Chương 2
I looked at the little girl standing in front of me.
She looked back.
Neither of us said anything.
Then Marcus’s phone rang.
He answered immediately.
His eyes moved toward the windows while he listened.
Three seconds passed.
Then his expression changed.
“Vincent.”
His voice was lower than usual.
“We have a problem.”
I stood.
“What?”
He ended the call and walked closer.
“Three black SUVs just stopped outside.”
I looked toward the glass walls overlooking the city.
Rain covered the windows, turning the lights below into blurry streaks.
“Police?”
Marcus shook his head.
“No.”
The answer was worse.
“Men.”
Behind me, Lily suddenly grabbed my hand.
Her fingers were tiny.
Cold.
“They found me.”
I looked down at her.
“What did you say?”
She stared at the elevators across the room.
“They found me.”
The fear in her voice was not the fear of a child imagining something.
It was the fear of someone who had already seen it happen once.
I moved toward Marcus.
“Lock everything down.”
He hesitated.
That was unusual.
“Vincent.”
I looked at him.
“They know where you live.”
His eyes dropped briefly toward Lily.
“They might know more than that.”
I hated that he was right.
For years, I had built my life around information.
Who knew what.
Who could be trusted.
Who had an advantage.
And somehow, a five-year-old girl had walked through my security carrying a message that someone wanted me to receive.
Someone had planned this.
Someone had counted on me opening the door.
The elevator numbers changed.
Sixteen.
Seventeen.
Eighteen.
I looked at Lily.
“Stay behind me.”
She nodded, but she did not let go of my hand.
That bothered me more than the men coming upstairs.
Because I knew exactly what it meant.
She trusted me.
And I had spent most of my life becoming the kind of person children were supposed to be protected from.
Marcus moved toward the hallway.
Two guards appeared near the entrance.
Their faces were tense.
No one spoke.
The elevator continued climbing.
Twenty-one.
Twenty-two.
The penthouse was silent except for the rain and the soft mechanical sound of the elevator approaching.
Then Lily looked up at me.
“Mister Vincent?”
“Yeah?”
“My mommy said you would be scared.”
I looked down.
“What did she say?”
Lily hesitated.
“She said you would think you were protecting me.”
A chill moved through me.
“But she said you were really protecting yourself.”
The elevator stopped.
The doors began to open.
And for the first time in years, Vincent Moretti was not afraid of losing power.
He was afraid of discovering that the one person who ever saw him clearly had been right.
The elevator doors opened slowly, revealing three men standing inside the mirrored walls.
None of them reached for a weapon.
That was the first thing that made me nervous.
People who came looking for violence usually wanted you to know it.
People who came looking for something else were often more dangerous.
The man in front stepped out first.
He was in his late fifties, wearing a dark coat that looked too expensive to be accidental and too plain to be a statement.
I recognized him after a moment.
Daniel Voss.
A name that had appeared in my world many times, always attached to rumors and never attached to anything anyone could prove.
Marcus moved beside me.
“Voss,” he said quietly.
Daniel smiled slightly.
“Marcus.”
The fact that he knew my security chief by name made the room colder.
Lily pressed herself against my side.
Daniel noticed.
His eyes moved toward her, and for the briefest second, something changed in his expression.
Not anger.
Not satisfaction.
Something closer to disappointment.
I hated that I noticed.
“What do you want?” I asked.
Daniel looked around my apartment.
“You always did like dramatic entrances, Vincent.”
“I asked what you want.”
He sighed.
“I was hoping we could avoid making this unpleasant.”
“You brought three cars full of men to my home.”
“I brought three cars because I know you.”
He glanced toward Marcus.
“And because your first reaction to a problem is usually to create a bigger one.”
Marcus stepped forward.
“That’s enough.”
Daniel ignored him.
His attention stayed on me.
“You have Emily’s daughter.”
The words settled heavily.
Not because he knew.
Because he said them like he had expected me to know already.
Lily grabbed my hand harder.
I felt her fingers shaking.
“You know Emily,” I said.
Daniel looked at the child.
“I knew Emily.”
The correction was small.
It carried weight.
“Where is she?” I asked.
His face changed slightly.
A tiny movement.
A hesitation.
A person trying to decide how much truth was safe.
“I don’t know.”
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because I had spent years around liars, and that answer sounded too carefully prepared.
“You came here at two in the morning, but you don’t know where she is?”
“She contacted me before she contacted you.”
That got my attention.
Marcus looked at me.
Daniel reached into his coat slowly.
Three guards raised their hands.
I lifted mine before anyone made a mistake.
“Let him show me.”
Daniel pulled out a phone.
He unlocked it and held it out.
On the screen was a message.
From Emily.
The timestamp was six hours earlier.
I read it once.
Then again.
Daniel,
If anything happens to me, Vincent has Lily.
Do not let anyone take her.
I stared at the words.
My first reaction was anger.
Not fear.
Not relief.
Anger.
Because Emily had trusted me with the one thing she valued most while still keeping the truth of my own life from me.
She had a daughter.
My daughter.
And she had decided I did not deserve to know.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
No one answered.
I looked at Daniel.
He looked uncomfortable.
That alone told me something.
Daniel Voss was not a man who looked uncomfortable.
May you like
“You knew,” I said.
“I knew about Lily.”
