Chapter 6 - The Price of a Secret
The next forty-eight hours turned the Russo estate into a fortress inside a fortress.
No employee entered without being searched.
No delivery reached the house without inspection.
Security credentials were changed.
Cameras were replaced.
Dominic moved Lily’s bedroom into the protected interior wing.
Norah hated every second of it.
She hated watching Lily ask why she could no longer play near the garden.
She hated the guards standing ten feet away while she ate breakfast.
Most of all, she hated knowing the danger existed because of the secret growing inside her.
Dominic found her in the nursery late Monday night.
Not the baby’s nursery.
Lily’s old nursery.
Norah sat in a rocking chair beneath a darkened window.
“You should sleep.”
“You say that often.”
“You ignore it often.”
Dominic closed the door.
Norah looked at him.
“You should send Lily away.”
“No.”
“To somewhere safe.”
“This is the safest place.”
“You said someone got into your office.”
“I’m dealing with it.”
“That doesn’t sound safe.”
Dominic remained silent.
Norah’s eyes burned.
“I don’t want anything happening to her because of me.”
“This isn’t because of you.”
“It’s because of the baby.”
“No.”
“Dominic—”
“It’s because of me.”
The certainty in his voice stopped her.
He sat across from her.
“My name created this.”
“You didn’t choose your family.”
“No, but I chose what I became after.”
Norah had rarely heard him speak with regret.
“You could change.”
Dominic almost smiled.
“You make it sound like changing careers.”
“Maybe it is.”
“People in my position don’t submit résumés.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever wanted out?”
Dominic looked toward the dark window.
“When Lily was born.”
Norah waited.
“I made arrangements.”
“What happened?”
“Elena thought I could leave overnight. I knew better.”
“Couldn’t you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because leaving power creates a vacuum. Vacuums become wars.”
Norah understood.
“You stayed to prevent something worse.”
“That’s what I told myself.”
“And now?”
Dominic looked at her stomach.
“Now I wonder how many times I’m going to use that excuse.”
Norah’s anger softened.
Dominic continued.
“We’re legitimate in more places than people think. Construction. Shipping. Restaurants. Real estate.”
“And the parts that aren’t legitimate?”
His expression hardened.
“I’ve spent three years cutting them away.”
“You never said that.”
“You never asked.”
“I didn’t think nannies got quarterly crime reports.”
He almost laughed.
Norah leaned back.
“What happens when you remove all of it?”
“I become a businessman with extremely unpleasant former associates.”
“That sounds safer.”
“For you perhaps.”
“For you too.”
Dominic shook his head.
“Men remember.”
Before Norah could answer, the nursery door opened.
Mateo entered.
He stopped when he saw them.
“Sorry.”
“What?”
“We traced the clinic access.”
Dominic stood.
“Talk.”
“Someone pulled Norah’s file twice.”
Norah’s stomach tightened.
“Who?”
“A nurse named Carla Jennings.”
“I don’t remember her.”
“You wouldn’t. She worked records.”
“Worked?”
“She quit yesterday.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“Where is she?”
“Missing.”
Norah closed her eyes.
Mateo continued.
“Her bank account received fifty thousand dollars last month.”
“From?”
“Shell company.”
“Connected to who?”
“We’re working it.”
Dominic paced once.
“Anything else?”
Mateo hesitated.
“That’s why I came personally.”
Dominic looked at him.
“The shell company was formed through one of our own attorneys.”
Silence.
“Which attorney?”
“Steven Halpern.”
Norah knew the name.
Halpern visited the mansion weekly.
He handled Dominic’s legitimate corporate work.
Dominic’s expression became unreadable.
“Bring him in.”
“He’s already gone.”
“Gone where?”
“Private flight to Montreal this morning.”
Dominic cursed quietly.
Mateo left.
Norah stood.
“So someone inside your organization did this.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know why?”
“No.”
But Dominic had theories.
An heir changed calculations.
Dominic’s empire had always been expected to pass eventually to Lily in some legal form.
Another child complicated everything.
A son might be viewed by old men with old beliefs as a more traditional successor.
A daughter could still become a political symbol within the organization.
Either way, a pregnancy created uncertainty.
Uncertainty created opportunity.
Norah watched him thinking.
“What aren’t you saying?”
Dominic looked at her.
“This might not be about hurting you.”
“That’s comforting.”
“It might be about controlling me.”
“By threatening the baby.”
“Yes.”
Norah placed both hands on her stomach.
Dominic immediately regretted the bluntness.
“Nothing is going to happen.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I intend to make it true.”
Norah approached him.
“That is exactly the problem.”
“What?”
“You believe if you control enough people, buy enough cameras, hire enough guards, nothing bad can happen.”
“I’ve kept Lily alive.”
Norah stopped.
The words hung between them.
Dominic closed his eyes briefly.
“That came out wrong.”
“No,” Norah whispered. “It came out honest.”
She walked toward the door.
Dominic caught her wrist gently.
Norah looked down at his hand.
He released her immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
“For which part?”
“All of it.”
She looked at him.
“Then stop deciding everything alone.”
Dominic frowned.
“What do you want?”
“To be involved.”
“In security?”
“In my own life.”
He absorbed that.
“All right.”
“All right?”
“Yes.”
“No argument?”
“Would you prefer one?”
Norah almost smiled.
“No.”
Dominic nodded.
“Tomorrow morning, you sit in the security meeting.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“I was expecting something smaller.”
“You asked to be involved.”
“I did.”
“You are.”
For the first time, Norah felt as though she had gained an inch of control.
It lasted until the following morning.
At nine ten, she entered Dominic’s office for the security meeting.
Mateo placed several photographs on the desk.
Halpern.
The missing nurse.
A third man Norah did not recognize.
Then a fourth photograph.
Norah stopped breathing.
She picked it up.
A man in his late fifties stood outside a café.
Gray hair.
Thin face.
Familiar eyes.
Dominic noticed her reaction.
“You know him?”
Norah could not speak.
“Norah?”
Her fingers began trembling.
The photograph slipped from her hand.
“My father.”
Dominic stared.
“You told me your father was dead.”
Norah looked at the picture again.
“My father is dead.”
Mateo turned a laptop toward her.
“This photograph was taken yesterday.”
Norah’s world tilted.
The man she had buried seven years earlier was standing alive on a city street.
May you like
And according to Dominic’s investigation, he was connected to the people hunting her unborn child.
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