Chapter 8 - SECRETS IN THE SAFE
Three days passed inside the Sovereign penthouse.
Guards stood outside the doors day and night.
Food was brought in by private chefs.
Yet, despite the gilded cage, something had shifted between Daniel and me.
The walls of the ruthless mafia boss had crumbled away, leaving behind a man who read poetry to me by the fireplace and taught me how to cook Italian risotto.
On the fourth night, while Daniel was locked in his private study taking encrypted calls from his syndicate capos, I wandered over to his bookshelf.
One of the leather-bound volumes was slightly misaligned.
I reached out and touched it.
The book acted as a lever—with a soft click, a hidden panel in the bookshelf swung open.
Inside lay a small steel safe and a stack of old photographs.
Curiosity getting the better of me, I picked up the topmost photograph.
It was a picture of a young woman with dark curly hair and bright green eyes, standing outside Maple Street Books ten years ago.
I gasped softly.
The woman in the photo looked hauntingly familiar.
In fact, she looked remarkably like me—or rather, like an older version of my mother.
Before I could examine the other photos, a heavy hand rested gently on my shoulder.
I jumped, dropping the picture.
Daniel caught it before it hit the floor.
His face was pale, his gray eyes dark with ancient grief.
“You weren't supposed to find that, Emily,” Daniel whispered.
“Who is she?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“Her name was Sarah,” Daniel said, looking down at the photograph.
“My older sister.”
“She owned Maple Street Books ten years ago.”
My breath caught in my throat.
“She... she was your sister?”
“She fell in love with a man from a rival syndicate,” Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“Our father ordered him killed.”
“Sarah couldn't bear the betrayal.”
“She took her own life in the back room of that bookstore.”
The room spun around me.
The bookstore I worked in.
The history I never knew.
“And you?” I whispered, looking up at him.
“Why did you take over the bookstore building five years ago?”
“Because I wanted to protect the only place she was ever truly happy,” Daniel said, his voice breaking for the first time.
“And when I saw you working behind that register six months ago... looking so much like her, carrying the same books, fighting the same quiet battles...”
“That’s why you asked me out?” I breathed.
“That’s why I couldn't look away from the very first moment,” Daniel confessed, pulling me into his arms.
“It wasn't a random blind date, Emily.”
“I engineered the whole thing through your friend Olivia.”
I pushed back slightly, staring at him in shock.
“You paid Olivia to set up the blind date?!”
“I paid her very well,” Daniel admitted shamelessly.
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“She thought she was playing a hilarious prank on you.”
“I knew it was the only way I’d ever get you to sit across a table from me.”
