Chapter 2 - The PhotographI woke to the sound of rain tapping against glass.
For several seconds, I didn’t know where I was.
The mattress beneath me was too soft.
The ceiling was too high.
The room smelled like antiseptic instead of the lavender detergent I used in my apartment.
Then I tried to sit up.
Pain ripped through my left side.
I gasped.
“Don’t.”
The voice came from the corner.
Roman Moretti was sitting beside the window.
He had changed clothes, but apparently not slept. His black suit jacket hung over the back of the chair. His white shirt was wrinkled at the elbows. A paper cup of coffee sat untouched beside him.
He looked less frightening in daylight.
That lasted until he looked at me.
Then I reconsidered.
“What happened?”
“You needed thirty-two stitches.”
I stared at him.
“Thirty-two?”
“Seventeen in your forearm. Nine in your shoulder. Six in your side.”
“My side?”
“A piece of the champagne flute broke against a serving stand. One fragment went through your uniform.”
He paused.
“Another centimeter and it could have cut an artery.”
My mouth went dry.
“Leo?”
“Not a scratch.”
Relief hit me so strongly that I closed my eyes.
“Good.”
Roman studied me.
“You almost died.”
“But he didn’t.”
Something changed in his expression.
Not softness exactly.
Something closer to confusion.
As though my answer had violated a rule he understood about human behavior.
“Why?”
I opened my eyes.
“Why what?”
“Why did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Throw yourself over a child you had never met.”
I frowned.
“There wasn’t time to conduct interviews.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He leaned forward.
“Most people moved away.”
“I was closer.”
“There were three guests closer than you.”
I didn’t know what he wanted me to say.
Because he was little?
Because children weren’t supposed to understand what it felt like when adults failed to protect them?
Because when I was eight, I had watched my father collapse in our kitchen and learned that sometimes life gave you exactly one second to decide whether you would move or freeze?
I shrugged instead.
“He needed help.”
Roman was silent.
Then I noticed the photograph in his hand.
My father.
I knew him instantly.
Michael Blake stood beside a much younger Roman Moretti outside a construction site. Dad wore work boots and a faded denim shirt. Roman couldn’t have been older than twenty-five.
They were smiling.
My father had one arm around Roman’s shoulders.
I stopped breathing.
“Where did you get that?”
Roman placed the picture on the bedside table.
“My office.”
“You knew my father?”
“Yes.”
I stared at him.
“My father died sixteen years ago.”
“I know.”
“He was an electrician.”
“He was more than that.”
“To you?”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“He saved my life.”
The rain suddenly seemed louder.
I looked again at the photograph.
My father had never mentioned Roman Moretti.
Then again, twenty years ago Roman hadn’t been Roman Moretti.
His company had barely existed.
“My father never talked about you.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“Why?”
“Because Michael Blake never liked people owing him.”
I knew that much was true.
Dad had once spent three weekends repairing our neighbor’s roof and refused payment because the neighbor had just lost his job.
Roman picked up the picture.
“Twenty-one years ago, one of our first warehouse developments had an electrical fire during construction. I was inside when part of the mezzanine collapsed.”
His eyes stayed on the photograph.
“Your father went back into a burning building for me.”
My throat tightened.
“That sounds like him.”
“He broke two ribs carrying me out.”
“He told Mom he fell from a ladder.”
A humorless smile touched Roman’s face.
“He made me promise not to tell her.”
I looked away before he saw the tears in my eyes.
My mother had died three years after Dad.
After that, there had been no one.
No wealthy secret family.
No miraculous inheritance.
Just me, a grandmother who lasted until I was twenty, student debt, and an apartment above a laundromat.
“Why are there guards outside my room?”
The question erased Roman’s brief smile.
“Because what happened last night wasn’t random.”
I remembered the hand.
The silver flash.
“The glasses were aimed at Leo.”
“We believe so.”
“Why would somebody throw champagne glasses at a six-year-old?”
“They weren’t trying to kill him with the glass.”
Roman reached for a transparent evidence bag on the table.
Inside was a small metallic object.
“What is that?”
“A ceramic dart.”
A chill moved through me.
“It was found embedded in one of the flute stems.”
I stared.
Roman continued.
“The glass was meant to disguise the shot. Someone fired from across the room. They missed Leo because you moved him.”
My pulse accelerated.
“What was on the dart?”
“We don’t know yet.”
The door opened.
A small figure slipped inside before the security guard could stop him.
Leo.
He wore dinosaur pajamas beneath a navy robe.
