Chapter 3 - The Secret Beatrice Had Buried
Roman knocked Harper flat.
The second shot struck the SUV hard enough to throw sparks across the sidewalk.
“Stay down.”
“I’m already down!”
Roman almost smiled despite the situation.
Then three of his men surrounded them.
“Shooter’s moving,” one said.
“Roofline?”
“Could be.”
Roman looked at Harper.
“You hurt?”
“No.”
“Check.”
“What?”
“Check yourself.”
Harper ran shaking hands over her arms, stomach and legs.
Nothing.
“I’m okay.”
Roman rose into a crouch.
Harper grabbed his sleeve.
“Are you insane?”
His eyes dropped to her hand.
“You’re going toward the person shooting at us?”
“My men need me.”
“Your men have guns.”
“So do I.”
“That does not improve the argument.”
Roman stared at her.
Even now, Harper thought, he looked surprised when she contradicted him.
Perhaps people rarely did.
A bodyguard opened the rear SUV door.
“Boss. We need to move.”
Roman pulled Harper up.
She resisted.
“I’m not going with you.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I have a shift.”
A bullet had just shattered a window behind them, yet Harper’s brain had somehow chosen employment as its emergency priority.
Roman stared at her.
“Your shift?”
“I need this job.”
“Someone just put a laser sight on your chest.”
“Because I was standing next to you.”
“Exactly.”
“So I should stop standing next to you.”
Another crack sounded in the distance.
Roman shoved Harper into the SUV.
She landed on expensive leather.
“You cannot kidnap me!”
Roman climbed in.
“I’m protecting you.”
“Against my will.”
“Yes.”
“That’s kidnapping with better branding.”
The SUV accelerated.
Beatrice was already inside.
She reached for Harper immediately.
Are you hurt?
Harper shook her head.
Fine.
Beatrice examined her anyway.
Roman sat opposite them, speaking rapidly into his phone.
“Lock down the restaurant. Pull every camera from Fifty-Eighth to Sixty-First. I want rooftops, traffic cameras, parking garages. Nobody approaches Laura without being identified.”
Harper watched him.
This was the Roman Moretti people whispered about.
Calm.
Efficient.
Terrifying.
But when he ended the call, his first question was to his mother.
“You okay?”
Beatrice nodded.
Then she signed at him furiously.
Harper’s eyebrows rose.
Roman looked at her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“What did she say?”
“She called you an overprotective lunatic.”
“I know that sign.”
Harper smiled despite herself.
Beatrice continued.
“And she says you scared me.”
Roman looked at Harper.
“Did I?”
“You threw me into a vehicle.”
“I saved your life.”
“Both statements can be true.”
Beatrice pointed approvingly at Harper.
Exactly.
Roman leaned back.
Something strange happened then.
The adrenaline began fading.
Harper started shaking.
Not dramatically.
Her fingers simply would not stop.
Roman noticed.
He took off his coat and held it out.
“I’m not cold.”
“You’re in shock.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
Harper hated that he was right.
She took the coat.
It smelled faintly of cedar and expensive cologne.
She wrapped it around herself.
“Where are we going?”
“My house.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I have an apartment.”
“And whoever fired at us saw you.”
“They were aiming at you.”
“The second sight settled on you.”
“Maybe accidentally.”
Roman’s expression told her how ridiculous he found that possibility.
Harper looked out the tinted window.
New York rushed past.
Her life had become absurd in less than three hours.
That morning she had been worried about whether she could afford a new pair of work shoes.
Now she was sitting beside a mafia boss’s deaf mother while armed men chased a sniper through Midtown.
Beatrice tapped her arm.
Your brother.
Harper looked at her.
What about him?
How long?
Harper knew what she meant.
Seven years.
Beatrice’s expression softened.
My husband, she signed. Eleven.
Harper had not known Roman’s father was dead.
I’m sorry.
Beatrice smiled sadly.
He was stubborn.
Harper glanced at Roman.
Family trait?
Beatrice laughed silently.
Roman looked over.
“I’m assuming I’m being insulted again.”
“Constantly.”
“Good.”
That answer surprised Harper.
The Moretti residence was not a house.
