Chapter 2 - SHE HAD BEEN CARRYING HIS CHILD WHEN HE SAID HE WOULDN’T CAREAt 3:27 in the morning, Nico discovered there were different kinds of panic.
There was the clean panic of a gunshot.
The useful kind.
A sound exploded, blood appeared, and the body knew what to do before the mind caught up.
Find cover.
Find the shooter.
Stop the bleeding.
Then there was this.
A silent bedroom.
An empty toothbrush cup.
A black credit card lying untouched inside a safe.
No enemy to shoot.
No door to kick down.
Nothing to fight except the truth.
Norah had heard him.
And she had believed him.
Nico stood inside the walk-in closet with one fist braced against the shelving.
Behind him, Luca spoke carefully through the landline.
“We’re checking street cameras.”
“No.”
Luca went quiet.
Nico surprised himself with the word.
His first instinct had been immediate.
Find her.
Traffic cameras.
Train stations.
Airports.
Bank activity.
Friends.
Every private investigator in Chicago if necessary.
He could locate almost anyone.
That had once felt like power.
Tonight, for the first time, he understood how easily power became a cage.
“Boss?”
“Don’t flag her cards.”
“She left your card.”
“Her personal cards.”
Another pause.
“Don’t touch them.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t call airports.”
“All right.”
“If she’s in danger, I want to know. If she’s just leaving me…”
The sentence nearly failed.
Nico swallowed.
“Then she gets to leave.”
Luca said nothing.
Nico hung up.
For the next two hours he did something he had not done in nearly twenty years.
Nothing.
He sat on the edge of the bed.
At 4:11, he found one of Norah’s hairs tangled around the button of his shirt.
At 4:36, he walked into the kitchen and discovered the fruit tray she had prepared.
Two glasses of water.
Sliced pears.
Strawberries.
Orange wedges.
Nico stared at it.
She had heard him say he would forget her name by Friday while bringing him water because he had been drinking too much Scotch.
The cruelty of that detail made him sit down.
At 5:02, Arthur called.
Nico answered.
“Found her?”
“No.”
“You want me to put men out?”
“No.”
Arthur was silent.
Then:
“Good.”
Nico’s face hardened.
“Careful.”
“I’m seventy years old and you’ve threatened me since you were twenty-three. I’ll survive one more.”
Arthur exhaled.
“You said something stupid.”
“I know.”
“That isn’t why she left.”
Nico’s attention sharpened.
“What?”
“It’s why she walked out tonight.”
“That’s different.”
Nico stood.
“What are you talking about?”
Arthur hesitated.
“Norah has been unhappy for months.”
“How would you know?”
“Because I have eyes.”
“I saw her at Christmas. She was smiling.”
“She smiles when people look at her.”
That landed.
Arthur continued.
“She stopped talking about her work.”
“What work?”
The silence afterward was brutal.
Nico closed his eyes.
Exactly.
Three years earlier, when they met, Norah Bell had been twenty-nine and working for a small architectural restoration firm in River North.
She loved old buildings.
She carried pencils in her hair.
She could spend fifteen minutes explaining why a badly restored cornice made her angry.
Nico had been fascinated.
Then amused.
Then attached.
After threats began against him, he persuaded her to stop commuting alone.
Then to work from home.
Then one of his enemies photographed her outside a client meeting.
Nico had responded by putting security on her.
Norah hated it.
So she stopped taking outside projects.
He told himself it was temporary.
She never went back.
Somewhere along the way, her drafting table disappeared from the guest room and became another place to stack unopened packages.
Nico had not noticed.
Arthur said quietly:
“She didn’t become a ghost last night, kid.”
Nico ended the call without answering.
At 7:40, he showered.
At 8:10, he dressed.
At 8:32, Mrs. Valenti, the daytime housekeeper, entered the kitchen and looked startled to find him there.
“Mr. Santoro.”
Nico nodded.
She looked toward the untouched fruit tray.
“Should I throw that away?”
“No.”
She stopped.
He didn’t know why he said it.
“No,” he repeated. “Leave it.”
Mrs. Valenti wisely asked nothing.
At 9:14, the penthouse phone rang.
Nico expected security.
Instead:
“Mr. Santoro?”
A woman.
“Yes.”
“This is Lakeshore Women’s Health. We’re trying to reach Ms. Norah Bell.”
