Chapter 4 - The Woman He Couldn’t Hide
Cameron wanted Avery inside the Moretti estate before sunset.
Avery wanted nothing to do with the Moretti estate.
They argued for seventeen minutes in her mother’s kitchen.
“No.”
“Avery.”
“No.”
“Victor knows where you live.”
“Then put security here.”
“I already have.”
“Great.”
“He also knows where you work.”
“Then I won’t work.”
“He knows your face.”
“I’m aware of how faces work, Cameron.”
Maria almost smiled despite herself.
Cameron did not.
“This isn’t funny.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“You could be killed.”
That silenced the room.
Avery looked at him.
His fear was no longer hidden.
It changed something.
Not enough to make her trust him.
Enough to make her listen.
She eventually agreed to stay at the Moretti estate on three conditions.
Her mother came with her.
Nobody entered her room without permission.
And Cameron told her the truth when she asked for it.
“No protecting me with lies.”
He held her gaze.
“Agreed.”
The Moretti estate stood behind iron gates overlooking Gravesend Bay.
Avery had expected gold.
Instead she found dark wood, stone, books, and rooms that felt almost aggressively private.
Cameron showed Maria to a suite.
Then he led Avery upstairs.
Her room overlooked the water.
On the nightstand stood a vase of yellow daisies.
Avery stopped.
Cameron noticed.
“What?”
“My father bought me yellow daisies every birthday.”
“I know.”
Her head snapped toward him.
He immediately realized his mistake.
“How?”
Cameron said nothing.
“Truth, remember?”
He reached into his jacket.
A worn envelope appeared.
“Your father gave this to me the night he saved my life.”
Inside was a photograph of four-year-old Avery holding yellow daisies.
On the back, in Anthony’s handwriting:
My Avery. Loud laugh. Loves pancakes. Thinks yellow flowers are happier than roses.
Her throat closed.
Cameron spoke softly.
“He carried it in his wallet.”
“You kept this fourteen years?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the last thing your father said to me was about you.”
Avery looked up.
“What did he say?”
Cameron’s eyes darkened with memory.
“He said, ‘If I don’t make it home, make sure my girls do.’”
Avery sat on the edge of the bed.
For fourteen years she had believed her father died alone in a truck.
Now she knew his last thoughts had been of her.
Cameron started toward the door.
“Wait.”
He stopped.
“Did you love him?”
The question surprised him.
“I respected him.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Cameron looked toward the photograph.
“Yes.”
It was the first time she saw him as something other than Moretti.
He was still dangerous.
Still secretive.
Still a man surrounded by armed guards.
But once, he had been twenty-two and frightened, and her father had died keeping him alive.
That evening Avery found Cameron alone in the kitchen.
Not the enormous professional kitchen downstairs.
A smaller one near his study.
He was making coffee.
Badly.
“You own shipping companies and hotels,” she said. “But apparently not a coffee machine.”
He glanced over.
“I employ people for this.”
“Clearly.”
She took the mug from him.
Their fingers brushed.
Both stopped.
The contact lasted perhaps one second.
It felt longer.
Avery looked away first.
“Why did you always ask about my mother?”
“Because I couldn’t ask about you without sounding suspicious.”
“You came every morning.”
“Yes.”
“That was already suspicious.”
“I underestimated you.”
She smiled faintly.
“You underestimated how weird you were being.”
“Apparently.”
She made him coffee.
Black.
No sugar.
When she handed it over, Cameron did not drink.
“What?”
“You remembered.”
“I’m a waitress. Remembering orders is literally my job.”
“No.”
His gaze remained on her.
“You remember people.”
The compliment struck somewhere vulnerable.
Most people noticed Avery’s body before anything else.
Cameron had noticed the thing she did quietly.
She looked down.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
She had no answer she was willing to give.
Julian entered before she needed one.
“We found Calder’s accountant.”
Cameron’s expression changed instantly.
“Where?”
“Dead.”
Avery’s smile vanished.
Julian placed a folder on the counter.
“He left a storage key taped beneath his desk.”
“To what?”
“A safe-deposit facility in Manhattan.”
Cameron opened the folder.
Inside was a photocopy of a ledger.
Avery leaned closer.
One name jumped from the page.
A. RUSSO.
Her blood ran cold.
“My father?”
Julian shook his head.
“The transactions are recent.”
Avery stared at him.
“There’s another A. Russo?”
Cameron turned several pages.
Then stopped.
A photograph had been clipped behind the ledger.
A man stood outside a warehouse in Red Hook.
Gray hair.
Broad shoulders.
A familiar crooked smile.
Avery’s coffee mug slipped from her fingers.
It shattered on the floor.
“No.”
She backed into the counter.
“No, that’s impossible.”
Cameron stared at the photograph.
Maria appeared in the doorway.
Her face changed.
Avery looked at her mother.
“Mom?”
Maria whispered one word.
“Anthony.”
Avery’s knees nearly failed.
Because the man in the photograph was older.
Fourteen years older.
May you like
But there was no mistaking him.
The father Avery Russo had buried as a child was alive.