It was a limestone mansion behind iron gates on the Upper East Side.
Harper stared through the SUV window.
“You live here?”
Roman glanced at her.
“No. I break in every evening.”
She looked at him.
“Was that a joke?”
“No.”
Beatrice signed behind his shoulder.
Yes.
Harper laughed.
Roman gave his mother a betrayed look.
For the first time, Harper saw him not as a criminal legend but as somebody’s son.
Inside, the mansion was immaculate and strangely quiet.
Beautiful paintings.
Dark wood.
Marble.
Security cameras.
And almost no evidence that anyone actually lived there.
Beatrice changed that.
Her sitting room was warm, filled with photographs and knitted blankets.
There were pictures of Roman as a child.
Harper stopped before one.
A serious little boy in an oversized suit stood beside Beatrice.
“You looked angry at seven.”
“I was eight.”
“That makes it much better.”
“My father made me wear that.”
Harper studied the photograph.
Beatrice was younger, laughing, one hand resting on Roman’s shoulder.
“When did she lose her hearing?”
Roman went still.
“Six years ago.”
Harper turned.
“What happened?”
“An infection after surgery.”
“Did she learn ASL afterward?”
“Yes.”
“And you?”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“I know enough.”
Harper understood immediately.
“Not enough to have a conversation.”
His eyes met hers.
“No.”
“Why?”
The question was too direct.
Roman could have shut her down.
Instead he looked toward his mother.
“My father died the year before. Business became complicated. Then she got sick. I hired the best teachers. The best interpreters.”
“For her.”
“Yes.”
“But you never learned.”
His silence answered.
Harper knew that story.
People often thought providing access was the same as participating in communication.
It wasn’t.
Beatrice could have ten interpreters and still feel lonely if her own son could not speak naturally with her.
Roman’s phone rang.
He stepped away.
Harper sat beside Beatrice.
Your son loves you.
Beatrice smiled.
I know.
He is also an idiot.
Harper laughed.
Also true.
Beatrice took Harper’s hands.
Teach him.
Harper stared.
Me?
Beatrice nodded.
Harper looked toward Roman.
He was standing by the fireplace, issuing orders about security footage.
“I don’t think your son enjoys being taught anything.”
Beatrice’s smile turned mischievous.
Good.
He needs practice.
Later, Roman found Harper in the library.
“We identified the rifle position.”
“Did you catch whoever did it?”
“No.”
That one word changed the room.
Harper folded her arms.
“So I can go home?”
“No.”
“Roman.”
His eyes shifted.
It was the first time she had used his first name.
“Someone photographed you leaving work two weeks ago.”
Harper stopped breathing.
“What?”
Roman handed her a phone.
The screen showed surveillance photographs.
Harper walking toward the subway.
Harper buying coffee.
Harper entering her apartment building.
Her stomach turned.
“These were recovered from a vehicle near the shooter’s position.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It means tonight wasn’t the first time someone watched you.”
“But I didn’t know you two weeks ago.”
“I know.”
Harper looked through the photographs again.
One showed her entering a hospital.
Another showed her sitting beside her mother.
Her blood went cold.
“My mom.”
“She’s safe.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I moved security to her facility twenty minutes ago.”
“You what?”
“I protected her.”
Harper stared at him.
“You had no right.”
“I don’t require permission to keep someone alive.”
“You really need to work on boundaries.”
“I’ve been told.”
“By whom?”
“My mother.”
Despite everything, Harper nearly laughed.
Then she reached the final photograph.
It was older.
Much older.
Harper stood outside a cemetery.
Beside her was a gravestone.
LEONARD HAYES.
LEO.
Her hands began trembling again.
On the back of the photograph someone had written four words.
Roman read them over her shoulder.
THE GIRL KNOWS MORETTI.
Harper looked at him.
“But I didn’t know you.”
Roman’s expression hardened.
“No.”
“Then why would somebody think I did?”
He took the photograph.
“That,” he said, “is what I intend to find out.”
Across the room, Beatrice was standing in the doorway.
May you like
Her face had gone completely white.
And when she saw the photograph of Leo’s grave, her hands began to shake.
