Chapter 3 - THE FIANCÉE’S SECRET
Dorian pushed Ara behind the desk before the second shot hit the office door.
Wood splintered.
Ara dropped low.
“Stay down.”
“You keep saying that like I’m going to listen.”
“This would be a wonderful time to start.”
Another shot.
Dorian fired once through the door.
A crash followed outside.
Then footsteps retreated.
Dorian waited.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
He opened the door.
The corridor was empty.
A kitchen cart lay overturned beside the wall.
The stranger was gone.
So was the photograph.
Ara stared at the place where Dorian had left it.
“He came back for it.”
“No.”
Dorian pointed toward the floor.
A tiny smear of blood led toward the rear stairwell.
“He came back because he couldn’t leave evidence.”
Security arrived ninety seconds later.
By then, the attacker had disappeared.
Dorian did not call police.
Ara noticed.
“You’re not reporting this?”
“The man disabled a security system installed by people I trust. Until I know who compromised it, calling anyone only tells our enemy what we know.”
“Our enemy?”
“You said Marcus was your father. Marcus was family to me.”
“That doesn’t make us partners.”
“No.”
Dorian looked at her stained uniform.
“Being shot at together does.”
Twenty minutes later, Ara sat in the back of Dorian’s armored SUV.
Chicago lights slid across the windows.
She had not agreed to go with him.
Technically.
He had informed her that her apartment was no longer safe, and she had informed him that kidnapping waitresses created terrible restaurant reviews.
Then she got into the car.
Dorian sat opposite her.
“Elizabeth’s father is Senator Richard Hale.”
“I know.”
“Then you know accusing his family without evidence is dangerous.”
“I’m not accusing anyone. My father did.”
“Marcus never wasted words.”
Dorian removed his phone.
“Neither does someone trying to frame the Hales.”
That possibility had occurred to Ara.
She hated it.
“Why are you marrying Elizabeth?”
His eyes lifted.
“That’s personal.”
“She threw a glass at a waitress and ordered her to kneel.”
“The engagement was arranged for business reasons.”
“So romantic.”
“I wasn’t looking for romance.”
“That part is obvious.”
His gaze held hers.
Something changed in the air.
Ara looked toward the window.
She did not need complications.
Especially not six-foot-two complications wearing a black suit and carrying a gun.
The SUV entered an underground garage beneath a Gold Coast tower.
Dorian’s penthouse occupied the top three floors.
Ara expected extravagance.
Instead, she found something strangely restrained: dark wood, stone, books, old photographs.
One picture stopped her.
Marcus stood beside a teenage Dorian.
Both were laughing.
Ara had almost never seen her father laugh like that.
She picked up the frame.
“When?”
“Seventeen years ago.”
“He looked happy.”
“He was.”
“With you.”
Dorian heard the accusation.
“Your father never told me about you.”
“He had reasons.”
“What reasons?”
“My mother.”
Ara returned the photograph.
“She left him when I was nine. He followed us to Wisconsin. He lived nearby under another name. I thought he repaired agricultural machinery.”
Dorian actually laughed.
Once.
“What?”
“Marcus couldn’t repair a toaster.”
Ara smiled before she could stop herself.
The moment hurt.
Dorian saw that too.
His voice softened.
“Tell me about the last time you saw him.”
Ara sat.
“It was six years ago. The night before the explosion.”
Her father had appeared at her college apartment without warning.
He looked tired.
Older.
He cooked pasta badly.
They argued about her graduate-school plans.
Then before leaving, he hugged her for longer than usual.
At the door he said, Whatever anyone tells you about me tomorrow, remember that I loved you before I became someone worth hunting.
The warehouse exploded fourteen hours later.
Ara had buried an empty coffin.
“I spent years believing those words were goodbye,” she said.
“Maybe they were.”
She looked at Dorian.
“What does that mean?”
“Maybe Marcus intended to die that night.”
“But survived?”
“Or someone convinced him disappearing was the only way to protect you.”
“From whom?”
Dorian did not answer.
His phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
Elizabeth.
He declined it.
She called again.
Declined.
Third time.
Ara raised an eyebrow.
“Persistent.”
Dorian answered and put it on speaker.
“What?”
Elizabeth’s voice came sharp through the room.
“Where is she?”
Ara and Dorian exchanged a look.
“Who?”
“Don’t insult me, Dorian.”
“Elizabeth.”
“The waitress. Ara Quinn.”
Ara felt cold.
Elizabeth had never heard her full name at the restaurant.
Dorian realized it too.
“How do you know her name?”
Silence.
A fatal half second.
Then Elizabeth recovered.
“The manager told me.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Dorian—”
“Where did you hear her name?”
The line went dead.
Dorian stood.
Ara did too.
“That answers one question.”
“It creates ten more.”
He called his security chief.
“Find Elizabeth.”
Ara walked toward the window.
Something on the coffee table caught her attention.
An invitation.
Heavy cream paper.
Gold lettering.
THE HALE FOUNDATION WINTER GALA
Tomorrow night.
Ara picked it up.
“Your fiancée’s family fundraiser?”
“Yes.”
She turned it over.
On the back was a handwritten note.
Not Dorian’s handwriting.
Not Elizabeth’s.
Ara recognized it instantly.
Her father’s.
Three words.
COME WEARING RED.
Dorian read it over her shoulder.
“That invitation arrived yesterday.”
Ara looked at him.
“My father has been inside your home.”
Dorian’s face darkened.
“No.”
“What?”
He took the card.
“This was delivered by Elizabeth herself.”
Ara stared at him.
Dorian looked toward the elevator.
“And she told me her father specifically wanted me there.”
May you like
The penthouse suddenly felt less like shelter.
More like a trap.
