Chapter 3 - The Woman at His Breakfast Table
Harper laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because sometimes reality became so ridiculous that laughter was the only thing standing between a person and screaming.
“No.”
Susan sat on the couch.
Vincent remained near the apartment door.
For the first time since Harper had met him, Chicago’s most feared crime boss looked uncertain.
Harper paced.
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Harper—”
“No, Mom.”
“Please sit down.”
“I’m not sitting down.”
She pointed at Vincent.
“He walks into our apartment after I insult him at work, some stranger is watching our building, a doctor secretly runs DNA testing, and now you say his dead father’s name?”
Susan closed her eyes.
Vincent spoke carefully.
“You knew Patrick Rourke?”
Susan looked at him.
“Yes.”
“How?”
Silence.
Harper stopped pacing.
“Mom.”
Susan rubbed her trembling hands together.
“When I was twenty-nine, I worked at a hotel near the river.”
Harper’s stomach sank.
“Keep going.”
“Patrick stayed there often.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
Susan continued.
“He was charming when he wanted to be. Funny. Generous.”
Vincent looked almost offended by the description.
“That doesn’t sound like my father.”
“You knew him later.”
Vincent said nothing.
Susan’s voice softened.
“He wasn’t always the man you remember.”
Harper slowly sat.
“Were you involved with him?”
Susan nodded.
The silence that followed felt enormous.
Harper stared at her mother.
“For how long?”
“Eleven months.”
“And you never told me?”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
Susan looked at Vincent.
“The Rourke family.”
Vincent’s face became cold.
“My father had many relationships.”
Susan flinched.
“I know.”
Harper realized what neither of them wanted to say.
Her throat closed.
“No.”
Susan began crying.
“Harper.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Do not say what I think you’re going to say.”
Vincent stepped back as if distance might somehow protect him.
Susan looked directly at her daughter.
“Patrick Rourke was your father.”
Harper stood so fast the coffee table rattled.
“No.”
“It’s true.”
“No.”
“I wanted to tell you.”
“When?”
Harper’s voice cracked.
“When I was thirty? Forty?”
“I was afraid.”
“You always told me he left before I was born.”
“He did.”
“That was true?”
“Yes.”
“Did he know?”
Susan looked down.
“I don’t know.”
Harper stared at her.
“You don’t know?”
“I sent him a letter.”
“And?”
“I never received an answer.”
Vincent’s voice became quiet.
“My father’s correspondence was screened.”
Susan looked at him.
“By whom?”
“My uncle.”
The apartment became silent again.
Harper folded her arms tightly.
“This cannot be happening.”
Vincent studied her.
If Patrick Rourke was Harper’s father, then Vincent and Harper were—
He shook his head.
“No.”
Everyone looked at him.
Vincent’s face had gone pale.
“My father was sixty-three when he died.”
Susan nodded.
“He would have been thirty-nine when Harper was conceived.”
Vincent rubbed his jaw.
“My father was my father.”
Harper frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Vincent’s eyes shifted to Susan.
“Patrick was my adoptive father.”
Susan stared.
“What?”
Vincent looked out the window.
“My biological father died before I was born. Patrick was his older brother. He married my mother when I was three.”
Harper sat down slowly.
“So…”
Vincent finished it.
“If Patrick was your father, we are biological cousins.”
Harper exhaled.
The situation had somehow become more bizarre.
Susan whispered, “Patrick never mentioned you were adopted.”
“He never mentioned many things.”
Vincent pulled out his phone.
“Owen answered immediately.
“I need everything you have on Patrick Rourke’s private records from twenty-six years ago. Letters, financial accounts, security logs.”
Pause.
“Yes, all of it.”
He disconnected.
Harper looked exhausted.
“This still doesn’t explain the doctor.”
“No,” Vincent said.
“But it explains why someone might care about your DNA.”
Susan became frightened.
“Why?”
Vincent’s expression hardened.
“My father’s estate had a bloodline clause.”
Harper blinked.
“A what?”
“Certain family trusts transfer only to biological descendants.”
“How much money?”
Vincent hesitated.
Harper groaned.
“That means a lot.”
“Potentially.”
“How much?”
“Depending on how the clause is interpreted?”
“Yes.”
“Approximately sixty-eight million dollars.”
Harper stared at him.
Susan covered her mouth.
Harper laughed again.
“I owe forty-seven thousand dollars.”
Nobody responded.
“And apparently I may have sixty-eight million?”
Vincent said, “Possibly.”
“Great.”
She stood.
“I’d like to return today and request a normal Thursday.”
Vincent almost smiled.
Susan suddenly said, “The letters.”
Harper turned.
“What letters?”
Susan looked terrified again.
“Patrick sent letters.”
Vincent’s attention sharpened.
“You said he never answered.”
