Chapter 4 - ELEVEN DAYS
Emma read the message until the words stopped looking like words.
Your twenty-ninth birthday is why they have started moving now.
Eleven days.
That was all.
Eleven days until her twenty-ninth birthday.
Eleven days until whatever had been hidden from her for nearly three decades supposedly became important enough for people to start watching her.
Emma sat on the edge of Maya's guest bed, still wearing the black dress from the gallery.
She hadn't changed.
She hadn't slept.
She hadn't even cried.
She was too angry to cry.
Her phone lay in her hand.
Dante's name remained on the screen.
She wanted to call him.
She wanted to demand every answer.
She wanted to hear him admit that their entire marriage had been built on information she had never been allowed to see.
Instead, she locked the phone.
Maya appeared in the doorway.
“You've been staring at that thing for ten minutes.”
Emma looked up.
“I think my husband lied to me.”
Maya leaned against the frame.
“Your billionaire husband?”
Emma nodded.
“The mysterious billionaire husband who apparently has armed men following him everywhere?”
“Yes.”
Maya considered that.
“That's… not the worst husband problem I've ever heard.”
Despite everything, Emma almost smiled.
Then Maya's expression softened.
“What happened?”
Emma hesitated.
She had promised Dante privacy.
But she had also promised herself she would never again let another man control the truth of her life.
“My father knew his family.”
Maya's face changed.
“What?”
“And my mother may have been involved too.”
“Involved how?”
“I don't know.”
Emma looked down at her phone.
“But I found a photograph of my mother at a hospital the year I was born.”
Maya sat beside her.
“And?”
“She wasn't supposed to be there.”
“What do you mean?”
“According to my family records, I was born somewhere else.”
Maya stared at her.
“You think your birth records were changed?”
“I don't know what I think.”
“That sounds serious.”
“It is.”
Maya was silent for a moment.
Then she asked:
“What does Dante say?”
“He knows more than he's telling me.”
“Did he admit that?”
“Yes.”
Maya frowned.
“And you still call him your husband?”
Emma looked at the platinum band on her finger.
“I don't know what he is.”
The words hurt more than she expected.
Maya noticed.
“You love him?”
Emma immediately shook her head.
“No.”
Too fast.
Maya raised an eyebrow.
“Okay.”
“I don't.”
“Sure.”
“It's a contract.”
“Of course.”
Emma glared at her.
Maya held up both hands.
“I'm just saying… men don't usually show up in armored cars because a woman they barely know was embarrassed at an art gallery.”
Emma looked away.
“That's what scares me.”
“What?”
“I don't know why he cares.”
At dawn, Dante stood alone inside his study.
The city beyond the windows was turning gray.
He hadn't slept either.
On the desk lay the photograph of Thomas Morrison.
Beside it was another document.
One he had kept hidden for six months.
He stared at the signature.
His father's.
ANTONIO MORETTI
Underneath it:
Thomas Morrison — Witness
Dante closed his eyes.
His father had warned him about this day.
Not directly.
Antonio Moretti had never been a man who explained anything directly.
But five years before his death, he had called Dante into his office.
He had been sick then.
Too sick to pretend otherwise.
“Your uncle will come for everything,” Antonio had said.
Dante had been thirty-two.
He had laughed.
“Let him.”
Antonio hadn't smiled.
“He won't come for the companies.”
“What will he want?”
“My mistakes.”
Dante had frowned.
“What mistakes?”
His father had looked toward the window.
“The girl.”
Dante remembered that moment perfectly.
“What girl?”
Antonio had never answered.
Three years later, he was dead.
And Dante had spent the next decade trying to find out what his father had meant.
Until Emma appeared.
At first, she had been a name in a report.
A nurse.
Ordinary background.
No scandals.
No debts.
No suspicious relationships.
No criminal associations.
No reason to matter.
Except for one thing.
Her father.
Thomas Morrison.
A man who had disappeared from every Moretti record after 1997.
A man who had apparently died of a heart attack.
A man whose death certificate had been signed by a doctor who no longer existed.
Dante had known immediately that something was wrong.
Then he learned Emma's birthday.
The same date.
The same month.
The same year.
And suddenly his father's words made sense.
The girl.
He had approached Emma because he believed she was the person his father had been talking about.
He had offered her the contract because he needed her close.
He had told himself it was protection.
But the truth was uglier.
He had been investigating her.
Then somewhere between the first dinner and the fourth argument, something had changed.
Emma had stopped being a case.
She had become a person.
A person whose laugh he remembered.
A person whose anger unsettled him.
A person whose silence bothered him more than it should.
A person he had begun protecting before he had permission to admit why.
Dante picked up his phone.
He opened Emma's contact.
His thumb hovered over the call button.
