Chapter 4 - The Question About Her Husband
For six months, Delaney had imagined hearing Nolan's voice again.
In some versions, he called from a hospital.
In others, he knocked on their apartment door, thinner and apologetic, explaining that something terrible had prevented him from coming home.
During the darkest nights, she imagined identifying him somewhere cold and sterile.
None of those fantasies prepared her for four seconds of his real voice over a speakerphone.
"Nolan."
She kept saying his name.
As though repetition might make him appear.
Emmett stood beside the desk reading the message again.
Midnight.
An abandoned shipping terminal near Chelsea Creek.
Bring the card.
No police.
Delaney wiped her face.
"We give it to them."
"No."
Her head snapped toward him.
"What?"
"No."
"It's a memory card."
"It contains enough information to destroy people who kill to protect themselves."
"Exactly. So give it away."
"They won't give Nolan back."
"You don't know that."
"I know them."
"Who?"
Emmett stared at her.
Then finally said the name.
"Victor Dane."
Delaney waited.
Nothing.
"Who is Victor Dane?"
"My father's former partner."
"Business partner?"
"Depending on which business."
There it was again.
The careful language.
The world beneath the legitimate one.
Emmett walked toward a cabinet and poured himself water.
"My father built Ror Holdings from legitimate shipping contracts. Then he began using those routes for things that didn't belong on company manifests."
"Smuggling."
"Yes."
"Drugs?"
"Sometimes."
"Weapons?"
His silence answered.
Delaney felt her stomach knot.
"My husband worked for this?"
"No. Nolan was hired to audit legitimate accounts after my father died."
"When?"
"Nine months ago."
"And he found Victor."
"He found payments routed through shell companies that should have been closed years earlier."
"Why wasn't Victor gone after your father died?"
"Because organizations don't disappear when the man at the top dies."
Delaney stared at him.
"So you inherited it."
"I inherited all of it."
"And kept it."
Emmett's expression darkened.
"Some choices look simpler from the outside."
"Did you kill people?"
He didn't answer immediately.
That was enough.
Delaney stepped backward.
The room suddenly felt smaller.
Nolan had been right to hide things from her.
Or maybe terribly wrong.
She pressed both hands against the edge of the desk.
"Why would Nolan trust you?"
"Because I was trying to dismantle Victor's operation."
She laughed bitterly.
"The Mafia boss trying to become respectable?"
"I don't need you to believe me."
"Good."
"I need you alive."
"I need my husband alive."
Emmett looked down at the memory card.
"If Victor gets this, he'll know every witness Nolan identified."
"Then make a copy."
"He'll assume we did."
"So?"
"So he'll kill Nolan anyway."
Delaney wanted to hit him.
Instead she lowered herself into a chair because dizziness swept through her.
Emmett moved instinctively.
"I'm fine."
"You've gone pale."
"I'm pregnant, terrified, and discussing hostage negotiations with a criminal. Pale seems reasonable."
He stopped.
Delaney breathed slowly.
The baby shifted.
A tiny movement.
Life insisting on itself.
She placed a hand against her stomach.
Nolan didn't know.
The thought shattered her all over again.
"He doesn't know about the baby."
Emmett's eyes softened.
"No."
"I was going to tell him that weekend."
Her voice thinned.
"I bought this ridiculous little pair of socks. Yellow ones. I put them in a box."
Emmett looked away.
"I kept the box."
Neither spoke for several seconds.
Then Delaney straightened.
"Tell me everything."
"That won't help."
"It will help me decide whether I trust you."
"You don't."
"No. But I may have to."
That landed differently.
Emmett pulled out another chair.
He sat.
"My father died fourteen months ago."
"Natural?"
"No."
Delaney waited.
"Car bomb."
Her eyes widened.
"Victor?"
"Probably."
"And you took over."
"If I hadn't, Victor would have."
"You sound like you're describing a company merger."
"It was bloodier."
Delaney swallowed.
Emmett continued.
"My father had people loyal to him. Some were criminals. Some were businessmen who looked the other way. Some didn't know what they were serving."
