallowed hard. He didn’t have an answer.

“If you didn’t win the contract, Emma defaults on a loan she never saw a dime of,” Roman finished for him. “Her credit is ruined before her life even begins. And you still own the house.”

Roman let go of Steven’s collar, stepping back as if touching him was suddenly repulsive.

“Isabella,” Roman said, turning to his sister. “Is this the man you want?”

Isabella was shaking her head violently, sobbing. “No. No, I don’t know him. This isn’t the man I fell in love with.”

She looked at the engagement ring resting on the table. The massive diamond suddenly looked vulgar in the dim lighting.

“He told me he wanted a fresh start,” Isabella wept. “He told me his ex-wife was bitter and trying to turn his daughter against him. He made me feel sorry for him.”

I looked at Isabella. She wasn’t the villain in this story. She was just another woman Steven had manipulated, a tool he used to gain access to Roman’s wealth and influence to secure his contracting bids.

“He’s very good at making people feel sorry for him,” I said softly.

Steven straightened his suit jacket, his eyes darting frantically around the room. He realized his engagement was over, his business prospects with the Castellano family were dead, and his fraud was exposed.

He turned his anger toward the only target he thought he could still control.

He looked at Emma.

“This is your fault,” Steven sneered, his voice dripping with venom.

Emma flinched, burying her face in my shoulder.

“If you had just kept your mouth shut and stayed away like I told you to, none of this would be happening,” Steven spat. “You always ruin everything.”

I didn’t think. I reacted.

I stepped away from Emma, closed the distance between me and Steven, and slapped him across the face as hard as I could.

The CRACK echoed through the dining room like a gunshot.

Steven staggered backward, holding his cheek, completely stunned.

“Don’t you ever speak to her like that again,” I snarled, my voice trembling with a fierce, protective rage I didn’t know I possessed.

Steven recovered, his face twisting into a mask of pure hatred. He raised his hand to strike me back.

Before his arm could even swing, Roman caught his wrist.

Roman didn’t say a word. He just twisted.

A sharp, sickening pop echoed through the room. Steven screamed, collapsing to his knees on the marble floor, clutching his dislocated wrist.

“Marco,” Roman said calmly, adjusting his cuffs.

“Yes, Boss?”

“Take out the trash.”

Marco grabbed Steven by the collar of his suit and hauled him to his feet, ignoring the man’s agonized screams. Another guard stepped forward, opening the heavy dining room doors.

“My lawyers will ruin you!” Steven yelled over his shoulder as Marco dragged him toward the exit. “You can’t prove I forged that deed! Laura’s signature is on it! She signed it in front of a notary!”

I froze.

“What is he talking about?” Roman asked, turning to me.

“I didn’t sign anything!” I panicked. “I swear to God, I never signed a deed transfer!”

Marco stopped at the doorway, keeping a firm grip on Steven.

Steven laughed, a cruel, desperate sound.

“Check the public records, Laura,” Steven sneered. “You signed the deed transfer two years ago, in my lawyer’s office. You just didn’t read the fine print underneath the divorce settlement papers I handed you.”

The room went dead silent.

He had hidden the deed transfer in our divorce papers. I had signed away my mother’s house without even knowing it, trusting the lawyer Steven had insisted we use to save money.

“And the notary?” Roman asked quietly.

Steven smirked through his pain. “The notary works for me. He’ll swear under oath that Laura knew exactly what she was signing. Good luck proving fraud, Laura. I still own the house.”

Marco dragged him out, the heavy doors slamming shut behind them, cutting off his laughter.

I collapsed into one of the dining chairs, burying my face in my hands.

He had beaten me. He had stolen my mother’s house, ruined my daughter’s credit, and he had done it all legally.

Emma knelt beside my chair, crying, wrapping her arms around me. “Mom, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have signed the loan papers.”

“It’s not your fault, baby,” I wept, holding her tight. “He lied to both of us.”

Isabella walked over, gently placing a hand on my shoulder. “Laura, I am so deeply sorry. If I had known…”

“You couldn’t have known,” I said, wiping my eyes.

Roman stood quietly near the head of the table. He looked at the blue ceramic mug Emma had made, then down at me.

“Your mother’s house,” Roman said, his voice thoughtful. “It means a lot to you.”

“It’s all I have left of her,” I admitted, my voice breaking. “And it was supposed to belong to Emma.”

Roman nodded slowly. He picked up his phone from the table.

“Steven is right about one thing,” Roman stated. “If your signature is on a notarized deed, proving fraud in a civil court will take years. He’ll stall the proceedings until the legal fees bankrupt you, and then he’ll sell the house to cover his debts.”

My heart sank into my stomach. “So there’s nothing I can do.”

“I didn’t say that,” Roman said, a cold, dangerous smile touching his lips.

He dialed a number on his phone, putting it on speaker and setting it on the table.

It rang twice before a gruff voice answered.

“Yeah, Boss?”

“Tony,” Roman said. “I need a favor.”

“Anything, Boss.”

“Steven Mitchell’s primary commercial contracting office on the West Side,” Roman commanded. “I want it burned to the ground tonight. Make sure the filing cabinets in his private office are entirely reduced to ash.”

My eyes widened in absolute shock.

“Boss, are you sure?” Tony asked, a hint of surprise in his voice. “That’s a loud move.”

“Burn it, Tony,” Roman ordered. “And make sure Steven’s lawyer’s office downtown catches fire, too. Specifically, his notary records archive.”

“Copy that. Consider it done.”

Roman hung up the phone. He looked at me, his dark eyes intense and unwavering.

“Without the original, physical, notarized documents,” Roman explained calmly, “Steven can’t prove you signed the transfer. A digital copy won’t hold up in court if the authenticity is challenged and the notary’s logbook is mysteriously destroyed in a fire.”

I stared at the mafia boss, completely stunned by the casual destruction he had just ordered to protect a woman he had met twenty minutes ago.

“Why are you doing this for me?” I whispered.

Roman didn’t answer immediately. He looked at Isabella, then at Emma, and finally back at me.

“Because family is sacred,” Roman said softly. “And a man who uses his own daughter as a pawn doesn’t deserve to own a house. He doesn’t deserve to own anything.”

Before I could process his words, the heavy dining room doors burst open again.

It wasn’t Marco.

It was a young security guard, his face pale and sweating.

“Mr. Castellano!” the guard panicked, out of breath.

“What is it?” Roman demanded, his protective stance returning instantly.

“It’s Steven, sir,” the guard gasped. “Marco was escorting him to his car, but… but Steven had a gun hidden in his glove compartment.”

Roman went completely still.

“Where is Marco?” Roman asked, his voice dropping to a terrifying whisper.

“Marco’s been shot, Boss,” the guard choked out. “And Steven didn’t run. He’s barricaded inside the garage. And he’s demanding to see Laura.”

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