He stopped.
She had told him not to follow her.
For once, he would respect it.
The study door opened.
His security chief, Marcus Hale, entered.
“We found the man who sent the photograph.”
Dante looked up.
“Who?”
“Former Moretti security.”
“Name.”
“Victor Kane.”
Dante's expression darkened.
“That's impossible.”
Marcus placed a folder on the desk.
“He disappeared seventeen years ago.”
“Why is he back?”
“We don't know.”
Dante opened the folder.
A photograph of Victor stared back at him.
Older.
Heavier.
But unmistakable.
Dante turned the page.
His blood ran cold.
A recent surveillance photograph.
Victor stood outside St. Vincent's Hospital.
Beside him was Lucian Moretti.
And between them—
David Whitmore.
Dante's fingers tightened around the photograph.
“When was this taken?”
“Yesterday.”
David Whitmore sat across from Lucian Moretti in a private dining room.
He had expected an old man.
He had not expected someone who looked capable of killing a man without raising his voice.
Lucian sipped his coffee.
“You have questions.”
David smiled.
“I have information.”
“Everyone thinks information makes them powerful.”
“And doesn't it?”
“No.”
Lucian set down his cup.
“Information only makes you valuable until someone no longer needs you.”
David's smile disappeared.
“I know who Emma is.”
Lucian studied him.
“No, you don't.”
“I know her father had connections to your family.”
“That means nothing.”
“I know her records were altered.”
Lucian's eyes sharpened.
David continued.
“And I know Dante married her because of those records.”
Silence.
Then Lucian smiled.
“That is much closer.”
David leaned forward.
“What is she?”
Lucian's gaze hardened.
“Be careful.”
“I'm trying to understand what I'm dealing with.”
“You are dealing with something that has nothing to do with you.”
David laughed.
“Emma was my fiancée.”
“Past tense.”
David's jaw tightened.
Lucian noticed.
“Ah.”
“What?”
“You still want her.”
David said nothing.
Lucian leaned back.
“That is unfortunate.”
“Why?”
“Because Dante wants her too.”
David froze.
“You think he loves her?”
Lucian smiled.
“No.”
He looked toward the window.
“That's the problem.”
Emma returned to her apartment at noon.
Maya tried to stop her.
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
“That isn't reassuring.”
“I need clothes.”
“You could send someone.”
“I need to see it myself.”
Maya sighed.
“Call me when you get there.”
Emma nodded.
She took the elevator alone.
The hallway was quiet.
Too quiet.
She unlocked the door.
Nothing looked disturbed.
She stepped inside.
Then she noticed the bedroom.
One drawer was open.
Emma froze.
She walked toward it.
Nothing appeared missing.
Then she remembered something.
Her father's old watch.
She had kept it inside that drawer since she was nineteen.
It was gone.
Emma's stomach tightened.
She searched the room.
Nothing.
Then she heard a sound behind her.
A floorboard.
She turned.
A man stood in the doorway.
Emma screamed.
He raised both hands.
“Don't.”
She backed away.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Victor.”
Emma's heart pounded.
“How did you get inside?”
“I have something your father left.”
“What?”
He reached inside his coat.
Emma stepped backward.
Victor slowly removed an envelope.
He placed it on the floor.
“Don't open it here.”
Emma stared.
“Why?”
“Because they know I'm here.”
“Who?”
Victor looked toward the hallway.
“The people who killed your father.”
Emma's breath caught.
“My father died of a heart attack.”
Victor gave her a sad smile.
“That is what they wanted you to believe.”
Footsteps sounded outside.
Victor turned.
“Too late.”
The apartment door exploded inward.
Emma screamed.
Victor grabbed her arm.
“Run!”
They moved toward the fire escape.
A gunshot cracked behind them.
Emma froze.
Victor pushed her down.
Glass shattered above her.
“Go!”
They reached the fire escape.
Victor shoved Emma toward the stairs.
She turned.
“Come with me!”
He shook his head.
“They're after you.”
Another shot.
Victor stumbled.
Emma screamed.
He fell against the railing.
Blood spread across his shirt.
“Victor!”
He looked at her.
“Find the blue room.”
“What?”
“Your father knew.”
His hand released the railing.
He fell.
Emma stood frozen.
Then someone grabbed her from behind.
A strong arm wrapped around her waist.
She screamed.
“Emma!”
She recognized the voice.
Dante.
He pulled her against him.
Two security men rushed past.
Dante looked down at her.
His face was furious.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
He looked over her shoulder.
Victor was gone.
Only blood remained.
Dante's eyes hardened.
“You were supposed to call me.”
Emma stared at him.
“You were supposed to tell me the truth.”
May you like
Dante went silent.
For the first time, neither of them had anything left to hide behind.
