Chapter 4 - THE MIDNIGHT LEDGERBy two in the morning, the house was entirely silent except for the wind rattling the double-paned storm windows against the stone facade.
I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I was back in the damp, freezing dark of that warehouse, listening to the drip of water and waiting for Evelyn’s boots to come back.
My wrists throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache beneath the gauze.
I slipped out from under the heavy wool quilt Roman had insisted I use—leaving his bed untouched while he apparently worked in the study across the hall—and padded barefoot across the Persian rug toward the door.
The study door was cracked open about two inches. A single pool of yellow light spilled across the dark parquet floor from the banker’s lamp on Roman’s desk.
I didn't mean to spy. I only wanted to ask if I could use the landline to call Mrs. Adler and make sure Caleb hadn't woken up from a nightmare.
Through the crack, I saw him.
Roman wasn't wearing his jacket now. His white shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, the sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms corded with muscle and crisscrossed with old, white scars from his dock-working days before he took over the conglomerate.
He was holding something small in his large, scarred hand.
It was a faded blue plastic eraser shaped like a dolphin.
I stared at it, my breath catching in my throat.
It was the eraser Caleb had lost under the pantry counter three weeks ago. He had spent an entire Saturday morning searching for it on his hands and knees, crying because it was the last thing our father had given him before the hospital bills took everything else.
I had told him not to worry, that it was probably gone for good.
Roman was sitting there in the dead of night, turning the little blue dolphin over and over in his palm, his thumb tracing the worn plastic eye.
“You’re standing in a draft,” he said without turning around.
I jumped slightly, pushing the door open the rest of the way.
“I didn't mean to eavesdrop,” I said, leaning against the doorframe. “I just wanted to call the annex.”
“The annex line is secure,” Roman said, setting the dolphin down beside a stack of shipping manifests with a soft click. He looked up, his grey eyes sweeping over my oversized linen shirt—one of his old ones that hung down past my knees. “Caleb has already asked twice if you brought him any of those lemon cakes from the bakery on Pratt Street.”
“You talked to him?”
“I told him you were busy reviewing inventory with me,” Roman said, standing up and walking slowly toward the fireplace. He picked up the poker, giving a half-burnt log a sharp jab until a shower of orange sparks flew up the chimney. “He asked if I was the boss who yells at people. I told him yes.”
A faint smile touched the corner of my mouth. “What did he say?”
“He said I should give you a raise because you make better cookies than Mrs. Adler.” Roman turned, his expression unreadable in the flickering firelight. “He’s right, of course. Mrs. Adler uses too much lard in the shortbread.”
“Don’t let her hear you say that, or she’ll salt your coffee again.”
“She already did this morning,” Roman said dryly. “I drank it anyway. It seemed like an inappropriate time to complain about sodium levels.”
I walked further into the room, stopping near the edge of the large mahogany desk. My eyes fell on an open ledger page—not shipping numbers, but a handwritten list of names and dates.
My name was at the top. Clara Hayes. Employed: October 14, 2021.
Beneath it were entries dating back four years.
November 2021: Forwarded medical consultation fee for patient Caleb Hayes to Johns Hopkins Pediatrics (Anonymous).
March 2022: Authorized emergency roof repair for Highlandtown duplex (Contractor: Miller & Sons, billed to Calder Holdings).
September 2023: Approved scholarship grant for East Baltimore Public School District (Recipient ledger: C. Hayes).
I stared at the page until the ink seemed to blur together into a dark, curling river.
“You…” I swallowed hard, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “You paid for Caleb’s treatments?”
Roman didn't look away. His face remained completely still, carved from that same cold river stone.
“The hospital bill for a twelve-year-old’s congenital heart murmur is roughly forty-two thousand dollars a year,” Roman said, his voice entirely matter-of-fact. “My shipping insurance alone covers twice that in broken crates of French wine every month. It was a minor administrative adjustment.”
“You didn't have to do that,” I whispered, my fingers gripping the edge of the desk until the wood bit into my palms. “I was just… I was just the cook.”
“You were never just the cook, Clara,” Roman said, taking two slow steps toward me until the heat of his body seemed to push back the chill in the room. “From the first week you started, when you noticed the discrepancy in the vegetable supply invoices and saved the estate three thousand dollars a month in kickbacks to the local distributor… I knew you were wasting your time in my kitchen.”
May you like
“Then why didn't you say anything?”
“Because if I offered you a desk job in the corporate office, you would have looked at me with those stubborn green eyes and told me you preferred honest work,” he said softly, stopping just a foot away from me. For the first time, I could see the raw, unfiltered exhaustion in his face—and something else, something deeper that he had kept locked behind three inches of reinforced steel for five long years. “And because as long as you were downstairs making coffee, I knew where you were. I knew you were safe.”
