Chapter 2 - The Woman Beside His Bed
I did not wake Emma immediately.
That probably said more about my state of mind than anything else.
The photograph stayed between my fingers while she slept less than two feet away.
Michael Carter.
Some names disappear with time.
Others wait inside your memory like locked doors.
Michael’s name was a door I had spent almost two decades refusing to open.
We were nineteen when we met.
I was a reckless kid pretending to be harder than I was.
Michael was older by five years, quiet, observant, and unusually patient for someone who survived in our world.
He taught me how to read people.
How to know when a man was afraid instead of angry.
How to walk away from fights that weren’t worth winning.
Once, outside a club in Cicero, someone came at me from behind.
Michael saw him first.
He took the hit meant for me.
After that, I trusted him.
Which made what happened later difficult to forgive.
Michael disappeared.
No warning.
No explanation.
Shortly afterward, Luke told me he had been found dead across state lines.
Different name.
No funeral.
No body I saw.
Back then, deaths without bodies were common enough that I didn’t question it.
I had been twenty-three.
Busy becoming the man Chicago eventually learned to fear.
Now Emma Carter was asleep beside me carrying a photograph connected to that ghost.
I looked at her again.
Was it coincidence?
I didn’t believe in coincidence.
Not anymore.
I folded the picture and placed it in my lap.
“Emma.”
She stirred.
“Emma.”
Her eyes opened slowly.
Confusion came first.
Then she realized where she was.
She shot upright.
“Oh my God.”
“Easy.”
“I fell asleep.”
“I noticed.”
“I’m sorry.”
She immediately stood.
Too quickly.
Her face lost color.
She caught the nightstand.
I reached for her without thinking.
“Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re swaying.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“And I’m saying sit.”
Normally, people obeyed that voice.
Emma frowned.
But she sat.
Then she noticed the photograph.
Everything changed.
The exhaustion disappeared behind sudden alertness.
“Where did you get that?”
“It fell out of your pocket.”
She reached for it.
I moved it out of reach.
“Who is Michael Carter?”
Her expression closed.
“Give it back.”
“Answer me.”
“Mr. Moretti—”
“Danny.”
“What?”
“Everyone who’s terrified of me calls me Mr. Moretti. You’re clearly not. So call me Danny.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“I’m not laughing.”
She looked toward the door.
I recognized the calculation.
Escape.
Not fear of me exactly.
Fear of the conversation.
“Who was Michael?”
She looked back.
“My father.”
The answer landed harder than I expected.
“You’re sure?”
Her jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“He died?”
“I was eight.”
“How?”
“My mother said there was an accident.”
“What kind?”
“She never told me.”
“Why do you have my name on that photograph?”
Emma’s eyes dropped.
“My mother gave it to me six months ago.”
“She told you to find me?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“She was already losing pieces of her memory. Some days she thought I was twelve. Some days she called me by her sister’s name.”
Emma twisted her hands together.
“One afternoon she handed me that picture and told me that if anything ever happened to her, I needed to ask Daniel Moretti what really happened to my father.”
My mouth went dry.
“What did you say?”
“I asked who you were.”
“And?”
“She started crying.”
Emma looked at the picture.
“She said, ‘He’ll remember Michael.’ Then five minutes later she didn’t remember giving me the photograph.”
I stared at her.
“You applied for a job here because of this.”
“Yes.”
There it was.
The first lie.
Or omission.
Either way, something cold moved through me.
“You said you needed money.”
“I do.”
“But that wasn’t the only reason.”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She gave a humorless laugh.
“Because the head housekeeper told me not to even look at you too long. What exactly was I supposed to say? ‘Hi, I’m Emma. My father died eighteen years ago and my mother thinks you know something about it’?”
“You could’ve tried.”
“You threw a paperweight at a therapist.”
Fair.
I looked toward the rain-dark windows.
“What did you expect to find?”
“I don’t know.”
“Documents?”
“Maybe.”
“Answers?”
“Yes.”
“You searched my private rooms?”
“No.”
“Emma.”
“I didn’t.”
