Chapter 3 - He Bought the BuildingBy eight in the morning, I was inside Gabriel Rossi's penthouse wearing my pink pajamas while a doctor stitched his arm.
It was not how I had expected Tuesday to go.
I stood beside an enormous window overlooking Manhattan and tried not to panic.
“You knew someone wanted me dead.”
Gabriel sat at his kitchen island with his sleeve rolled up.
“Yes.”
“And instead of warning me, you moved upstairs?”
“Yes.”
“And stomped around all night?”
“I was working.”
“Your work involves marching?”
“I think better when I walk.”
“Try chess.”
The doctor hid a smile.
Gabriel stared at me.
I stared back.
Something about him made everyone else shrink.
Apparently, I had missed that gene.
“Why protect me?” I asked.
The room changed.
Gabriel dismissed the doctor with a glance.
When we were alone, he poured coffee into a second cup and pushed it toward me.
I didn't touch it.
“Your father saved my life.”
That was not the answer I expected.
Gabriel walked to a cabinet and removed a folder.
Inside were photographs.
My father.
Gabriel.
Except Gabriel looked barely twenty in them.
They were standing outside the same warehouse from the photograph left on my car.
“My father knew you?”
“He worked for my father.”
I felt sick.
“What kind of work?”
“Accounting.”
I almost laughed.
“My father taught high-school math.”
“After he left us.”
Gabriel opened another photograph.
My father stood beside a much older man.
“He discovered someone was stealing from my family. Not thousands. Millions. The money was being moved through charities, galleries and construction firms.”
“Who?”
“We never proved it.”
“And my father?”
“He copied the records.”
“Why?”
“To protect himself. And you.”
My anger collapsed into confusion.
Gabriel continued.
“Arthur wanted out. My father agreed. Three months later, Arthur died.”
My throat tightened.
“You think he was murdered.”
“Yes.”
I turned away.
Outside, Manhattan moved normally.
Taxis.
Sunlight.
People carrying coffee.
The world had no business looking so ordinary.
“Why now?”
“Because someone recently discovered the missing records may still exist.”
I remembered my father's belongings after the funeral.
Books.
Tools.
A battered record player.
And one thing I had kept because I could never bring myself to throw it away.
His restoration journal.
Gabriel noticed my expression.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Nora.”
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Looking at me like you're trying to interrogate my eyebrows.”
“They're expressive.”
I blinked.
Had Gabriel Rossi just made a joke?
Before I could answer, Marco entered.
“We confirmed it.”
Gabriel's expression hardened.
“What?”
“The building sale.”
My stomach sank.
“What building sale?”
Marco looked at Gabriel.
Gabriel looked annoyed.
That told me everything.
I slowly turned toward him.
“What did you do?”
“Nora—”
“What. Did. You. Do?”
He exhaled.
“I bought the building.”
Silence.
“You what?”
“Yesterday.”
“Yesterday?”
“The previous owner wasn't taking security seriously.”
“You bought an entire Manhattan apartment building because someone threatened me?”
“Yes.”
“That is insane.”
“It was efficient.”
“Efficient?”
“I offered above market value.”
“That isn't the part I'm questioning!”
Marco suddenly decided he needed to be somewhere else.
Gabriel approached.
“I needed control of the cameras, employees, entrances and service access.”
“You could have told me.”
“You would have run.”
“I am considering it now.”
“No.”
The word was calm.
Absolute.
My anger rose.
“You don't get to tell me no.”
His expression shifted.
“You're right.”
That stopped me.
Gabriel Rossi did not look like a man accustomed to admitting that.
He lowered his voice.
“But if you leave this building without protection, whoever came this morning gets another opportunity.”
“I can't just disappear. I have a job.”
“I own the gallery.”
My mouth fell open.
“You own Rossi Gallery?”
“My family does.”
“Of course you do.”
“You can stay home.”
“No.”
“I'll pay your salary.”
“No.”
“Double it.”
I stepped toward him.
“Do you solve everything with money?”
“Most things.”
“Well, I'm not most things.”
“I noticed.”
The words came quieter than expected.
His gaze stayed on mine.
Something changed between us.
I became suddenly aware that I was standing three feet from a dangerous, infuriating, ridiculously attractive man while wearing bunny slippers.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
Gabriel's eyes went to it.
“Don't.”
I answered.
“Hello?”
Breathing.
Then a man's voice.
“Your father left something that belongs to us.”
My blood chilled.
“Who is this?”
“You have forty-eight hours.”
The line clicked dead.
Gabriel took the phone from my hand.
His face had become terrifyingly empty.
“Marco!”
His men rushed in.
But I barely heard them.
Because I had remembered something.
Three days before my father died, he had given me an old painting.
Nothing valuable.
A tiny landscape of a lighthouse above a stormy sea.
I had carried it through four apartments and two relationships because it was the last gift he ever gave me.
It was hanging over my bed downstairs.
And six months ago, while repairing a tear in the canvas, I had discovered something hidden behind it.
A brass key.
May you like
I had never known what it opened.
Until now.
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