Chương 5
Odalys looked at the closed door.
Dr. Patel followed her gaze. “Mr. Marchetti attempted to remain in the room. I explained that I charge extra for removing elderly men from hallways.”
A startled laugh escaped Odalys.
The physician’s face softened. “That was better.”
“Is stress dangerous?”
“Stress is unpleasant. It is not a moral failure, and one terrible night does not determine the outcome of a pregnancy. Eat something. Drink water. Sleep if you can. Seek urgent care if you have severe pain, heavy bleeding, fainting, or anything that frightens you.”
Odalys nodded.
Dr. Patel began to leave, then paused. “You are allowed to ask whether you want this.”
“I do.”
The answer came before fear could interfere.
“Then begin there,” the physician said.
Everett was waiting outside the room.
Dr. Patel looked at him. “She needs privacy, food, and an appointment with a doctor she selects.”
“I can provide—”
“She selects.”
Everett’s face altered in the minute way powerful men’s faces changed when a person refused to be impressed.
Dr. Patel smiled pleasantly. “Good evening.”
She walked to the elevator with Elena.
Everett remained.
Odalys held the door half closed. “What?”
“There are matters we must discuss before morning.”
“No.”
“Kade will move against the family’s interests.”
“Weston is not the only man in New York who believes his panic deserves a schedule.”
“Odalys—”
She closed the door.
Across town, Weston was still in the penthouse when Nolan returned at two twelve in the morning.
The rain had weakened. Someone from the household staff had dried the marble, but the air smelled damp, and one edge of the rug near the entrance had curled upward. Weston sat at the dining table with the dossier spread before him and his phone facedown beside the untouched whisky.
Nolan placed a tablet on the table.
“The convoy entered a garage on Franklin Street,” he said. “Building belongs to Orsino Capital. Everett controls it through two holding companies.”
“Airports?”
“No departures connected to Marchetti assets. No filed flight plans that match.”
“She’s still in the city.”
“Yes.”
Weston looked at the tablet. “The courier?”
“Thomas Vale is real. Compliance consultant in Zurich. He entered the country yesterday. His father is Lucien Vale.”
“The envoy.”
“Yes.”
“Where is Thomas?”
“Checked into a hotel near JFK. Left forty minutes ago for a flight to Lisbon.”
Weston leaned back.
Nolan swiped to another image. It showed the lobby desk at seven twelve. A man in a gray coat placed the black package in front of the concierge.
“Everett wanted me to receive it before the cars arrived.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Looks like?”
Nolan met his eyes. “It also looks like you gave him what he wanted.”
Weston’s voice cooled. “Be careful.”
“I am.”
Nolan had been injured twice while working for Weston, though he never mentioned either incident unless an airport scanner required an explanation. He had lied to law enforcement, shareholders, and one particularly persistent reporter. He had stood outside hospital rooms and funeral homes. He had never spoken to Weston that way.
Weston folded his hands. “Say the rest.”
Nolan looked toward the entrance. “You knew the passport was false. You knew the dossier came from an unknown source. You gave her five minutes anyway.”
“She lived in my house under the name of a dead child.”
“Yes.”
“She entered my life with a fabricated history.”
“Yes.”
“She is a Marchetti.”
Nolan glanced at the pages. “Apparently.”
“Apparently?”
“You have a photograph and a typed name. That is evidence of something. It isn’t evidence of everything.”
Weston rose.
Nolan did not step back.
The room seemed to contract around them.
Then Weston turned away and walked to the window.
His reflection hovered over the city. Dark suit. Open collar. One hand resting against the glass. His father had once told him that loyalty was simply fear with better manners. Weston had been nineteen and foolish enough to believe cynicism sounded like intelligence.
“What did the building staff see?” he asked.
“Enough.”
“Be specific.”
“Two housekeepers, the night concierge, three security officers, and your driver saw part of the confrontation or its aftermath. The lobby has video of the convoy. Someone across the street recorded the vehicles.”
“Has it been posted?”
“Not yet. We have asked the building to preserve the footage and limit access.”
“Asked.”
“You no longer own the management company.”
Weston turned.
Nolan lifted one shoulder. “You sold it because Priya said owning the company that employed the people who cleaned your home was strange.”
Despite himself, Weston remembered her exact words: It is strange, Weston. Not illegal. Not sinister. Just strange. She had been eating noodles from the carton and reading the management company’s employee handbook because she did things like that.
He had sold his controlling interest three months later.
“Find out who she was before she met me,” he said.
Nolan looked at the dossier. “That could take time.”
“You have until morning.”
“No. I have until morning to produce whatever Everett wants you to believe next.”
Weston faced him fully.
Nolan continued before courage could become regret. “Give me forty-eight hours. No calls to Marchetti. No retaliation. No one near that building. Let me verify the records.”
“And if she leaves?”
“She had three years to disappear. She didn’t.”
“She had three years to finish whatever she came to do.”
Nolan’s eyes went to the whisky.
“Maybe she did.”
Weston understood the implication and despised it because it was not absurd. If Odalys had come to destroy him, she could have passed information, opened accounts, copied files, placed him in rooms he could not explain. She had access to his calendar, his homes, his habits, and the code he used for the wine cellar because she complained that the default code was childish.
May you like
Yet the most dangerous thing she had done was make him imagine a life in which he did not eat dinner alone.
He picked up the whisky glass and carried it to the sink.
