Chapter 2 - The Prison Made of Glass
Emily woke in a bedroom larger than her entire cabin. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked Manhattan, where dawn painted the skyline silver and gold. For a few peaceful seconds, she forgot the blood, the bullets, and the flames. Then she saw two armed men standing outside her door.
She was not in a hospital.
She was inside Adrian DeLuca’s penthouse.
The room contained expensive furniture, silk sheets, fresh flowers, and a wardrobe filled with clothing in her exact size. None of it comforted her. It looked less like hospitality and more like a beautiful prison prepared before the prisoner arrived.
Emily found Adrian in a private medical suite at the opposite end of the penthouse. A surgeon was removing a drain from his side while three men discussed security around him. Adrian wore black trousers and nothing else. Fresh bandages crossed his chest, but he sat upright as though pain were an inconvenience beneath his attention.
The silver-haired man from the mountain stood nearest to him. His name was Vincent Russo, Adrian’s consigliere and oldest adviser. He watched Emily enter with the suspicion of a guard dog.
Adrian dismissed the others.
“You should be resting,” Emily said.
“So should you.”
“I want to go home.”
His eyes held hers. “Your home is gone.”
“Then take me to a hotel.”
“That would make you easier to kill.”
“Keeping me here makes me easier to control.”
Vincent looked offended. Adrian almost smiled.
“You’re not a prisoner,” he said.
“Then tell the guards to move away from my door.”
“They’re there to keep people out.”
“They also keep me in.”
Adrian rose too quickly. Pain crossed his face, but he concealed it almost immediately. “The men who attacked us belonged to the Moretti family. Their boss, Salvatore Moretti, has wanted my territory for years.”
“Then why did one of their messages say they wanted me alive?”
That question changed the room.
Vincent looked at Adrian.
Emily noticed.
“You found the phone,” she said.
Adrian did not answer.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“We’re still investigating.”
“You already know something.”
Adrian walked toward the window. “Your father’s name was Thomas Carter.”
Emily’s pulse stumbled. “How do you know that?”
“He worked as an accountant for several construction companies.”
“He was an auditor.”
“One of those companies belonged to Salvatore Moretti.”
Emily shook her head. “My father died twelve years ago.”
“In a car accident.”
Her throat tightened. “Yes.”
“It wasn’t an accident.”
The words struck harder than any bullet.
Emily stared at Adrian, waiting for him to correct himself.
He did not.
Vincent placed a folder on the table. Inside were photographs of her father meeting men outside warehouses, copies of financial records, and a police report she had never seen. One photograph showed Thomas Carter standing beside a younger Salvatore Moretti.
“Your father discovered Moretti was laundering money through public construction contracts,” Adrian said. “He copied the records and planned to testify.”
“My father never told us.”
“He was trying to protect you.”
Emily turned a page. Her father’s familiar signature appeared beneath a handwritten note: If anything happens to me, the original ledger remains where Rebecca and the children will always be safe.
Rebecca was Emily’s mother.
Emily read it twice.
“Moretti believes your father gave the ledger to your family,” Adrian continued. “He has searched for it for years.”
“My mother died. My brother died. There is no ledger.”
“Moretti doesn’t believe that.”
A terrible possibility formed in her mind. Her mother’s sudden illness. Her brother’s climbing rope failing. Events she had accepted as cruel accidents.
“No,” Emily whispered.
Adrian watched her with an expression she could not decipher.
“No,” she repeated. “You’re trying to frighten me into staying.”
“I don’t need to frighten you. The truth is sufficient.”
Emily slapped him.
The sound cracked across the room.
Vincent reached for his weapon, but Adrian raised one hand. A red mark appeared on his cheek. He did not look angry.
“My family is dead,” Emily said. “You don’t get to use them as pieces in your war.”
“I am not using them.”
“Then why do you have a file about my father?”
“Because his evidence could destroy Moretti.”
“There it is.”
“And because Moretti killed him.”
