Roman Flips

Roman lasts twenty-one minutes in the interview room once Nico puts the dock photos, the nursery medication, Bell's freight-depot logs, and the ring chain in front of him. Loyalty is expensive. Being named next is more so. Roman studies each page with the expression of a man realizing the family he served has already calculated him as acceptable loss.

"I didn't hit the car," he says at last.

Nico does not blink. "Start earlier."

Roman leans back. "Vivian ordered interception. She wanted Nina's copies and Mia back in-house. Owen knew there would be a stop, not a crash. He thought Tessa would take the deal once she saw the dock." He laughs once, bitter. "He still overestimates what women do when cornered."

"Who put the ring on Nina?" I ask through the glass, forgetting for a second I'm not supposed to speak.

Roman looks right at me anyway. "Vivian. Owen watched. I carried the bag."

There it is. No metaphor. No family language. Roles and verbs. Roman keeps going because once he starts surviving aloud he remembers he likes it. Bell handled the donor side. Celia routed Mia's records. Greer slowed warrants. Owen funded and monitored Tessa's disappearance. Vivian approved every pivot.

"Why kidnap Callum?" Nico asks.

"To find the hidden dock photos before hearing day. Vivian didn't know he already shipped them."

"And Poppy?"

Roman's jaw works. "Pressure point. Script asset. future witness control." He says it like terminology, not shame. Then perhaps he sees something in my face, because he adds, "I told them kids remember backgrounds. They didn't care."

By the time the statement is signed, Roman has bought himself a smaller cage and the Harts a larger one. The hearing stack thickens by another inch.