Chapter 3 - Sins of the Ashfords
The world turned red.
"Noah!" I screamed, dropping my serving tray. The silver platter clattered against the floor, but I didn't care. "No, no, no! He’s just a kid! He has asthma, he doesn't know anything!"
I spun around, sprinting toward the grand arched doors of the ballroom. I didn't have a car. I barely had enough money in my purse for a subway card. But instinct took over; all I knew was that sixteen blocks away, in a crumbling brick tenement on 47th Street, my little brother was sitting on a second-hand sofa studying for his chemistry exam.
Before I could reach the mahogany exit, a pair of heavy hands clamped down on my shoulders, spinning me around.
"Let me go!" I fought wildly, kicking and clawing at Daniel Carter's chest. "Let me go, you bastard! This is your fault! All of this is your fault!"
He didn't strike me. He didn't yell. He absorbed every blow, his chest like iron, his arms wrapping around me in an inescapable, protective vice until my frantic energy collapsed into ragged, terrified sobs.
"Listen to me, Emma," Daniel commanded, holding my face between his large, calloused hands. His eyes burned with an icy, terrifying focus. "Your brother is not dead. I will burn this entire city to ash before anyone touches a hair on his head. Do you understand me?"
"You don't know the Ashfords!" Victoria shrieked from the floor. Matteo already had zip-ties around her wrists, hauling her to her feet like common cargo. "My father controls the South Side precincts! By now, the fire has already started!"
Daniel pulled a sleek black smartphone from his lapel. He tapped a single key and brought it to his ear.
"Marcus," Daniel said coldly.
The line crackled on speakerphone. A raspy, aristocratic voice answered from the other end. "Daniel. I hear my daughter caused a bit of a scene at your little gala."
"Call your dogs off 47th Street," Daniel said, his voice flat. "If a single pane of glass is broken at the Bennett apartment, I will personally hang you from the balcony of the Chicago Board of Trade."
A cruel chuckle rasped through the speaker. Marcus Ashford—the patriarch of Chicago’s old-money syndicate, a man who laundered billions through municipal bonds and political campaigns.
"It’s too late for threats, boy," Marcus replied smoothly. "Sixteen years ago, your father thought he could squeeze the Ashfords out of the harbor contracts. He ended up at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Claire Bennett was smart enough to figure it out, but she lacked the stomach to play the game. If you've found what she hid... well, then you know none of you can be allowed to see tomorrow's sunrise."
The call went dead.
Daniel didn't waste a second. He snapped the phone shut, turned to Matteo, and gave orders like a general in the middle of a war zone.
"Take Victoria to the basement vault beneath the hotel. Put three men on her. If anyone approaches, shoot to kill."
"Boss, what about the Ashford perimeter?" Matteo asked, his jaw tight.
"Arm the strike team. Four SUVs. We move now."
Within thirty seconds, I was swept through the hotel's private underground tunnel and shoved into the leather interior of an armored black Cadillac Escalade. Daniel slid in beside me, chambering a round into a heavy black pistol with a practiced, terrifying rhythm.
"Put this on," he ordered, throwing a heavy Kevlar vest into my lap.
My hands shook so violently I couldn't thread the Velcro straps. Daniel leaned over, his cologne—cedarwood and gun oil—filling the tight space, and strapped the vest securely across my chest.
"Mr. Carter..." I choked out, tears burning my eyes. "Is it true? Was my mother... was she yours?"
Daniel’s fingers paused on the strap. His gaze met mine in the dim amber light of the SUV.
"Claire was my world, Emma," he murmured, his voice thick with a pain sixteen years in the making. "I met her when she was twenty. She didn't care about the Carter empire. She didn't care about the money. She loved me for who I was when the guns were put away. When my father was murdered, Marcus Ashford showed me forged security logs claiming Claire had leaked our routes. Then she vanished into thin air. I spent five years tearing North America apart looking for her, only to be told she drowned in a car accident in Toronto."
"She was in Chicago the whole time," I whispered, the absurdity and heartbreak crashing down on me. "We lived in a basement apartment three miles from your hotel. She worked three cleaning jobs. She dyed her hair brown. She wore thick glasses. She never let me take a school photo."
Daniel closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, swallowing a curse that sounded like a prayer. "She was hiding from the Ashfords. And from me. Because she thought I was in on it."
The SUV lurched forward, tires squealing against the asphalt as we burst out of the subterranean garage and into the rain-slicked streets of Chicago. Red and blue strobe lights flashed from the escort vehicles, clearing the midnight traffic.
"We have four minutes," the driver barked from the front seat.
"Drive faster," Daniel growled, pulling an assault rifle from the floorboard.
I gripped the door handle, staring out the window at the blurred neon signs. *Noah. Please, God, Noah. Pick up your phone.*
I pulled my cracked iPhone from my pocket and dialed my brother’s number.
It rang once. Twice. Three times.
On the fourth ring, the call connected.
"Emma?" Noah’s voice came through, groggy and annoyed. "Where are you? You were supposed to be off your shift at eleven. Did you bring the—"
"Noah, get out of the apartment right now!" I screamed into the receiver.
May you like
A loud, shattering crash echoed through the speaker, followed by the terrifying sound of splintering wood and heavy boots kicking through our front door.
***
