Chapter 10 - The Song Roman Finally Finished

Four months later, the ballroom looked different.

The burned piano was gone.

Roman had not replaced it yet.

Arthur Reed returned with a cane.

He complained about the acoustics.

That meant he was healthy.

Maria stayed in the guest house on the estate.

Not the mansion.

Roman chose that.

She accepted it.

They met twice a week.

Sometimes they talked.

Sometimes Maria played at the conservatory.

Roman listened.

Mila moved back to Madrid.

But she called Roman every Sunday.

He pretended that was Maria’s idea.

It was his.

Clara Voss was charged with crimes connected to the poisoning, the attempt on Maria, the financial scheme, and the fire.

The doctor cooperated.

Mr. Voss signed a full confession.

He survived long enough to testify.

David Voss turned over every private account he could find.

Elena returned the trust assets opened in her name.

She and Roman did not marry.

Not then.

They started again.

Dinner.

Coffee.

Arguments without contracts.

Truth without witnesses.

One evening, Elena came to the conservatory.

Roman was there with Maria.

Arthur tuned the old upright.

Mila had flown in that morning.

I brought coffee.

Apparently I was now invited to family things.

Nobody explained when that happened.

Maria sat at the piano.

She played four notes.

Roman looked at her.

“The same four.”

“Yes.”

“You really remembered?”

“I remembered every day.”

He sat beside her.

For a moment, neither moved.

Then Roman played the first four notes.

Maria added the next four.

He stopped.

“I don’t know the rest.”

She smiled.

“You did once.”

“I was fourteen.”

“You were stubborn.”

“I still am.”

“Yes.”

Mila laughed.

Roman looked at her.

“You play?”

“Better than you.”

He stared.

Maria smiled.

“Much better.”

Mila sat on the other side.

She played the next phrase.

Roman listened.

Then repeated it.

Slowly.

Wrong once.

Then right.

Elena stood near the window.

No red gown.

No engagement ring on her hand.

The old ring was in a box.

Not hidden.

Not worn.

Roman looked at her.

“Come here.”

She hesitated.

“I don’t play.”

“Neither do I apparently.”

She smiled and came closer.

Arthur leaned toward me.

“This family finally sounds human.”

I almost laughed.

Maria stopped playing.

Roman looked at her.

“What?”

She reached into her bag.

One final envelope.

His face changed.

“No more recordings.”

“No recording.”

“Letters?”

“No.”

She handed it to him.

Inside was a sheet of music.

Old.

Faded.

At the top:

FOR ROMAN.

His father’s handwriting.

Roman stared.

“He wrote music?”

Maria laughed softly.

“Badly.”

Arthur looked offended.

“Very badly.”

Roman almost smiled.

At the bottom of the page was one sentence.

FINISH THIS WITH YOUR MOTHER IF I AM NOT THERE.

Silence.

Roman closed his eyes.

Maria touched his hand.

“He wrote it before I disappeared.”

Roman looked at her.

“So before everything.”

“Yes.”

Before lies.

Before threats.

Before returned letters.

Before poison.

Before nineteen years.

Roman put the sheet on the piano.

He played.

Badly.

Arthur complained.

Mila corrected him.

Maria laughed.

Elena watched.

Then Roman found the melody.

The same four notes.

But this time, they continued.

The song did not stop where memory stopped.

It kept going.

When it ended, nobody spoke for several seconds.

Roman looked at Maria.

“I don’t forgive nineteen years.”

“I know.”

“I don’t forgive Dad for what he did.”

“I know.”

“I don’t forgive Voss.”

“You don’t have to.”

He looked at Elena.

“And I still don’t know what happens with us.”

She nodded.

“I know.”

Roman looked at Mila.

“I missed your whole childhood.”

She smiled sadly.

“Then don’t miss Sunday.”

He laughed.

“Deal.”

Arthur closed the piano lid.

Roman stopped him.

“No.”

Arthur frowned.

Roman looked at the instrument.

“Leave it open.”

Maria’s eyes filled.

The next week, Roman ordered a new grand piano for the mansion.

Not the same model.

No secret compartments.

Arthur inspected it anyway.

Twice.

The charity money recovered from the old accounts went back into the organizations that had been robbed.

Roman added his own money.

Mila supervised the records.

David helped investigators trace the remaining funds.

Elena created a foundation with no Voss family name attached to it.

Roman asked why.

She answered:

“Because good work should survive our last names.”

He believed her.

Months later, Roman proposed again.

Privately.

No gala.

No red gown.

No grandfather by the fireplace.

No recording hidden under a piano.

Elena said yes.

Maria cried.

Mila said Roman’s timing was terrible.

Arthur asked who would tune the wedding piano.

I asked whether anyone planned to have a normal dinner.

Nobody answered.

That was answer enough.

In the end, Roman learned that his mother had returned.

His father had regretted the truth he buried.

Elena had hidden a message out of fear.

Her grandfather had protected crimes with silence.

Clara had turned that silence into murder.

And Mila had carried evidence no one knew she possessed.

But the most important thing was not the recordings.

It was what happened after they ended.

Roman finally heard his mother in the same room.

He met the sister he had never been told existed.

He stopped letting dead men decide what the living owed each other.

And one evening, at the new piano, he played the four notes again.

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This time, he did not stop.

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