Her voice hardened.
“I cleaned. I watched. I listened. That’s all.”
I believed her.
That was the problem.
Trust had become dangerous to me.
But Emma had a strange way of speaking truth even when truth made her situation worse.
“Your father,” I said slowly, “saved my life once.”
Her face changed.
“What?”
“Before you were old enough to remember much.”
She stared.
“My mother never said that.”
“Your mother probably didn’t know.”
“What happened to him?”
I looked down at the photograph.
“I was told he died.”
“Told by who?”
The question stopped me.
Who had told me?
I searched the memory.
Luke?
No.
Luke had confirmed it later.
The first person had been Vincent Hale.
My former adviser.
Dead six years now.
At least supposedly.
“I don’t remember,” I said.
Emma’s expression sharpened.
“You don’t remember who told you my father died?”
“I remember the time. Not the exact conversation.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It was eighteen years ago.”
“It matters to me.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her voice shook for the first time.
“You had a life with him. Maybe only for a few years, but you knew him as an adult. I got bedtime stories and a funeral without a body.”
I looked up.
“What?”
She swallowed.
“My mother said the coffin stayed closed.”
“You never saw him?”
“No.”
My instincts came alive.
Closed coffin.
No body.
A report delivered through someone else.
A trusted man disappearing.
I had been stupid.
Or young enough to believe people I should have questioned.
“Emma.”
“What?”
“I want you to go home.”
Her face fell.
“You’re firing me.”
“No.”
“Then—”
“You’re exhausted.”
“I can work.”
“You collapsed beside my bed.”
“I fell asleep.”
“You nearly fainted when you stood.”
She looked away.
I softened my voice.
“You’re no use to your mother if you destroy yourself.”
That got her attention.
“How do you know about my mother?”
“I know everything about people inside my house.”
“That sounds creepy.”
“It probably is.”
A tiny smile appeared.
The first one I had seen from her.
It lasted maybe a second.
Then disappeared.
“I need these shifts.”
“You’ll be paid.”
“I don’t take charity.”
“Neither do I.”
I picked up my phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving you the night off with pay.”
“That’s charity.”
“No. It’s compensation for keeping me from accidentally overdosing last week.”
“You weren’t going to overdose.”
“Exactly. Excellent work.”
She almost smiled again.
I called Luke.
He answered immediately.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“You only call at three thirty when something happened.”
“Send a car.”
“For?”
“Emma.”
Silence.
Luke knew who she was.
That bothered me suddenly.
“You ran her background?”
“Of course.”
“Did you know her father was Michael Carter?”
Another silence.
Longer.
My stomach tightened.
“Luke.”
“Yes.”
The room seemed to shrink.
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I was going to.”
“When?”
“When I knew why she was here.”
Emma watched me.
I turned my chair toward the window.
“You had no right.”
“I had every right. Someone linked to your past applied for a job inside your private residence after you survived an assassination attempt.”
“Two years ago.”
“And somebody still wants you isolated.”
I stopped breathing for half a second.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been looking at the security logs.”
“Why?”
“Because twice this month, cameras in the west corridor went offline.”
“Technical issue.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Luke paused.
“Until tonight.”
I gripped the phone.
“What happened tonight?”
“The bedroom hallway camera went dark for eleven minutes.”
I looked toward the door.
Emma stood.
Her face had gone pale.
“When?”
I asked.
“Between two fifty-eight and three oh nine.”
I looked at the clock.
Emma had been asleep beside me during that window.
Someone had disabled the camera outside my room.
Not years ago.
Tonight.
“Lock the estate,” I said.
“Already done.”
Emma stepped closer.
“What’s happening?”
I ignored her.
“Who entered the corridor?”
“That’s the problem,” Luke said.
“What problem?”
“The system logs show no door opened.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I know.”
“Then someone was already inside.”
Luke didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
I looked at Emma.
Then at the photograph.
Then toward the dark doorway of my bedroom.
For the first time in two years, the fortress no longer felt empty.
It felt occupied.
May you like
And somewhere inside it, someone had been watching us.
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