Chapter 1 - THE VOICE ON THE LINE
“Because eight years ago, she was the one who saved me from that river.”
Gabriel stood behind his desk with the telephone pressed so tightly against his ear that his knuckles turned white. The clock above the fireplace read eleven fourteen. Beyond the windows, Chicago glittered through a mist of cold rain, as if nothing in the world had changed.
Everything in the study had changed.
“Saved you?” Gabriel repeated. “Nico, I watched them pull your car out of the water. I buried an empty coffin. I searched for you for six months.”
“I know.” His brother's voice sounded older than the recordings, rough around the edges. “They told me you stopped searching after six days.”
“Who told you that?”
A silence stretched across the line. Then Nico said, “Serena.”
My stomach turned. The doctor had warned me to rest my ears, and every word reached me through a low, maddening hum. I stood near the study door wearing a clean blouse that Lena, the head housekeeper, had found for me. Fresh bandages covered both ears. The bruise around my right eye felt hot and swollen. I should have been home, but the man Gabriel had mourned for eight years had just answered the phone, and somehow I had become the person who made that possible.
“Where are you?” Gabriel asked.
“At a clinic.”
“Which clinic?”
“Don't come with your usual men. Serena knows their routes.”
Gabriel looked at Tomas Bellini, his security chief. Tomas had worked beside the brothers' father, and his loyalty was the closest thing to a law inside this mansion.
“Tell me what's happening,” Gabriel said.
“Tomorrow's wedding isn't a wedding. It's a signing ceremony with flowers. She has papers prepared. Once they're executed, you'll lose the port company, the trust, everything Dad intended us to protect.”
Gabriel's face darkened. “I haven't signed anything.”
“She thinks you will.”
“Why would you help her?”
“I thought you ordered someone to kill me.”
A sharp silence followed. I saw Gabriel flinch, although he made no sound.
“That isn't true.”
“I want to believe you.”
“Then tell me where you are.”
“Before I do, tell the woman who found the receipt to leave the house.”
My breath caught. Nico knew about me.
“Olivia?” Gabriel asked.
“The girl Serena hurt,” Nico answered. “They've put her name on a list. I heard Arthur say it myself.”
Arthur Valenti was Serena's father, a wealthy financier whose smile never reached his eyes. He had stood at dinner promising to treat Gabriel like a son.
Gabriel's expression went hard. “What list?”
The connection crackled. Nico spoke more quickly. “I can explain in person. There is an old commuter station at Ravenswood, east platform. Six tomorrow morning. Come alone, except for the maid.”
“No,” Gabriel said immediately. “She's injured.”
“She's the only one who heard the clean recording, and the only one Serena hasn't prepared an excuse for. Ask her if she remembers the word ‘meridian.’”
I stared at the phone. I did remember. Just before Serena found me in the sitting room, the sound engineer had played another clip, a man's voice saying, “The meridian account closes when the brothers sign.”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I heard it.”
Gabriel covered the receiver. “You don't have to do any of this.”
“I know.” It was a new feeling, being told that my choice mattered. “But I think I know what he's talking about.”
Before Gabriel could speak, Nico said, “Don't let Serena know about the station.”
Then the call disconnected.
For a moment Gabriel did not move. Rain touched the glass, gentle and persistent. He lowered the phone to his desk as though it were something that might break.
Tomas checked the hallway and shut the door. “We should move the wedding guests to another location.”
“Cancel it,” Gabriel said.
“That'll announce we know something.”
Gabriel looked at his security chief. “A woman in my house has been assaulted. My brother is alive. I'm past worrying about announcing things.”
He turned toward me. His eyes went to the fresh gauze and bruising, and a different kind of anger crossed his face.
“Olivia, I owe you an apology. Serena was under my roof. You should have been safe here.”
“You didn't strike me,” I said.
“I didn't see what she was doing. That's something I have to answer for.”
The words surprised me more than his anger. Men with Gabriel's power were usually surrounded by people paid to tell them they were right.
He picked up a desk phone and called for Lena. “Have someone take Olivia to a hotel with medical support. Charge it to my personal account. She stays on full pay for as long as she needs.”
I immediately pictured my father's medications, my brother's tuition bill, and the balance in my checking account. Seventy-one dollars. It was almost painful how much relief one sentence could bring.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Gabriel,” he said, then hesitated. “Only if you're comfortable.”
Tomas opened a file on a tablet. “We need to talk about Meridian. It isn't on the household accounts, but there's a Meridian Logistics in the holding-company structure.”
“I've seen the name,” Gabriel said. “A dormant subsidiary.”
“Not dormant anymore. It acquired three shipping leases last month.”
“Who authorized that?”
Tomas looked at him. “A proxy filed under your signature.”
