Chương 6
“What happens with the old video?” Elena asked.
“That’s more complicated.”
“Because it was in Connecticut.”
“Among other things.”
“Will you send it there?”
“We’ll preserve what we received and contact the appropriate authorities. They’ll decide what they need from you, Mr. Rawlins, and anyone else.”
“Damian killed her.”
Ortiz looked up.
Elena heard how certain she sounded.
The detective’s expression remained neutral.
“The video shows a physical confrontation and a fall. I’m not going to tell you what charge, if any, follows from a seven-year-old recording before investigators verify the source, completeness, location, chain of custody, medical records, witness statements, and everything else.”
Elena nodded.
It was frustrating.
Also reassuring.
She had spent the last seven hours inside a family where certainty was treated like property.
Ortiz did not seem interested in owning any.
“Could he leave tonight?”
“Yes.”
Elena’s stomach tightened.
Ortiz continued.
“But the incident involving you is separate. We’re still assessing that.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m not promising you an outcome before I have the facts.”
Adrian spoke from across the room.
“Good.”
Ortiz looked at him.
He had not been invited into the conversation, but she let it pass.
Elena looked at Adrian.
He rubbed a thumb over the gold chain at his throat, an old nervous habit he probably thought nobody noticed.
“Where is Damian?”
“Speaking to counsel.”
“Mother?”
“Same.”
“Together?”
“No.”
Adrian nodded.
Then he laughed once under his breath.
“What?”
Elena asked.
He shook his head.
“My mother hates separate rooms.”
At two seventeen, Damian was arrested in connection with Elena’s confinement and the alleged assault.
The old death was not part of that arrest.
Ortiz made that clear.
Damian walked through the penthouse in his charcoal suit with his wrists cuffed in front of him because he had argued when officers told him to place his hands behind his back and then abruptly stopped arguing once his lawyer arrived.
Adrian stood near the elevator.
Damian looked at him.
“You really think she’s going to stay after this?”
Adrian’s face went still.
Damian smiled.
Not because he felt confident.
Because cruelty was the only piece of leverage left within reach.
“You think she sees you as different from us?”
Adrian glanced at his own hand.
The one that had struck Damian.
Damian noticed.
“So do you.”
The elevator doors opened.
Ortiz guided him inside.
Victoria did not watch her younger son leave.
She sat at the dining table with both hands wrapped around a glass of water she had not touched.
When the doors closed, Adrian remained where he was.
Elena watched him from the hallway.
The penthouse looked different with police officers moving through it.
Less invincible.
The eighty-third-floor windows still showed Manhattan glittering below. The marble still came from Italy. The paintings still had discreet museum labels on the backs of their frames. Nothing had changed, and everything had.
Adrian finally turned.
He saw Elena.
“You should be in bed.”
She almost said, Don’t tell me what to do.
The words reached her mouth.
Then she saw his face.
“I can’t sleep.”
“Neither can I.”
Victoria spoke from the dining table.
“Adrian.”
He did not turn.
She said his name again.
He walked toward her.
Elena stayed where she was.
Victoria stared at the water.
“I did not know he would lock her in that room.”
“You offered her money.”
Victoria closed her eyes.
Adrian stopped opposite her.
“How much?”
No answer.
“How much did you offer my wife?”
“Ten million.”
Adrian’s head dropped.
Not in shock.
In exhaustion.
Victoria said, “She could have taken it.”
Elena stared at her.
Victoria finally looked over.
“I mean that as a compliment.”
“You should stop talking,” Adrian said.
“I am trying to tell you something about her.”
“I know who she is.”
“No, you don’t.”
Elena almost expected Adrian to defend her.
Instead, he said, “Probably not.”
That surprised both women.
He pulled out a chair and sat.
“I apparently don’t know anybody.”
Victoria’s face tightened.
“Self-pity does not suit you.”
“Neither does prison.”
Her eyes flashed.
“You think they can prosecute me because I told an employee to protect private security recordings seven years ago?”
“I think I have no idea what they can do.”
“You own three law firms’ worth of people who can tell you.”
“I don’t own them.”
“You pay them.”
“Not tonight.”
Victoria stared at her son.
Then something brittle in her face softened.
“You think I wanted this?”
Adrian said nothing.
“You were thirty. Your father had been dead eleven months. The company debt was worse than he told you. There were twelve thousand employees across businesses you barely understood, a board waiting for you to fail, lenders calling every morning, and Sophia was—”
“Dead.”
Victoria flinched.
“Yes.”
“You can say it.”
“I have said it every day for seven years.”
“No. You’ve said accident.”
She looked at him.
Adrian leaned back.
“What happened before the terrace?”
Victoria’s eyes moved toward Elena.
Adrian followed the look.
“She stays.”
“This is family.”
Elena tightened the blanket.
Adrian’s expression changed.
“She is my family.”
Victoria gave a sad little smile.
“That sentence has ruined men for centuries.”
“No. Men usually manage that themselves.”
Elena looked at him.
The dry line was so unexpectedly Adrian that, despite everything, she nearly smiled.
Victoria did not.
“Sophia discovered Damian was taking money.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“From where?”
“The family foundation.”
“How much?”
“At first, not much. Expense accounts. Transfers he claimed were reimbursements. Then larger amounts.”
“And nobody told me.”
“You were drowning.”
“So you let him steal?”
“I made him return it.”
Elena said, “Did Sophia know?”
Victoria turned toward her.
“She found the records.”
“What was she going to do?”
“Tell Adrian.”
Adrian stared at his mother.
Victoria’s voice became quieter.
“She said you deserved to know what kind of brother you had.”
“And Damian stopped her.”
“He begged her.”
May you like
“The video didn’t look like begging.”
“There were twenty minutes before the terrace that none of us have.”
