Chương 4
“Careful.”
Daniel turned toward him.
“You were there, Marcus.”
The room went quiet.
Marcus’s face changed.
Only slightly.
But I knew him well enough to notice.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Marcus looked at the floor.
That bothered me more than Daniel’s accusation.
Marcus had been with me for eleven years.
He had taken bullets meant for me.
He had lied to protect me.
He had buried parts of himself to survive the life we lived.
And now he was standing in my home while a stranger told me my entire childhood was built on something false.
“Marcus,” I said.
He did not answer immediately.
“Tell me you didn’t know.”
His silence was the answer.
Lily looked between us.
Children were terrible at understanding complicated truths, but they were experts at noticing when adults stopped being honest.
“Vincent,” Marcus finally said.
I held up my hand.
“No.”
My voice came out calmer than I expected.
“That is the one thing I am not interested in hearing right now.”
Marcus swallowed.
Daniel looked away.
For the first time, I saw something that looked almost like regret.
Not guilt.
Regret.
There was a difference.
Guilt belonged to people who thought they had done something wrong.
Regret belonged to people who thought they had done what they had to do.
I turned back to the security footage.
Emily had brought Lily here herself.
She had known exactly where to send her.
She had known I would open the door.
She had known I would not turn away a child.
Even after everything between us, she still knew me better than I wanted to admit.
“Where is she?” I asked Daniel.
He took a slow breath.
“I don’t know.”
I looked at him.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“You know enough to tell me impossible things about my father.”
Daniel rubbed his jaw.
“I know enough to tell you that the man you thought was dead is alive.”
“Name.”
Daniel hesitated.
“Richard Moretti.”
The name sounded like something from another lifetime.
My father.
A man who was supposed to have been buried in a closed casket after a car accident outside Cleveland.
A man my mother refused to discuss after that day.
A man whose photographs disappeared from our house one by one until there was nothing left except a blank space on the wall where his picture used to hang.
I had spent years believing my mother removed those photographs because she hated him.
Now I wondered if she removed them because she was afraid someone would find them.
Lily tugged on my sleeve.
“Are you mad?”
I looked down.
The question caught me off guard.
“At who?”
She shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
Her eyes moved toward Daniel.
“Everybody keeps getting quiet.”
For some reason, that hurt more than anything else.
A child should not have to learn that silence was where adults hid the things they did not want to say.
I crouched beside her.
“You did nothing wrong.”
She nodded.
“My mommy says grown-ups do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make everything complicated.”
A small laugh escaped before I could stop it.
It was quiet.
Almost nothing.
But Marcus noticed.
So did Daniel.
I had forgotten what it felt like to laugh without deciding whether it was useful.
Lily looked confused.
“Was that funny?”
“A little.”
“My mommy laughs when people are being annoying.”
“That sounds like her.”
The words left my mouth before I could stop them.
For a second, Emily was not a missing person.
She was just Emily.
The woman who drank coffee too late at night and complained about my terrible taste in music.
The woman who once spent twenty minutes arguing with me because I folded towels incorrectly.
The woman who looked at a dangerous man and somehow only saw a lonely one.
Then the elevator chimed again.
Everyone moved.
The moment disappeared.
One of my guards looked at the monitor.
“Another person coming up.”
Marcus immediately reached for his weapon.
“Who?”
The guard checked the screen.
“Private elevator access.”
My eyes narrowed.
Nobody had access except people I authorized.
The doors opened.
A woman stepped out.
She was in her forties, wearing a gray coat and carrying a leather bag.
I did not recognize her.
But Daniel did.
His face hardened.
“Why is she here?”
The woman looked around the room.
Her eyes landed on Lily.
Then she looked at me.
“Because you need to stop wasting time.”
Marcus moved in front of me.
“Identify yourself.”
She ignored him.
“My name is Sarah Bell.”
No reaction.
Then she added,
“I worked with Emily.”
Daniel’s expression changed.
“Worked with her where?”
Sarah looked at him.
“You know where.”
The two of them shared a look that told me they had a history.
Not friendship.
Something more complicated.
Something built from shared secrets.
I was becoming surrounded by people who knew pieces of my life better than I did.
That feeling was worse than fear.
Fear at least admitted there was a threat.
This was something else.
This was discovering the threat had already been inside the walls for years.
“What happened to Emily?” I asked.
Sarah looked at Lily.
Then back at me.
“She tried to expose him.”
“Who?”
She did not answer immediately.
She did not need to.
Everyone in the room already knew.
“My father.”
The words felt heavier when I said them myself.
Sarah nodded.
“Richard Moretti was not killed in that accident.”
I stared at her.
“How did he survive?”
“He was never in the car.”
The room stayed still.
That was the kind of information that should have come with a warning.
A pause.
A sign.
Something.
Instead, it just existed.
A sentence that could split a person’s life into before and after.
“What happened that night?” I asked.
Sarah looked uncomfortable.
“Your father was involved with people who had more influence than you ever realized.”
“My father was a businessman.”
May you like
Daniel gave a humorless smile.
“That is what he wanted everyone to believe.”