Behind him hurried a woman in her sixties.
“Leo, your father said—”
Leo ignored her and ran to my bed.
“Nora!”
Roman stood.
“You were supposed to wait.”
“I waited forever.”
“It was fourteen minutes.”
“That’s forever when you’re six.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
Leo climbed carefully onto the chair beside my bed.
He held out the same green dinosaur from the ballroom.
“This is Pickles.”
“Pickles?”
“He’s brave.”
“Good name.”
Leo placed the toy beside my hand.
“You can borrow him.”
Roman looked at his son.
For the first time I saw the exhaustion behind his controlled expression.
Leo leaned closer.
“Papa said you got hurt because of me.”
Roman’s head snapped toward him.
“I did not say that.”
“You said she got hurt saving me.”
“That is different.”
Leo looked guilty anyway.
I touched his sleeve.
“Hey. I got hurt because some idiot threw something dangerous into a crowded room. You had nothing to do with it.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
He considered this.
Then nodded.
Roman watched me silently.
The older woman approached.
“Mr. Moretti, detectives are downstairs.”
His expression changed instantly.
Businesslike.
Cold.
Controlled.
Before leaving, he looked at me.
“There’s another reason the guards are here.”
My stomach sank.
“What?”
“The ballroom security footage disappeared seventeen minutes after the attack.”
“What do you mean disappeared?”
“The main recording server was wiped remotely.”
“Can somebody do that?”
“Somebody did.”
He stepped toward the door.
“And the only witness we know saw the attacker’s arm before the shot…”
He looked at me.
“…is you.”
Leo’s small fingers tightened around mine.
Roman noticed.
“So until I know who did this, you’re staying protected.”
I shook my head.
“I have a job.”
“Not anymore.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Bellamy House terminated you at six thirty this morning.”
My mouth fell open.
“For getting stabbed?”
“The official reason is employee misconduct.”
I laughed once because the alternative was crying.
“Of course.”
Roman’s eyes went dangerously still.
“Your manager claimed you caused the incident.”
“That sounds like Gerald.”
“He also claimed you attacked a guest.”
“What guest?”
“That is what I intend to discover.”
I pushed myself higher despite the pain.
“Mr. Moretti, I appreciate what you’re doing, but I don’t need you fixing my life because my father once helped you.”
“This isn’t charity.”
“It looks expensive enough to be charity.”
His eyes held mine.
“No.”
He glanced at Leo.
“It’s a debt.”
“I didn’t save Leo because you owed my father.”
“I know.”
“Then stop treating me like an invoice.”
For the first time, Roman Moretti looked almost startled.
The older woman seemed to stop breathing.
Then Roman nodded once.
“Fair.”
He walked out.
Twenty minutes later, a nurse brought breakfast.
Forty minutes later, a detective interviewed me.
An hour later, my phone finally arrived.
There were thirty-seven missed calls.
Most were from my manager.
Six were from unknown numbers.
One was from my landlord.
And there was a text message sent at 7:12 that morning.
No number.
No name.
Just seven words.
You should have let the boy get hit.
My blood turned cold.
Then another message appeared.
Next time, we won’t miss you either.
Before I could reach the call button, the door opened.
Roman stepped back inside.
He took one look at my face.
“What happened?”
I handed him the phone.
He read the messages.
The terrifying man from the ballroom returned.
Only this time, there was something beneath his anger.
Fear.
Not for himself.
For me.
He looked toward the guards.
“Get Leo downstairs.”
Then he turned back to me.
“You’re not going home.”
I folded my arms.
“You don’t decide that.”
“No.”
He placed my phone carefully on the table.
“But whoever sent this already knows your name, your number, and where you work.”
He met my eyes.
“And unless you have a private security team hidden inside that twenty-year-old apartment building on Fulton Street, you’re coming somewhere they can’t reach you.”
I stared at him.
“How do you know where I live?”
“I had you checked.”
“Of course you did.”
“Nora.”
“What?”
His voice lowered.
“My son almost died last night.”
The anger left my reply.
Roman glanced at the little green dinosaur beside my hand.
“And the woman who kept him alive has just become a target.”
For several seconds neither of us spoke.
Then I asked the only question that mattered.
“Where exactly are you planning to take me?”
Roman Moretti looked directly at me.
“My house.”
That was how, twenty-four hours after serving champagne at a billionaire’s charity gala, I found myself preparing to move into the home of the most intimidating man I had ever met.
May you like
I thought surviving the flying glass had been the dangerous part.
I was wrong.
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