Chapter 4 - The Locked Room
Ruby waited until Gideon left for New York before she opened the locked room.
Technically, she did not break in.
His housekeeper accidentally left the door unlocked.
Ruby considered that distinction morally significant.
Inside, she expected weapons.
Secret financial records.
Perhaps evidence of whichever crimes Gideon routinely refused to discuss.
Instead, she found a nursery.
Not a modern one.
An old nursery.
Faded blue wallpaper covered the walls. Wooden shelves held children’s books. A rocking horse stood near the window. On a dresser sat a photograph of a dark-haired woman holding a boy of perhaps six.
The boy was unmistakably Gideon.
Ruby approached slowly.
The woman beside him had the same dark eyes.
His mother.
On the dresser sat another photograph.
Gideon at ten.
Another at twelve.
Then nothing.
A newspaper clipping rested beneath the frame.
BOSTON WOMAN KILLED IN WATERFRONT EXPLOSION
Elena Rossi, thirty-eight.
Ruby stopped breathing.
A floorboard creaked behind her.
She turned.
Gideon stood in the doorway.
He had returned early.
His face contained no anger.
That frightened her more.
“I can explain.”
“No, you can’t.”
“I didn’t force the lock.”
“Leave.”
Ruby looked toward the photographs.
“Gideon—”
“Get out.”
She did.
He did not speak to her for two days.
On the third night, Ruby found him drinking alone in the library.
She stood in the doorway.
“You can ignore me until our contract expires if you want.”
No answer.
“But I’m still going to apologize.”
His glass stopped halfway toward his mouth.
“I should not have gone inside.”
Silence.
“I was curious.”
“That is not an excuse.”
“I know.”
He finally looked at her.
“You always need answers.”
“Yes.”
“Some answers damage people.”
“So does silence.”
His jaw tightened.
Ruby stepped into the room.
“Did you blame yourself?”
He laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“For my mother?”
“You were a child.”
“I was twelve.”
“That is a child.”
“I convinced her to come to the waterfront festival.”
Ruby’s chest tightened.
Gideon looked toward the fire.
“She wanted to stay home. My father had received threats. Security advised against public appearances.”
His voice remained controlled, but his fingers tightened around the glass.
“I begged her.”
Ruby sat opposite him.
“The bomb was intended for your father.”
“Yes.”
“And he survived.”
“Yes.”
“But your mother didn’t.”
Gideon finished the drink.
“For years, I believed wanting something made people vulnerable.”
Ruby understood.
“Because you wanted your mother there.”
“Because my father loved her.”
Ruby shook her head.
“Those aren’t the same thing.”
“They produced the same result.”
“No. A criminal produced the result.”
Gideon stared at her.
“You’re very confident about events you didn’t experience.”
“I’m confident a twelve-year-old boy didn’t murder his mother.”
His face hardened.
Ruby continued anyway.
“And I’m confident the man sitting here has spent twenty years punishing himself for surviving.”
“Stop.”
“No.”
“Ruby.”
“There you go again.”
He stood.
She stood too.
“You want everyone to obey because obedience feels safer than attachment.”
His eyes flashed.
“You know nothing about me.”
“I know you slept outside my bedroom because you were terrified someone would hurt me.”
Silence.
“I know you remember my allergies.”
“Enough.”
“I know you secretly paid for Lucy Brennan’s surgery.”
His expression changed.
“How did you—”
“Her father told me.”
“That was confidential.”
“He cried when he told me.”
Gideon looked away.
Ruby’s voice softened.
“You’re not the man you work so hard to pretend you are.”
That did it.
He crossed the space between them.
Not violently.
Quickly.
Ruby suddenly found herself standing inches from him.
His breathing changed.
“Be careful.”
“With what?”
“With believing you understand me.”
“Why?”
“Because you might start expecting things I cannot give you.”
Ruby’s heart pounded.
“What things?”
Gideon stared at her mouth.
Neither moved.
Then his phone rang.
He stepped away sharply.
The screen showed a number Ruby did not recognize.
Gideon answered.
His face changed.
“When?”
He listened.
“I’m coming.”
He grabbed his coat.
“What happened?” Ruby asked.
