Chapter 2 - The Debt That Followed Me Home
I stared at the photograph until the letters blurred.
SHE SHOULD HAVE MISSED.
The message made no sense and perfect sense at the same time.
Someone had expected the falling crystal to reach Leo.
I had ruined that expectation.
Now somebody wanted me to know they noticed.
"I need to go home," I said.
Nico's expression did not change.
"No."
"That wasn't a request."
"Neither was my answer."
I gripped the hospital blanket.
"My entire life is in that apartment."
"Your entire life was turned upside down by people who entered without stealing money, electronics, or anything else that could explain a normal burglary."
"Exactly why I need to see it."
"Exactly why you will not."
Anger burned through the fear.
Maybe it was the pain medication.
Maybe I had spent too many years being told what I was allowed to keep, what I was allowed to ask for, and how quietly I was expected to lose everything.
David had done it with my savings.
Julian did it with my schedule.
Every wealthy customer at Lumina did it with a flick of two fingers.
I was done being moved around like furniture.
"You don't own me because I saved your son."
Nico went absolutely still.
Mateo, who had entered without my noticing, stopped near the door.
"No," Nico said.
His voice was low enough that I had to listen carefully.
"I owe you because you saved my son."
"Then pay the hospital bill and let me make my own decisions."
"I will pay every bill connected to this."
"Good."
"And I will keep you alive long enough to complain about it."
I glared at him.
He glared back.
Mateo cleared his throat.
"This feels like a poor moment to mention we have a problem."
Nico did not look away from me.
"What problem?"
"David Mercer."
My entire body tightened.
Nico noticed.
"You know him."
"He's my ex-boyfriend."
Mateo's eyebrows rose.
"Boyfriend?"
"We were engaged."
I hated how weak the admission sounded.
"He stole from me and disappeared."
Nico finally looked at Mateo.
"Why is he relevant?"
Mateo set a tablet on the tray beside my bed.
A grainy security image filled the screen.
David was walking through the alley behind Lumina three nights earlier.
He looked older than I remembered.
Thinner.
His expensive confidence had been replaced by the nervous posture of a man checking every reflective surface behind him.
But it was him.
There was no question.
My heart kicked hard against my ribs.
"When was this taken?"
"Tuesday at eleven forty-eight," Mateo said.
"I worked Tuesday."
I looked at the image again.
"He never came inside."
"Maybe he did not need to."
Mateo swiped to another photograph.
David was speaking with someone near the service entrance.
The second person's face was hidden by a hood.
But I recognized the coat.
Chloe owned one exactly like it.
My stomach dropped.
"No."
"You recognize the other person?" Nico asked.
"Maybe."
"Emma."
"Chloe had that coat."
I forced myself to breathe.
"Lots of people own black coats."
Mateo swiped again.
The hooded figure lifted one hand.
A silver bracelet glinted at the wrist.
Chloe wore a silver bracelet with three tiny stars every shift.
I had covered for her once when the clasp broke and she spent twenty minutes crawling beneath a banquet table looking for it.
"That's hers," I whispered.
Nico's face turned unreadable.
"Your former fiance and a woman using a dead person's identity were meeting behind the restaurant before someone targeted my son."
"I didn't know."
"I believe you."
The answer came so quickly that I stared at him.
"Why?"
"Because if you had known the tray was going to fall, you would not have put your spine beneath it."
That was the first thing anyone had said all night that made simple sense.
Mateo's phone vibrated.
He looked at the screen.
His expression changed.
"We found Mercer."
I sat up too quickly.
Pain cut across my back.
"Where?"
"Your building."
Nico stood.
"Alive?"
"For the moment."
I looked between them.
"What does that mean?"
Mateo gave Nico a look I could not read.
Nico ignored it.
"It means he entered your apartment after my men cleared it."
"Then take me there."
"No."
"He knows something."
"Which is why Mateo will bring him to me."
"Absolutely not."
Nico's eyebrows lifted.
"Do you say that often?"
"Only when men try to run my life."
"I am beginning to understand why your former fiance looks tired."
"My former fiance looks tired because he stole thirty-two thousand dollars from me and apparently made terrible life choices afterward."
Mateo muttered, "Thirty-two?"
"And my grandmother's ring."
Nico's gaze sharpened.
"What kind of ring?"
"Why does that matter?"
"Describe it."
"Gold band, small sapphire, two tiny diamonds."
I frowned.
"It was old, not valuable enough to justify what he did."
Mateo and Nico exchanged another look.
I hated those looks.
"What?"
Nico spoke carefully.
"Mercer owed money to a gambling operation controlled by the Russo organization."
I knew that name too.
In Chicago, certain last names carried weather around them.
Valenti was thunder.
Russo was a storm siren.
"How much?"
"At one point, close to two hundred thousand."
My mouth fell open.
"He told me he owed eight."
"Men like Mercer rarely lie smaller than necessary."
"What does my ring have to do with it?"
"Items taken from debtors sometimes move through pawn businesses used to launder cash."
Nico's expression hardened.
"If your ring passed through one of those businesses, there may be a record connecting Mercer directly to people who now have an interest in Leo."
I closed my eyes.
David had not merely stolen from me.
He had dragged me into a world I had spent my whole life avoiding.
"I want to talk to him."
Nico's answer was immediate.
