Chapter 6: The Uncle's Offer
I kept my voice flat.
"How did you get this number?"
"The same way I get most things," Marcus said.
"Without difficulty." A pause.
"I want you to understand that I have no interest in harming you.
You're a young woman in a complicated situation.
I respect that."
"You had my father kjlled."
The silence that followed was two seconds long.
Carefully measured.
"Your father made choices that put people at risk," Marcus said.
"I'm not going to debate the past with you.
What I'm offering you is a future.
A clean one."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I know about the pregnancy." His voice didn't change.
"Alessandro's child.
A Vitali heir, which makes this situation considerably more complex than a simple property dispute." Another pause.
"I'm prepared to be generous.
A settlement.
Enough to finish your nursing degree, relocate, build a life somewhere comfortable.
In exchange, you hand over whatever Daniel left behind, you walk away from Alessandro, and you raise the child quietly, away from Chicago."
Liam was watching my face.
I kept it still.
"And if I say no?"
"Then I'm forced to introduce you to Alessandro myself," Marcus said.
"As Elizabeth Hargrove, daughter of the man who tried to destr0y this family.
I'll make sure he understands exactly who came to that gala and why.
I'll make sure he believes the pregnancy was a deliberate strategy.
A trap." His voice was almost gentle.
"Alessandro is a proud man.
He does not respond well to feeling used."
My hand tightened on the phone.
"You have twenty-four hours," Marcus said.
"Think carefully.
You have more to protect now than just yourself."
The line went d*ad.
I set the phone on my knee.
The dog down the street was still barking.
"He knows about the baby," Liam said.
"Yes."
"And he's threatening to poison Alessandro against you before you can reach him."
"Yes."
Liam looked straight ahead through the windshield.
"Then you have to get to Alessandro first."
"Marcus will be watching.
If I try to contact Alessandro directly, Marcus will know within the hour."
"So you go in person.
Somewhere Marcus won't expect." Liam turned to look at me.
"Where does Alessandro go that isn't on a schedule?
That isn't surrounded by staff and security?"
I thought about the hotel room.
The open collar.
The old crime novels.
The black coffee and quiet mornings.
"He mentioned a place," I said slowly.
"A house on the North Shore.
He said he goes there when he needs to think.
No staff on weekends.
He said it was the only place in Chicago where his phone stopped feeling like a leash."
"Do you know where?"
"He didn't give me an address.
But he said it was in Winnetka.
On the lake."
Liam started the car.
"Then we find it."
"Liam—"
"You have twenty-four hours and a man with serious resources who wants you gone." He pulled away from the curb.
"We find it."
I looked out the window at the bare trees passing.
In my coat pocket, the storage unit key pressed against my palm.
Whatever my father had died protecting was sitting in a room on the west side of Chicago.
May you like
And the man whose child I was carrying had no idea any of it existed.
I had until tomorrow to change that.