Gabriel held out his hand. Tomas gave him the tablet. He read the electronic authorization, looked at the signature, and shook his head.
“That's not mine.”
From the hallway came the sound of heels on marble.
Serena opened the door without knocking. The diamonds at her throat shone under the study lights. Her beautiful face was composed, but she stopped when she saw me.
“Olivia,” she said. “Why are you still here?”
Gabriel stepped between us. “I told her to stay.”
Serena turned a wounded gaze on him. “Darling, there are people downstairs asking why you've disappeared. Your aunt has flown from Boston. My father is concerned. Are we really going to let a little household accident spoil the evening?”
“A little accident?” Gabriel asked.
“She's been examined. I'm sure she's fine.”
I touched the gauze over my left ear. The doctor had said the injury might affect my hearing for weeks, possibly longer. I wasn't fine, and her indifference made my hands shake again.
“Serena,” Gabriel said, “did you know Nico is alive?”
All the practiced warmth vanished from her face.
She recovered quickly. “What kind of question is that?”
“A simple one.”
“I was with you at his funeral.”
“You didn't answer.”
Serena's gaze shifted to Tomas, then to me. “Someone is filling your head with stories. Is it her? Gabriel, you know she's desperate for money.”
“Don't talk about Olivia.”
Serena gave a short laugh. “Since when does a maid get to stand in the middle of a conversation between us?”
“Since she told me the truth when you wouldn't.”
The color rose in Serena's cheeks. “You'll regret humiliating me.”
Gabriel's expression didn't change. “You're not staying in this house tonight.”
“Excuse me?”
“Tomas will arrange an escort. The wedding is postponed.”
“It cannot be postponed.”
The urgency in her voice startled even her. She pressed her lips together and reached for the smooth composure she wore like armor.
“My father has guests arriving from Europe. There are contracts and reservations.”
“Then your father will survive a cancellation fee.”
“You have no idea what you've started.”
“I think,” Gabriel said quietly, “I'm finally finding out.”
Serena studied him. Then she looked at me with an expression so empty of warmth that I took one involuntary step backward.
“Be careful whom you believe, Gabriel.”
She left. Her heels struck the marble with sharp, measured clicks.
For several seconds nobody spoke. Then Tomas touched his earpiece. His expression changed.
“Boss, we have another problem. Someone logged into the camera archive from an exterior network six minutes ago.”
“Lock it down.”
“Already done. They downloaded the sitting-room footage.”
I thought about the sound engineer, the blood on the doorframe, Serena's hands at my shoulders. Someone now had proof of what she had done. I wanted to feel safer because of it.
I didn't.
Gabriel looked toward the door Serena had closed. “Whoever filed my signature is erasing their tracks.”
“There's more,” Tomas said, reading his screen. “The access came from a terminal registered to the Valenti Foundation.”
Gabriel swore under his breath. Then his phone vibrated.
A message from an unknown number appeared, accompanied by a photograph of the mansion's front gate. It had been taken moments earlier. A little blue sedan waited outside the security lights.
I recognized it instantly.
My brother's car.
Under the image were six words: TELL OLIVIA TO ANSWER HER PHONE.
My own phone began to ring.
BEN, the screen said.
I tried to answer, but my fingers wouldn't cooperate. Gabriel took one look at my face and moved closer, not touching me.
“Olivia,” he said, very gently, “put it on speaker.”
I did.
“Liv?” Ben's voice sounded thin and frightened. “Some man followed me from campus. He said he knows where Dad goes for therapy.”
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Outside your work. I didn't know where else to go.”
Gabriel was already speaking to Tomas. “Send two unmarked cars to the gate. Bring her brother inside. No one approaches without being identified.”
I heard Ben's breath catch. “Liv, did you get in trouble?”
I looked down at the blood on my borrowed blouse. Ten months earlier, I had taken this job because I thought a quiet life could be rebuilt one paycheck at a time.
Now a dead man's voice had reached across eight years, and the people who wanted to silence it knew the name of everyone I loved.
“No,” I told my brother, forcing steadiness into my voice. “Listen to me. Lock your doors. Help is coming.”
When the call ended, Gabriel met my eyes.
“I won't ask you to trust me,” he said. “Not after tonight. But I will get your family somewhere safe.”
I could hear the rain against the windows. I could hear my pulse, thick and uneven, inside my injured ears.
For the first time since Serena struck me, I believed I might have a chance to tell the truth and live long enough to see what happened afterward.
Then Tomas's radio crackled.
“Sir,” a guard said, “the sedan at the gate is empty.”
My heart stopped.
The guard continued. “We found the keys in the ignition. And a note taped to the steering wheel.”
Gabriel took the radio. “Read it.”
May you like
There was a pause.
“THE FIRST BROTHER CAME BACK. NOW WE TAKE HERS.”