"Where were you?"
"Running the legal side."
"You knew?"
"Enough."
"That's not an answer."
"It is the only one I have."
He looked tired now.
Older.
"When my father died, I discovered how much had been hidden from me. Victor had created parallel operations using our infrastructure. Nolan found the accounting traces."
"And Victor found Nolan."
"Yes."
"How?"
"I don't know."
"Inside your company."
"Almost certainly."
Delaney remembered Mrs. Bell.
"Inside your house too."
"Yes."
Fear crawled through her.
"How many people can you trust?"
Emmett looked toward the door.
"Fewer than I thought yesterday."
"And you trusted sixty-one housekeepers enough to leave cash out?"
"No."
"That's psychologically unhealthy."
He almost smiled again.
Delaney couldn't understand why the expression irritated her.
Maybe because it made him look human.
Human men were harder to hate.
She stood.
"I'm going tonight."
"No."
"If you lock me in a room, I'll climb out the window."
"You're five months pregnant."
"I can still climb."
"You'll fall."
"I'll fall angrily."
Emmett rubbed a hand over his face.
"For the love of—"
"You're wasting time."
He rose.
"If Victor specifically asked for you, then you're part of the leverage."
"He asked for the card."
"He knows you're here. That makes you leverage."
"So what's your plan?"
Emmett stared at the map on his desk.
"I go."
"And?"
"I negotiate."
"With the card?"
"A copy."
"You said that won't work."
"It may buy time."
"And then?"
He didn't answer.
Delaney understood.
"And then you kill them."
His eyes met hers.
"I bring Nolan home."
"That's not what I asked."
"No."
She stepped closer.
"Promise me."
"I don't make promises I may not be able to keep."
"Promise me Nolan comes home."
Emmett's voice dropped.
"I will do everything I can."
Not enough.
But it was something.
Then Delaney thought of the photograph.
Nolan tied to the chair.
The red industrial sign behind him.
"Show me the photo."
Emmett hesitated, then opened it.
Delaney studied every detail.
Concrete.
Metal shelving.
A rusted red sign.
Part of a logo.
Three letters.
D-V-A.
"Does that belong to your warehouse?"
"No."
"But you said you knew the place."
"I know the building."
"Who used it after you?"
Emmett zoomed in.
His eyes narrowed.
"Victor."
Delaney's pulse accelerated.
"Then why would he send an address for somewhere else?"
Emmett froze.
The midnight meeting location wasn't the location where Nolan had been photographed.
It was five miles away.
"A trap," Delaney whispered.
"Yes."
"So Nolan won't be there."
"No."
"Then we don't go to the meeting."
Emmett looked at her.
"We go to the warehouse in the photo."
For the first time, he didn't immediately reject her idea.
He reached for his phone.
Then stopped.
His eyes lifted slowly toward the ceiling.
"What?"
"If Mrs. Bell worked for Victor…"
Delaney followed his gaze.
"Lily."
Emmett was already moving.
They rushed out.
Upstairs, the second nanny stood outside Lily's bedroom.
"She's asleep."
Emmett entered anyway.
Lily lay beneath a white blanket.
Her curls spread across the pillow.
Delaney exhaled.
Then Emmett noticed the window.
Open.
Only two inches.
On the sill sat a black envelope.
He opened it.
One photograph.
Delaney took it.
The image showed her leaving the obstetric clinic.
Across the bottom, someone had written:
MIDNIGHT. BRING THE CARD. BRING THE MAID. OR WE TAKE THE NEXT PERSON SHE LOVES.
Delaney stared at Lily sleeping.
Emmett's face became terrifyingly calm.
"They're watching the house."
Delaney's voice shook.
"Then nowhere is safe."
"No."
He turned to her.
"Which means from now until Nolan is home, you do exactly what I say."
Delaney folded the photograph.
"No."
Emmett stared.
She continued.
"From now until Nolan is home, we stop pretending you can do this alone."
And after several seconds, Emmett gave a single reluctant nod.
It was the first agreement between them.
May you like
It would also be the decision that changed every life inside the mansion.
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