“He didn’t at first.”
“Mom.”
Susan reached for the walker.
“Help me.”
They moved toward the bedroom.
Inside, Susan pointed toward the closet.
“Top shelf.”
Harper pulled down an old blue suitcase.
Inside were photographs, tax forms, newspaper clippings, and a bundle of yellowed envelopes tied with faded ribbon.
Vincent stared.
Susan touched them gently.
“They came after Harper was born.”
Harper looked betrayed.
“You kept them?”
“I didn’t know what to do.”
Vincent picked up one envelope.
Patrick Rourke’s handwriting was unmistakable.
He opened it.
Susan began crying.
Vincent read silently.
Then stopped.
“What?” Harper asked.
He handed her the letter.
Harper read.
Susan,
If the child is mine, she is entitled to protection whether she bears my name or not. I have made arrangements. Do not contact my office. Someone there is intercepting our correspondence.
Harper looked up.
“There’s more.”
Vincent opened another.
Then another.
The story emerged piece by piece.
Patrick had discovered someone within the Rourke organization was stealing from family trusts.
He believed the same person might target any previously unknown heir.
He had arranged a protected account for Susan and Harper.
But Susan never received it.
“He said money was coming?” Harper asked.
Susan nodded.
“It never did.”
Vincent’s expression became dangerous.
“How much?”
Susan shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Vincent opened the final letter.
This one was dated three weeks before Patrick’s death.
Vincent read it twice.
Then handed it to Harper.
If anything happens to me, take Harper away from Chicago.
Do not trust my brother.
Harper frowned.
“Your uncle?”
Vincent nodded.
“Gerald Rourke.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Lake Forest.”
Susan whispered, “That man watching the building…”
Vincent’s face darkened.
“May work for Gerald.”
Harper looked at him.
“Why now?”
“Because something changed.”
Owen called twenty minutes later with the answer.
A legal petition had been filed privately six days earlier.
Someone had requested review of the Patrick Rourke Family Trust.
The petition claimed a previously unknown biological descendant existed.
Harper’s DNA was apparently the key.
Vincent immediately began issuing instructions.
Harper stopped him.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“What now?”
“I want breakfast.”
Vincent blinked.
“Breakfast?”
“Yes.”
“You just learned you might be the biological daughter of Patrick Rourke and someone may be following you.”
“Exactly.”
She grabbed her coat.
“I need pancakes.”
Susan laughed unexpectedly.
It was the first joyful sound in the apartment all morning.
Vincent stared at Harper.
“You’re strange.”
“You humiliated an old dishwasher at three in the morning. I don’t accept character criticism from you.”
Twenty minutes later, the most feared man in Chicago sat inside a nearly empty diner on Western Avenue.
Harper sat across from him.
Susan remained home with discreet security.
Vincent looked completely out of place beneath fluorescent lights.
The waitress recognized Harper from her second job.
“Maya, this is Vincent.”
Maya looked at Vincent.
Then at Harper.
Her eyes widened.
“Vincent?”
“Yes.”
“Rourke?”
Harper nodded.
Maya nearly dropped the coffee pot.
Vincent sighed.
“Good morning.”
Maya disappeared.
Harper smiled.
“See? You ruin breakfast.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“That is your reputation entering the room five seconds before you.”
Vincent looked at her thoughtfully.
“You really believe that?”
“Yes.”
He stirred coffee he wasn’t drinking.
“And you think I can change it?”
Harper’s smile faded.
“Do you want to?”
Vincent looked toward the window.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s the first honest answer you’ve given me.”
He looked back.
“What would you do?”
“If I had your power?”
“Yes.”
Harper considered.
“I’d make people feel safer when I entered a room, not less safe.”
Something in Vincent’s face softened.
“Sounds inefficient.”
“It probably is.”
“And expensive.”
“Definitely.”
“But you’d do it.”
“Yes.”
Their pancakes arrived.
For a strange twenty minutes, nothing happened.
Nobody threatened anybody.
Nobody uncovered another family secret.
Harper ate pancakes while Vincent Rourke drank terrible diner coffee.
It almost felt normal.
Then Vincent’s phone rang.
Owen.
Vincent listened silently.
His face changed.
“What?”
Harper stopped eating.
Vincent rose.
“We need to go.”
“What happened?”
He placed cash on the table.
“Owen found Dr. Voss.”
“Where?”
“He checked into a motel near O’Hare under another name.”
“That’s good, right?”
Vincent’s expression told her it wasn’t.
“He left something for you.”
Harper’s stomach tightened.
“What?”
“A video.”
Vincent paused.
“And in it, he says Patrick Rourke isn’t the reason someone is hunting you.”
Harper stood slowly.
“Then what is?”
Vincent’s gaze hardened.
May you like
“Your mother’s illness.”
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