Chapter 2: The Morning Luke Decided Everything
It was Emma.
She was curled on top of the covers, still in her uniform, one hand pressed flat against the mattress like she'd sat down for just a moment and lost the fight against exhaustion.
She hadn't even taken off her shoes.
I should have woken her.
Should have called the housekeeper.
Should have done a dozen things I would have done without thinking two years ago.
Instead I just looked at her.
Her face was completely still for the first time since I'd known her.
No careful expression.
No quiet armor.
Just a twenty-six-year-old who was so tired she'd collapsed in the room of the most dangerous man in Chicago and hadn't even noticed.
I reached over and pulled the spare blanket from the foot of the bed.
Covered her without touching her.
Then I sat there in the dark, listening to her breathe.
In the morning she woke with a gasp and scrambled upright.
"I'm so sorry — I don't know how — I'll go, I'll go right now—"
"Emma."
She stopped.
"Did you eat yesterday?"
Her mouth opened.
Closed.
That was answer enough.
I called down to the kitchen.
Had them send up two plates.
She sat across from me at the small table by the window and neither of us said a word about what had happened.
But Luke saw her leaving my room that morning.
And by afternoon, the look on his face told me he had already decided what it meant.
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What Danny found out Luke did next put everything at risk.
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The full story — including the secret Emma had been hiding since the very first night — is in the link below.
You won't see the ending coming.
