Chương 2
“Sorry.”
Nobody asked what was funny.
I looked at Marcus.
“He called them his daughters?”
“Yes.”
“He never held them.”
The room became very still.
“He wouldn’t even look at them after the midwife said they were girls.”
Elias walked toward the windows.
Traffic crawled far below, headlights moving between buildings as Manhattan began another morning indifferent to mine.
“What does Daniel do?” he asked.
“He works for his uncle.”
“Doing what?”
“Importing.”
Marcus's attention sharpened.
“What kind?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were married to him and you don’t know?”
The question sounded accusatory even if he had not meant it that way.
Heat climbed my face.
“I knew what he told me.”
Marcus opened his mouth, then closed it.
I stared at the blanket.
“Kitchen fixtures, restaurant equipment, sometimes stone.”
“Sometimes?”
“He traveled.”
“Where?”
“New Jersey mostly.”
Elias turned from the glass.
“Marcus.”
“I’ll check.”
“No.”
Both men looked at me.
The word had escaped before I decided to say it.
“No more checking things without telling me.”
Marcus frowned slightly.
Elias did not.
“You’re in my home,” Elias said.
“My security team has to assess a threat.”
“I’m not telling you not to.”
“Then what are you telling me?”
I looked at my daughters.
“I’m telling you I’m tired of being the last person who finds out what is happening to my own life.”
Elias studied me for several seconds.
“All right.”
Marcus shifted his weight.
“Sir, that complicates—”
“I said all right.”
“That isn’t a security protocol.”
“No.”
“It’s a promise.”
Marcus gave him the expression of a man who had accumulated years of objections and knew exactly how many were worth voicing before breakfast.
Then the intercom beside the entrance sounded.
I nearly dropped Lily.
Every muscle in my body locked.
Marcus had his hand inside his jacket before the second tone.
Elias moved between my bed and the door.
The older nurse whispered something to Grace and backed toward the adjoining room.
A man's voice came through the intercom.
“Mr. Vance, lobby security.”
Elias pressed the control.
“Yes?”
“There’s a Daniel Miller downstairs asking to see his wife.”
The room tilted.
I could smell concrete again.
Not the penthouse.
The overpass.
Wet dirt, exhaust, old snow.
My back seemed to split open beneath wounds that had already been cleaned and dressed.
Lily began crying because my arms had tightened around her.
“Ava.”
Elias’s voice reached me from far away.
I forced my hands to loosen.
“Is he alone?” Elias asked.
“Appears to be.”
“Do not let him upstairs.”
“Yes, sir.”
The connection ended.
Marcus was already speaking quietly into his own phone.
Elias remained at the intercom.
I could see the tendons in his hand.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“That depends on what you want.”
I almost laughed again.
Nobody had asked me that in so long that the question felt badly phrased.
“I want him gone.”
Elias pressed the intercom.
“Have security escort Mr. Miller off the property.”
I stared at him.
“That’s it?”
“You said you wanted him gone.”
Daniel had trained me to search every kindness for its hidden invoice.
“What do you want from me?”
Elias's brow tightened.
“Right now?”
“Ever.”
The nurses pretended not to listen.
Marcus stopped speaking for half a second.
Elias came back toward the bed.
Up close, he looked more tired than photographs of him suggested.
There was gray at one temple and a small shaving cut beneath his jaw.
“I want you to recover enough that my physician stops threatening me in my own kitchen.”
I waited.
“That’s all?”
“No.”
There it was.
“I want to know who nearly killed a woman and two newborn children under an overpass less than four miles from my home.”
“Why?”
His answer took too long.
“Because I stopped.”
“That isn’t a reason.”
“No.”
His gaze shifted to Lily.
“My sister died twenty-two years ago because several people decided what happened inside her marriage was private.”
The room changed around that sentence.
He offered nothing more.
I did not ask.
A buzzing came from Marcus’s phone.
He read the message.
His jaw hardened.
“Daniel isn’t leaving.”
Elias looked over.
“What is he doing?”
“He called the police.”
My mouth went dry.
Marcus continued before I could speak.
“He’s reporting that his wife and newborn daughters are being unlawfully held inside Elias Vance’s residence.”
I looked toward the locked door.
For the first time since waking, the penthouse no longer felt like a refuge.
It felt like evidence.
“Unlock it,” I said.
Elias stared at me.
“Ava—”
“Unlock the door.”
“You don’t have to see him.”
“I’m not going to.”
My legs shook as I pushed the blanket aside.
The nurse stepped forward, but I raised one hand.
“I said I wanted him gone.”
Pain pulled through my body as my feet touched the floor.
This time Elias did not stop me.
He only moved close enough to catch me if I fell.
I hated him a little for that kindness because I needed it.
“Let the police come up,” I said.
Marcus looked at Elias.
Elias looked only at me.
“And when they ask whether I’m being held here,” I said, “I’ll answer them myself.”
Marcus gave the order without taking his eyes off me.
The lock clicked open.
That tiny sound frightened me more than Daniel’s shouting ever had because it meant I had chosen to let the outside world enter.
Elias moved a chair beside the bed.
“Sit.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding through the dressing.”
I looked down and saw a dark stain spreading near my waist.
The nurse swore under her breath.
“I said no standing.”
“I noticed.”
She pressed a folded pad against my side and glared at Elias as though he had personally caused childbirth.
“If she passes out, I’m billing you for the floor.”
Marcus almost smiled.
The moment vanished when the elevator indicator outside the foyer chimed.
May you like
Two uniformed officers entered first.
A woman in her thirties walked behind them carrying a tablet and wearing the expression of someone who had already been warned that the address came with complications.