“Gallagher Freight warehouse three.”
Ruby went cold.
“What about it?”
“Fire.”
They reached South Boston twenty minutes later.
Flames poured from the roof.
Firefighters surrounded the building.
Ruby stood beneath freezing rain watching a warehouse her grandfather had purchased forty years earlier collapse in orange sparks.
“Was anyone inside?”
“Night crew evacuated,” Gideon said.
Ruby exhaled shakily.
Then a firefighter approached.
“Mrs. Rossi?”
“Yes?”
“We found something you should see.”
Near the loading entrance, someone had spray-painted words against the brick wall.
ROSSI DESTROYS EVERYTHING HE TOUCHES
Ruby turned.
Gideon was already staring at it.
“This isn’t Preston,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“Vale likes money.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“Whoever did this wanted me to recognize the message.”
Ruby’s fear returned.
“Recognize from where?”
Gideon did not answer.
A black sedan arrived.
An older man stepped out.
Tall.
Silver-haired.
Elegant.
Antonio Rossi.
Gideon’s father.
Ruby had seen him only twice.
Antonio approached the burning warehouse without urgency.
“What a tragedy.”
Gideon’s expression became stone.
“What are you doing here?”
“I heard.”
“From whom?”
Antonio smiled.
“I still have friends in Boston.”
His gaze shifted toward Ruby.
“You shouldn’t keep your wife around places like this.”
Ruby disliked the way he said wife.
As though it meant possession.
“I go where I choose,” she replied.
Antonio’s smile widened.
“So I’ve heard.”
Gideon stepped between them.
“Leave.”
Antonio studied his son.
“You’re making the same mistake I did.”
Ruby felt Gideon go still.
“What mistake?”
“Believing love makes you stronger.”
Antonio glanced toward the flames.
“It only gives your enemies something worth burning.”
Then he walked away.
Ruby stared after him.
“You think he did this.”
Gideon didn’t respond.
“You think your own father burned my warehouse?”
“I think my father is capable of anything if he believes the outcome justifies it.”
“Why would he?”
“To end the redevelopment bid.”
“That’s your project.”
“It also moves Apex completely legitimate.”
Ruby understood.
Antonio’s influence depended on the old organization.
If Gideon cut those ties permanently, his father lost power.
The war was not between Apex and Vale.
It was inside the Rossi family.
That night, Gideon finally told Ruby everything.
Antonio had spent years pressuring him to continue illegal operations through the harbor.
Gideon had refused.
The redevelopment contract represented more than money.
It would force Apex into federal oversight and make returning to the old network almost impossible.
“My father thinks I’m destroying what he built.”
Ruby sat beside Gideon in the darkened penthouse.
“You are.”
He looked at her.
“You’re destroying the part that should have died years ago.”
His expression softened.
Ruby reached for his hand.
This time he let her.
Then she noticed something.
A smear of gray soot marked his cheek.
Without thinking, she lifted her fingers and wiped it away.
Gideon stopped breathing.
Their faces were close.
Very close.
Ruby should have moved.
She didn’t.
“Ruby.”
His voice was almost a warning.
“What?”
“If I kiss you, this stops being simple.”
She smiled sadly.
“Gideon, this stopped being simple months ago.”
He kissed her.
Not like a man taking something.
Like a man terrified the moment would disappear.
His hand touched her face gently.
Ruby gripped his coat.
For several seconds, contracts and terminals and enemies vanished.
Then Gideon abruptly pulled away.
His eyes were full of conflict.
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
Ruby’s chest tightened.
“No.”
“I mean—”
“You made that very clear.”
She stood.
“Ruby.”
She walked away.
Behind her, Gideon cursed under his breath.
He did not follow.
That was his second mistake.
His first had been believing the kiss could still be treated like a clause in an agreement.
And the next morning, Ruby received an anonymous package containing bank records proving Gideon had met secretly with Antonio three weeks before the warehouse fire.
Attached was one handwritten sentence.
Ask your husband what he promised his father in exchange for your terminals.
May you like
Ruby stared at the pages.
For the first time since marrying Gideon, she wondered whether every soft moment between them had been another negotiation.
