Chapter 4 - The Price of Defiance
Emily called Noah.
The phone rang once.
Then someone declined the call.
She tried again.
The phone had been switched off.
“I am going home,” Emily said.
Alexander blocked her path.
“No.”
“My brother is alone.”
“That is why you cannot go alone.”
“I did not ask for permission.”
“You are not getting permission.”
Emily stepped closer.
“Move.”
Alexander looked down at her.
“No.”
She pushed against his chest.
He did not move an inch.
“My brother may be in danger.”
“And walking into the same danger helps him how?”
Emily’s hands curled into fists.
Luca approached.
“I have two teams going to the apartment.”
“How long?”
“Seven minutes.”
“That is too long.”
“It is faster than you can get there.”
Renato watched from beside Eleanor.
His face carried the concern of a loving relative.
His eyes carried something else.
“Perhaps we should call the police,” he said.
Luca looked at him.
“We already did.”
“Which precinct?”
“Why?”
Renato smiled.
“So I can help.”
Alexander answered for Luca.
“Your help is not required.”
Renato’s expression tightened.
Eleanor reached for Emily.
“You should go with Alexander.”
Emily looked at the woman her father had saved.
“You might be the reason they took Noah.”
Eleanor did not deny it.
“I know.”
Emily hated her honesty.
She also trusted it more than an excuse.
Alexander led Emily through a private exit.
Luca and Eleanor followed.
Renato remained behind.
As the doors closed, he removed his phone.
He typed a single message.
THEY ARE COMING.
Alexander’s car moved through Chicago with two black vehicles surrounding it.
Emily sat beside Eleanor.
Alexander sat opposite them.
No one spoke for the first five minutes.
Then Eleanor touched Emily’s pendant.
“You said your father gave you this.”
“The night before he died.”
“Did he explain it?”
“He said it belonged to my mother.”
“Where is she?”
“She died eighteen months after him.”
“I am sorry.”
Emily looked out at the city lights.
“People are always sorry after the damage is permanent.”
Eleanor lowered her hand.
Alexander watched Emily carefully.
“How did your father die?”
“Hit-and-run.”
“Was anyone arrested?”
“No.”
“Was it investigated?”
“For two days.”
Alexander’s jaw tightened.
“What precinct?”
“Seventeenth.”
Luca looked up from the front passenger seat.
“Detective Mason Creed handled the case.”
Emily turned toward him.
“You know him?”
“I know his reputation.”
“What reputation?”
Luca hesitated.
Alexander answered.
“He solves the cases powerful people want solved.”
Emily understood.
“And buries the rest.”
The car stopped outside her apartment building.
Smoke stained the entrance.
A fire engine was parked at the curb.
Emily opened the door before Luca could stop her.
She ran inside.
The hallway smelled of burned plastic.
Her apartment door hung open.
A security officer stepped into her path.
“Miss Carter?”
“Where is Noah?”
“He is safe.”
“Where?”
“In the kitchen.”
Emily pushed past him.
Noah stood beside the sink.
He was twenty years old.
Tall.
Thin.
His brown hair was disordered.
A bruise darkened one cheek.
Emily wrapped both arms around him.
“What happened?”
“A man came in.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“He hit me once.”
Alexander entered behind them.
Noah looked at him.
“Who is that?”
“Alexander Moretti.”
Noah stared.
“The Alexander Moretti?”
Alexander ignored the question.
“What did the intruder want?”
Noah looked at Emily.
“Dad’s watch.”
Emily frowned.
“Dad never wore a watch.”
“He said Mom hid it.”
“Where?”
“I do not know.”
Alexander looked around.
The apartment had been torn apart.
Couch cushions lay on the floor.
Cabinets were open.
Photographs had been ripped from frames.
A small fire had burned inside the bedroom closet.
Firefighters had contained it before it spread.
Luca entered carrying a plastic bag.
Inside was a scorched photograph.
Thomas Carter stood beside a black town car.
Eleanor was visible through the rear window.
A man stood in the background.
Most of his face was hidden.
A small crown symbol was pinned to his jacket.
Emily looked at Eleanor.
“Is that the car?”
Eleanor stared at the photograph.
“Yes.”
Noah looked between them.
“What is happening?”
Emily took his hand.
“Dad did not cause the Moretti attack.”
Noah’s eyes widened.
“How do you know?”
Eleanor rolled forward.
“Because I was there.”
Noah looked at her wheelchair.
“You are Eleanor Moretti.”
“Yes.”
“You are the woman Dad almost killed.”
“No.”
Her voice broke.
“I am the woman your father saved.”
Noah sat down.
The apartment became silent.
Then he began laughing.
It was not amusement.
It was disbelief cracking under years of humiliation.
“He saved you?”
“Yes.”
“And you let everyone call him a killer?”
Eleanor accepted the anger.
“I did not remember enough.”
Noah stood.
“You remembered enough to stay rich.”
Emily grabbed his arm.
“Noah.”
“No.”
He pointed at Alexander.
“They have private investigators.”
“They have politicians.”
“They probably know what every person in Chicago ate for breakfast.”
“But they could not find out that Dad saved her?”
Alexander spoke quietly.
“We failed your family.”
Noah’s eyes flashed.
“Failure is forgetting a birthday.”
“What you did was abandonment.”
Alexander did not defend himself.
That made Noah angrier.
A phone rang inside the apartment.
Everyone looked around.
The sound came from beneath the overturned sofa.
Luca lifted it.
The phone did not belong to Emily or Noah.
He answered on speaker.
Victoria Harrington’s voice filled the room.
“I warned you that your career was the least valuable thing you would lose.”
Emily took the phone.
“Where is the watch?”
Victoria laughed.
“So Eleanor remembers.”
“She remembers my father saved her.”
“Eleanor remembers whatever Alexander tells her to remember.”
“You sent someone into my home.”
“That sounds like an accusation.”
“It is a promise.”
Victoria became quiet.
“What are you promising?”
“That I will prove what you did.”
Victoria’s voice turned cold.
“Your father made the same promise.”
The line went dead.
Emily stared at the phone.
Alexander spoke to Luca.
“Move them to the estate.”
Emily shook her head.
“I am not hiding.”
“This is not hiding.”
“It is surviving long enough to fight.”
Noah looked around their destroyed apartment.
“I vote for the billionaire fortress.”
Emily glared at him.
“I am serious.”
“So am I.”
He held up a scorched envelope.
“I found this inside Mom’s sewing box.”
Emily took it.
Her name was written across the front.
The handwriting belonged to their mother.
Inside was a single note.
Emily read it aloud.
“If Eleanor Moretti remembers Thomas, find the blue ledger before the man with the crown finds you.”
Beneath the message was an address.
Alexander recognized it immediately.
“That building belongs to the Harrington Foundation.”
Eleanor looked toward the burned photograph.
“No.”
“It belonged to them four years ago.”
Alexander’s eyes moved to his uncle.
Renato was no longer with them.
May you like
Eleanor whispered the rest.
“Renato Moretti owns it now.”