"No."
I looked at Leo sleeping across the room.
"Someone used my apartment to send a threat about your son."
Then I looked back at Nico.
"That makes this my problem too."
His jaw worked.
"You are injured."
"I have stitches, not a coma."
"You are on narcotics."
"Then I'll be charming."
Mateo looked at the ceiling.
"Boss, perhaps we should bring Mercer here and let her ask questions."
Nico gave him a look that could have frozen steam.
Mateo shrugged.
"She will try to leave otherwise."
"I will succeed," I said.
Nico rubbed one hand over his face.
For the first time, I saw what Leo meant about stubborn people causing headaches.
Thirty minutes later, David Mercer was brought into a private consultation room two floors below my hospital suite.
I wore a hospital robe under a borrowed coat because my uniform had been cut off my body.
Nico stood on one side of me.
Mateo stood on the other.
Two more men waited near the door.
David sat at the table with a split lip and terror in his eyes.
The moment he saw me, the terror changed into something worse.
Relief.
"Emma."
I hated the way my name sounded in his mouth.
"You look terrible."
"You always knew how to make a woman feel special."
His gaze dropped to the hospital bracelet.
"I heard what happened."
"Did you?"
"It's all over the news."
"The news say you were behind Lumina three nights ago?"
His face emptied.
Nico shifted beside me.
David noticed him for the first time.
Every remaining trace of color drained from his skin.
"Mr. Valenti."
Nico said nothing.
David swallowed.
"I didn't know she would be there."
The sentence landed wrong.
I leaned forward.
"Who?"
David blinked.
"What?"
"You said you didn't know she would be there."
I pointed at him.
"Who is she?"
He looked toward Nico.
That was his mistake.
Nico's voice came soft and cold.
"Look at Emma when she speaks to you."
David obeyed.
"Chloe," he said.
My pulse quickened.
"You know Chloe?"
"That's not her name."
"Then what is it?"
His mouth tightened.
"Clara."
Mateo moved half a step.
"Clara what?"
David shook his head.
"I don't know."
Nico leaned both hands on the table.
"Try again."
"I swear."
David's voice cracked.
"I only knew her as Clara."
"Why were you meeting her?" I asked.
He stared at me.
"Because she paid part of my debt."
I almost laughed.
"Chloe barely makes rent."
"She wasn't paying me."
He shook his head rapidly.
"She paid Russo."
Nico's eyes went flat.
"Why?"
"To get access to something."
"What?"
David's eyes moved to Leo's father.
"Lumina's private booking schedule."
A chill traveled through the room.
I heard my own voice from far away.
"You gave her the VIP schedule?"
"I didn't have it."
David looked ashamed for perhaps the first time in his life.
"You did."
I stared at him.
"What are you talking about?"
"Your employee app."
He could barely meet my eyes.
"You never changed the password after we broke up."
I felt sick.
My password had been the month and year we met.
Pathetic, sentimental, easy to remember.
"You logged into my account."
"She needed screenshots."
"You used my name to give someone Nico Valenti's schedule."
"I didn't know what she wanted."
"You never know."
My anger came out in a whisper.
"You never know where the money comes from, where it goes, who gets hurt, or what happens after you walk away."
David flinched.
"Emma, listen to me."
"No."
"You need to listen now."
His desperation changed the air.
"Clara wasn't trying to hurt the kid."
Nico moved so quickly I barely saw it.
His hand closed around David's collar and dragged him halfway across the table.
"You will refer to my son by his name."
David's face went gray.
"Leo."
"Again."
"She wasn't trying to hurt Leo."
Nico released him.
"Then explain the floor."
"That wasn't her."
"How do you know?"
"Because she called me after."
David looked at me.
"She was scared."
I thought of Chloe vanishing after the crash.
"Where is she?"
"I don't know."
"David."
"I don't."
He reached slowly into his jacket.
Every Valenti man in the room moved at once.
David froze with both hands raised.
"It's a phone."
Mateo removed it and placed it on the table.
The screen was cracked.
David pointed.
"Play the last voicemail."
Mateo unlocked it using the code David gave him.
A woman's voice filled the room.
Chloe.
Except she was not crying.
She was whispering fast.
"David, they changed the plan."
Static swallowed part of the sentence.
"I was supposed to watch him, not hurt him."
A car horn sounded in the background.
"Someone put something on the floor."
Her breathing became ragged.
"Tell Emma I am sorry."
I gripped the edge of the table.
Then Chloe said one final sentence.
"Tell Valenti the order came from inside his own house."
The message ended.
Nobody moved.
Nico's face had become terrifyingly calm.
"When did you receive that?"
"Nine forty-two."
"And why did you go to Emma's apartment?"
David looked at me.
"Because Clara told me to find the red dinosaur."
My lungs stopped working.
"What?"
"She said whoever placed it there made a mistake."
"What mistake?" Mateo asked.
David swallowed.
"They put their own tracking chip inside it."
Nico turned toward the door.
"Call the apartment team."
Mateo already had his phone out.
David suddenly stood.
"Wait."
The guards shoved him back down.
"You don't understand."
He looked directly at me.
"If they know where that dinosaur is, they know I'm here too."
A sharp pop came from the corridor.
Then another.
The lights went out.
May you like
And somewhere beyond the locked door, a man screamed.