Nico stopped breathing.
The woman continued.
“She listed this number as an emergency contact several years ago. Her personal number appears disconnected.”
“What happened?”
“I can’t discuss her medical information without authorization.”
Good.
He hated the answer and respected it simultaneously.
“Is she in danger?”
“I can only ask that you tell Ms. Bell to contact our office regarding follow-up bloodwork.”
“What department?”
Another pause.
“Obstetrics.”
The room became completely silent.
Nico said nothing.
“Mr. Santoro?”
“Say that again.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t—”
“Obstetrics?”
“Yes.”
His grip tightened around the phone.
“How far—”
He stopped himself.
Not his information.
The woman said:
“Please ask her to contact Dr. Hayes.”
The call ended.
Nico remained standing for nearly a minute.
Then he walked into the closet.
Not because he knew what he was looking for.
Because Norah had stored everything there.
Her side looked full because she had left expensive things.
But now he looked differently.
The clothes that mattered were missing.
Near the rear drawer, something white protruded behind a jewelry box.
Nico touched it.
A pharmacy receipt.
Prenatal vitamins.
Purchased three days earlier.
He sat.
His ears rang.
Three days.
Norah had known.
Arthur’s voice returned.
She looked pale.
Nico remembered breakfast two mornings ago.
Norah had pushed away eggs.
“You sick?”
“Just tired.”
He had checked his phone while she answered.
Yesterday she had fallen asleep on the sofa at seven.
He had covered her with a blanket and left for a meeting.
He had not asked why.
Now his eyes moved toward the empty closet.
Norah had been carrying his child when she stood outside the study.
He had said:
If she left me today, I wouldn’t care.
His hand covered his mouth.
For a man whose instinct was usually action, Nico sat there until his legs went numb.
At 10:06, Victor? no Arthur entered after being invited.
Nico handed him receipt.
Arthur read.
Then lowered himself into chair.
“Jesus.”
“She’s pregnant.”
“Looks that way.”
“She was going to tell me.”
“You don’t know.”
Nico looked toward the fruit tray.
“Yes.”
Arthur understood.
The water.
The food.
She had come to study after midnight.
Maybe not just to serve them.
Maybe she had been waiting for meeting to end.
Nico whispered:
“I said it while she was standing there.”
Arthur did not comfort him.
Good.
“Then she knows exactly how safe she feels telling you.”
Nico looked up.
“What do you mean?”
“You think this is about whether you love her.”
“It isn’t.”
“It’s about whether your love gives her anything she can trust.”
Nico stood.
“I need to find her.”
Arthur’s eyes narrowed.
“To do what?”
“Talk.”
“And if she doesn’t want to?”
That question would once have sounded ridiculous.
Nico Santoro had never built his life around being told no.
Now he stared at the man who had known him since he was nineteen.
“Then I leave.”
Arthur nodded.
“Good.”
They found Norah without touching her bank accounts.
Luca remembered one thing from the loading-dock camera.
She had walked west.
Not east toward the train.
Six blocks from the penthouse stood a twenty-four-hour diner.
A waitress remembered a woman with a black bag sitting in the back booth for an hour.
She paid cash.
Then a young red-haired woman collected her.
Nico knew the name when he heard the description.
Tessa Grant.
Norah’s college roommate.
They had not spoken much recently.
Another thing Nico had not noticed.
He did not go to Tessa’s apartment with men.
He went alone.
At 1:18 p.m., he stood outside a brick walk-up in Pilsen and knocked.
Tessa opened the door six inches.
Her expression became ice.
“No.”
“I need five minutes.”
“No.”
“Is she safe?”
“Yes.”
“Is she here?”
“That’s not your question to ask me.”
Nico inhaled.
“Will you tell her I’m outside?”
Tessa studied him.
Then shut the door.
He waited.
One minute.
Three.
Seven.
The door opened again.
Norah stood there.
She wore jeans.
Her old gray hoodie.
No makeup.
Hair tied back.
She looked exhausted.
And beautiful enough to hurt him.
Nico’s gaze instinctively dropped toward her stomach.
Nothing visible.
Norah noticed.
Her face changed.
“How do you know?”
He held up the prenatal receipt?
No.
He had left it behind.
“Your clinic called the penthouse trying to reach you.”
