Chapter 2
Chapter2
Daniel didn’t sleep that night.
I could tell, because I didn’t either.
At six in the morning, I found him in the kitchen, staring at a cup of coffee he hadn’t touched.
“I’m not confronting him yet,” he said without turning around.
“Why not?”
“Because if Victor is dirty, he has people. And if I move too early, I lose the only chance to find out how many.”
He finally looked at me.
“I need you to stay in this house.”
“As your wife?”
“As someone I’m trying to keep alive.”
I wanted to argue.
Then I remembered the cut brake line.
“Marcus stays near me,” I said. “And the guest room stays mine.”
A muscle moved in his jaw.
“Agreed.”
I took out my phone and opened a voice memo.
“There’s something else. Victor called me Sunday night. I let it go to voicemail.”
I pressed play.
Victor’s smooth, fatherly voice filled the kitchen.
“Mrs. Blackwood, some accidents are best left alone. Daniel has enough trouble. Don’t add to it.”
Daniel listened to the entire message without moving.
When it ended, he said very quietly, “Send it to Marcus. Now.”
At three that afternoon, the doorbell rang.
Vanessa Cole stood on our front step in a cream coat, holding white roses.
“I came to check on Daniel,” she said sweetly. “He hasn’t returned my calls.”
“He’s in the study,” I replied.
“Wonderful.”
She walked past me, then paused in the living room.
“You know, Emily, you should be grateful. Most men would’ve left you after the first threat.”
I smiled politely.
“Most women would’ve stopped calling a married man after the first rumor.”
Her smile cracked at the corners.
Daniel appeared in the doorway.
“Vanessa. Not now.”
“Daniel, I only wanted—”
“Not now.”
For the first time in years, he didn’t soften his tone for her.
Her phone rang.
She glanced at the screen, turned pale, and stepped onto the terrace to answer, leaving the phone on the coffee table.
I wasn’t snooping.
But when it lit up with a new message, I was standing right beside it.
Four words from a contact saved as “V.R.”
“She’s asking about the car.”
Another message followed before the screen dimmed.
“Handle it tonight.”
I read it twice, my heart pounding in my ears.
Through the glass door, Vanessa laughed softly into her call, looking out at the garden as if nothing in the world could touch her.
Then she turned around.
And saw me holding her phone.
I hadn’t touched the phone.
But Vanessa’s face told me she thought I had.
She walked inside slowly, her smile gone.
“That’s private.”
“Then you shouldn’t leave it on a coffee table in my house.”
“Your house?” She laughed, but her voice trembled. “Daniel will never choose you.”
“Daniel,” I said, without taking my eyes off her, “can hear you.”
Daniel stood in the doorway, expression unreadable.
Vanessa looked between us.
Then she picked up her phone, lifted her chin, and left without another word.
The front door closed.
I told Daniel what I’d seen.
He listened.
When I finished, he nodded once.
“Tonight, you go to Sarah’s.”
“Daniel—”
“Marcus goes with you. Two men outside the building. I’ll handle the rest.”
“You’re using me as bait.”
“No.” His voice was rough. “I’m using Sarah’s building because Victor doesn’t know about it. It’s the safest place I have.”
Sarah’s apartment was on the ninth floor, three blocks from the hospital.
She made tea. I pretended to drink it.
At eleven-ten, Marcus knocked twice on the door.
“Black SUV across the street. Engine running. Nobody inside.”
I felt Sarah’s hand close around mine.
Then the elevator dinged.
Marcus drew his weapon and stepped into the hall.
I heard voices.
Then a crash.
Then a gunshot.
“Back stairs!” Sarah whispered.
We ran.
Nine floors of cold concrete, Sarah’s phone flashlight bouncing off the walls, footsteps pounding above us.
At the lobby door, Sarah grabbed my arm.
“The hospital. Go!”
We burst onto the street and sprinted three blocks through the rain.
Northwestern’s emergency entrance glowed ahead like a lighthouse.
Sarah flashed her badge, pulled me through the doors, and shouted at the guard.
“Lock the east entrance. Now!”
My hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold my phone.
I called Daniel.
I expected the voicemail.
I expected the silence.
He answered on the first ring.
“Emily!”
“They found us,” I breathed. “Marcus was shot. We’re at Northwestern.”
“Listen to me.” His voice was low and steady. “I’m coming. Stay inside. Do not trust anyone who tells you I sent them.”
The line went dead.
I turned.
A tall man in a dark jacket was walking toward us across the waiting room, one hand raised in a friendly wave.
A silver crest glinted on his badge.
“Mrs. Blackwood,” he said warmly. “Mr. Blackwood sent me to take you home.”
I looked at the badge.
I looked at the silver crest.
Then I looked at the man’s face, and everything inside me went calm.
“Sarah,” I said softly. “Don’t move.”
“What?”
“That crest has a lion facing left.”
The man’s smile didn’t change.
“Mrs. Blackwood, we should go.”
“The new design,” I said, “has a lion facing right. I changed it myself last spring.”
His hand slid inside his jacket.
Sarah moved faster than I’d ever seen her.
She slammed her palm onto the red panel on the wall.
Alarms exploded through the emergency department.
Steel doors dropped over the exits.
Nurses shouted. Security poured in from three corridors.
The man spun around, and two guards pinned him to the floor before he could draw.
I stood frozen, my heart racing, as Sarah wrapped an arm around my shoulders.
“Nice catch,” she whispered.
“Nice alarm.”
Twenty minutes later, Daniel walked through the doors of Northwestern Memorial with six men behind him and blood on his shirt that wasn’t his.
Marcus was alive. Hurt, but alive.
Daniel didn’t say a word.
He crossed the room, took my face in both hands, and looked at me as if he were checking that I was real.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Later,” I whispered. “Where’s Victor?”
His eyes turned to ice.
“Waiting for me.”
An hour later, I stood in the Blackwood study, beside the desk where I’d once left Daniel notes about dinner.
The lieutenants sat around the long table. Men I had served coffee to for four years.
Victor Ross sat at the far end, silver hair neat, hands folded.
Vanessa sat beside him in a red dress.
“Daniel,” Victor said gently, “I’m sorry about your wife’s scare. But this is a family matter. Why is she in the room?”
“Because she’s the reason we’re here,” Daniel said.
I placed my phone on the table and pressed play.
Victor’s own voice filled the room.
“Some accidents are best left alone.”
The lieutenants went silent.
Daniel slid a printout across the table.
“Fourteen calls from my wife. Filtered. Deleted at two-eleven in the morning. From your login.”
“Anyone could’ve used it,” Victor said smoothly.
“Anyone,” I said, “except a man who’s been sending money to Anton Petrov through the hotel accounts for two years.”
Victor’s smile finally flickered.
I had found those transfers months before the accident. I had mentioned them to Victor himself, trusting him.
That was why my brakes had been cut.
Vanessa’s lips parted.
Victor stood slowly.
May you like
“You’re clever, Emily,” he said. “But you think Vanessa’s accident was the only thing I arranged?”
The lights went out.
