Chapter 4 - The Man Beside Him
Ellie had seen Nicholas suspicious.
She had seen him angry.
She had seen him frightened.
She had never seen him hesitate.
Until Ethan walked upstairs.
Nicholas folded Anthony's note before Ethan entered.
“Everything okay?” Ethan asked.
Nicholas looked at the man who had stood beside him for eleven years.
“Yes.”
Ellie knew immediately that he was lying.
Ethan glanced at her.
Then at Nicholas's mother.
“We need to move. Someone accessed Ellie's apartment building twenty minutes ago.”
Ellie stiffened.
“What?”
“We checked your building cameras.”
Nicholas's attention sharpened.
“Who?”
“Unknown male. Baseball cap. Entered behind a tenant, stayed four minutes, left.”
Ellie's heart pounded.
“My apartment?”
“He never reached your floor.”
“How do you know?”
“Because we have someone there now.”
Ellie stared.
“You have someone at my apartment?”
Nicholas answered.
“Yes.”
“This is getting completely insane.”
“Yes,” Nicholas said quietly. “It is.”
They returned to Manhattan.
Nicholas said almost nothing during the drive.
Ethan sat in front.
Ellie watched Nicholas in the reflection of the window.
He kept touching the folded note in his pocket.
Back at the penthouse, Nicholas sent Ethan downstairs to meet the security team.
The moment the elevator doors closed, Ellie turned.
“You don't believe the note.”
“I don't know.”
“He's been protecting you for eleven years.”
“Yes.”
“Anthony died six years ago.”
“Yes.”
“So if Ethan wanted you gone, he's had a lot of time.”
Nicholas looked toward the elevator.
“Unless he needed me alive.”
That answer frightened Ellie.
They examined Anthony's documents again.
Something bothered her.
“Why would Anthony write Ethan's name?”
“He knew Ethan.”
“How well?”
“Ethan worked for our father before he worked for me.”
Ellie nodded slowly.
“How old was Ethan?”
“Twenty-six.”
“And Anthony?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“Would Anthony call him Ethan?”
Nicholas frowned.
“What?”
“In the other notes, how does Anthony refer to people?”
Nicholas opened the folder.
Victor Hale.
Daniel Rusk.
Samuel Ortiz.
First and last names.
But the warning said only:
Don't trust Ethan.
Ellie tapped the page.
“This doesn't match.”
Nicholas stared.
“Someone copied his handwriting.”
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
“To make you distrust the one person standing closest to you.”
Nicholas went still.
Then he smiled faintly.
“What?”
Ellie asked.
“Nothing.”
“You're smiling.”
“You've been in my life less than twenty-four hours and you're already correcting six years of mistakes.”
“Waitresses are expensive consultants.”
The elevator opened.
Ethan returned.
Nicholas handed him the note.
Ethan read it.
His face became unreadable.
“Where did you get this?”
“My mother.”
Ethan looked up.
“And you believe it?”
“I believe Ellie.”
Ethan glanced toward her.
“Why?”
“She noticed something.”
Ellie explained the naming pattern.
Ethan examined the documents.
Then he nodded.
“She's right.”
Nicholas looked surprised.
“You aren't offended?”
“Someone tried to get you into a compromised vehicle last night. My feelings can wait.”
Ellie decided at that moment she liked Ethan.
They sent the page to a document analyst.
An hour later, the result came back.
The handwriting was an extraordinarily accurate imitation.
But the ink was less than three years old.
The warning was fake.
Someone had planted it.
Which meant whoever had done so had access to Nicholas's family storage room.
His mother's bakery.
And Anthony's documents.
“Victor,” Nicholas said.
Ethan shook his head.
“Victor hasn't been there in years.”
“Then who?”
Ellie looked at Anthony's papers.
Daniel Rusk.
The missing lawyer.
“What if he never disappeared?”
Nicholas turned.
“What if everyone just stopped looking?”
Silence.
Ethan immediately began searching old records.
Daniel Rusk had vanished six years earlier.
No bank account activity.
No tax returns.
No property.
No passport usage.
A ghost.
Then Ellie noticed a photograph inside Anthony's folder.
Three men standing at a charity dinner.
Anthony.
Victor.
And a third man.
Daniel.
Ellie leaned closer.
“What?”
Nicholas asked.
“I've seen him.”
Again.
Those three words.
Nicholas's eyes sharpened.
“Where?”
Ellie's mind raced.
Fiore D’Oro.
Customers.
Faces.
Table numbers.
Then she remembered.
“Sunday lunch.”
Nicholas stared.
“What?”
“He comes into the restaurant.”
“How often?”
“Maybe once every month.”
“He's older now?”
“Of course.”
“With anyone?”
“Usually alone.”
Nicholas grabbed his coat.
“When was the last time?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Ethan was already calling the restaurant.
They pulled reservation records.
The name Daniel Rusk did not appear.
But table fourteen had been booked under another name.
David Ross.
Same initials.
D.R.
Ethan pulled payment records.
Cash.
No card.
Then security footage.
An older man entered.
Gray beard.
Glasses.
Hat.
Ellie recognized him immediately.
“That is him.”
Nicholas leaned toward the monitor.
Six years of certainty collapsed in a single second.
Daniel Rusk was alive.
And he had been eating twenty feet away from Nicholas twice a month.
The footage continued.
Daniel finished lunch.
Stood.
Walked toward the exit.
Then stopped beside table twelve.
Nicholas's usual table.
He placed something beneath it.
A small white envelope.
Restaurant staff later removed it while cleaning.
Nicholas rewound the footage.
“Who cleaned that table?”
Ellie knew.
“Maria.”
They called her.
Maria remembered the envelope.
She hadn't opened it.
She had given it to the manager.
The Fiore D’Oro manager.
Nicholas looked at Ellie.
“Your manager.”
Her stomach turned.
Everything suddenly connected.
The restaurant.
The schedule.
The valet.
The mysterious calls.
Someone had been using Fiore D’Oro as a communication point.
Nicholas stood.
“We're going back.”
“To the restaurant?”
“Yes.”
Ellie grabbed her coat.
Ethan shook his head.
“No. Ellie stays.”
“No,” Ellie said.
Nicholas looked at her.
“This isn't table service anymore.”
“No. It's my workplace.”
She moved toward the elevator.
“And someone has been using it to watch you.”
Nicholas followed.
Twenty minutes later, they entered Fiore D’Oro through the kitchen.
The restaurant had not opened yet.
Ellie led them downstairs.
Her manager's office door stood open.
Empty.
The desk had been cleared.
Computer gone.
Documents gone.
Nicholas cursed quietly.
Then Ellie noticed something beneath the desk.
A recipe card.
Her grandmother's handwriting.
She picked it up.
Her hands began shaking.
Nicholas noticed.
“What is it?”
“This came from my apartment.”
Nicholas's face hardened.
Ellie flipped the card over.
Someone had written a message on the back.
ASK HER WHY HER FATHER CHANGED HIS NAME.
Ellie stopped breathing.
Nicholas looked at her.
“Ellie?”
She slowly raised her eyes.
“My father died when I was twelve.”
Nicholas took the card.
“What was his name?”
“Thomas Wells.”
Nicholas stared at the handwriting.
Then at her.
“No.”
“What?”
He walked toward the office light.
“Ellie... Wells wasn't always his name.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
Nicholas looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.
“Because I knew your father.”
Ellie's knees nearly gave out.
“Who was he?”
Nicholas answered quietly.
May you like
“Daniel Rusk.”
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