She closed her eyes.
“I forgot to change the emergency contact.”
“Nora—”
“Norah.”
He stopped.
She had corrected him.
He had called her Nora carelessly for years because he liked the sound shorter.
She had never corrected.
Today she did.
“Norah.”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“Is it mine?”
The moment the question left his mouth, he hated himself.
Her expression emptied.
Nico immediately shook his head.
“No. Forget that.”
“No.”
“You asked.”
“I shouldn’t have.”
“But you did.”
She looked directly at him.
“Yes, Nico.”
“The baby is yours.”
He could not speak.
Norah’s hand moved unconsciously toward her abdomen.
“Nine weeks.”
Nine.
He stared.
She continued:
“I found out Monday.”
“You were going to tell me.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
His eyes closed.
There it was.
The fruit tray.
The water.
Twenty minutes waiting outside the study.
He had been drinking Scotch and proving to another man that he could survive her absence while she stood ten feet away carrying their child.
“I’m sorry.”
Norah laughed once.
It broke halfway through.
“Do you know what hurt most?”
He did not answer.
“It wasn’t that you said you wouldn’t care.”
“It was how easy it sounded.”
“Nobody forced you.”
“No one threatened you.”
“You weren’t angry with me.”
“You were sitting with a friend.”
“And that is who you wanted him to believe you were.”
Nico swallowed.
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“Then maybe that is who you are.”
“No.”
He stepped forward.
Norah stepped back.
Nico stopped instantly.
That movement hurt more than any bullet wound he remembered.
“I love you.”
Her face twisted.
“Don’t.”
“It’s true.”
“Then that almost makes it worse.”
He stared.
“Because if you loved me and still spent three years making me feel replaceable, what am I supposed to do with that?”
He had no answer.
Norah wiped her cheek angrily.
“I’m keeping the baby.”
His heart kicked.
“I wasn’t going to ask otherwise.”
“I know.”
“And I’m not disappearing from you forever.”
Relief struck.
Too early.
She continued:
“But I am not coming back.”
The words landed cleanly.
Not tonight.
Not until Friday.
Not after apology.
Not back.
Norah looked at him.
“I need to find out who I am when I’m not waiting for your headlights.”
“Nico, I loved you so much that my whole life got smaller without me noticing.”
“I’m not raising a child inside that.”
He whispered:
“I can change.”
“Maybe.”
That was worse than no.
“Maybe you can.”
“But you don’t get to change because you’re afraid I’ll leave.”
“You have to change when leaving no longer gets you anything.”
Nico stared at her.
Then nodded.
He backed away from the door.
Norah looked surprised.
“You’re leaving?”
“You asked me to.”
Something in her face broke slightly.
Not enough.
Nico walked down the stairs.
Outside, he stood beside his car.
He wanted to send guards.
He didn’t.
He wanted to put Tessa’s building under surveillance.
He didn’t.
He wanted to buy the building.
He almost laughed at himself.
Instead he drove back alone.
That evening, Norah sat at Tessa’s kitchen table eating crackers.
Her phone had been replaced with a cheap prepaid model.
Only five people had the number.
Tessa.
Her doctor.
Her mother.
Her former employer.
And, after several minutes of staring at the screen, Nico.
At 11:32 p.m., someone slid an envelope beneath Tessa’s apartment door.
No knock.
No footsteps.
Norah froze.
Tessa came from kitchen.
“What is that?”
Neither touched it immediately.
Tessa used a dish towel to lift envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Norah leaving Lakeshore Women’s Health three days earlier.
One hand over her stomach.
Taken from across the street.
Behind it, one typed sentence.
LEAVE CHICAGO BEFORE NICO LEARNS WHAT YOU’RE CARRYING.
Norah’s blood turned cold.
Tessa whispered:
“Oh my God.”
Norah stared at the photograph.
The sender did not know Nico had already learned.
Which meant whoever was watching her was close enough to know about the pregnancy—
but not close enough to know what had happened behind Tessa’s door that afternoon.
Norah picked up her prepaid phone.
Her thumb hovered over Nico’s number.
For the first time since leaving him, she did not call because she missed him.
She called because someone else had just made their unborn child part of the game.
May you like
And this time, when Nico answered, Norah did not whisper.
“Someone knows.”
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