Emily turned away, fighting tears.
Adrian lowered his voice. “I know what it is to lose a father because powerful men believed they would never face consequences.”
She looked back at him.
For a moment, the feared mafia boss disappeared, leaving only a wounded son standing in a silent room.
Adrian’s father had been murdered when Adrian was nineteen. According to Vincent, rival families expected the DeLuca organization to collapse. Instead, Adrian had hunted down every man involved and taken control before his twenty-first birthday. By thirty-five, he had become more powerful than his father had ever been.
Emily closed the folder. “Suppose this ledger exists. Where would my father hide it?”
“That is what Moretti wants you to remember.”
“I was twelve.”
“Children remember details adults overlook.”
She thought of the cabin. Her father had helped rebuild it when she was young. He had carved initials beneath the kitchen table, hidden birthday presents beneath loose floorboards, and taught her to use the cellar tunnel.
Her face betrayed her.
Adrian saw it.
“The cabin,” he said.
“It burned.”
“The attackers searched before setting the fire. They didn’t find what they wanted.”
Emily remembered the old metal box beneath the fireplace stones. Her mother had called it a time capsule. Emily had never opened it because the key disappeared after her mother’s death.
“I need to go back.”
“No.”
“You said I wasn’t a prisoner.”
“You’re not walking into Moretti’s trap.”
“It’s my family.”
“And now it is my responsibility.”
Emily stepped closer. “I saved your life. That does not make my life yours.”
Something flickered in his eyes. “No. It makes your life more valuable to me than you understand.”
Before Emily could answer, alarms sounded throughout the penthouse.
Vincent received a message through his earpiece. “Security breach. Service elevator.”
Adrian pulled Emily behind him as the lights went out.
Emergency lighting painted the hallway red.
Gunfire erupted below.
The penthouse windows reflected moving shadows. Adrian handed Emily a pistol.
“I don’t know how to use this.”
“Point at anyone who isn’t me and pull the trigger.”
“That is terrible instruction.”
“It’s a terrible morning.”
Armed men entered through the service corridor. Adrian’s guards exchanged fire as Vincent led Emily toward a secure room. She resisted.
“Where’s Adrian?”
“Doing what he does best.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“It should.”
Before the steel door closed, Emily saw Adrian advancing through smoke with a weapon in each hand. He moved with terrifying calm, firing only when he had a clear target. There was no panic in him. No wasted motion. He looked less like a man defending his home than a force the attackers had foolishly awakened.
Minutes later, silence returned.
Vincent opened the secure room.
Adrian stood outside, blood on his white shirt. It was not his.
One attacker remained alive. Adrian’s men dragged him into the living room and forced him to his knees.
“Who sent you?” Adrian asked.
The man smiled through broken teeth. “You think this is about territory?”
Adrian crouched before him.
The attacker looked toward Emily. “Ask her why her father kept records on both families.”
Emily’s skin went cold.
Adrian’s expression changed.
“What does he mean?” she asked.
The prisoner laughed. “Thomas Carter didn’t just work for Moretti. He worked for DeLuca too.”
Adrian struck him once, hard enough to silence him.
Emily stared at Adrian.
“You knew.”
“I knew your father audited businesses connected to my family.”
“Connected?”
“Owned.”
“My father had evidence against you.”
“Against my father.”
“And you want the ledger to destroy Moretti before it destroys you.”
Adrian did not deny it.
The truth hurt more than the lie.
Emily handed the pistol to Vincent and walked toward the elevator.
Adrian caught her arm.
“Let go.”
“You cannot leave.”
“Watch me.”
“Moretti’s men are waiting outside.”
“And yours are standing inside. I’m not sure there’s a difference.”
His grip loosened.
Emily stepped into the elevator. “You promised to protect me. You never said you were protecting me from yourself.”
The doors closed between them.
She made it as far as the underground garage before two black vehicles blocked the exit. Men wearing police uniforms stepped out. Emily almost called for help until one removed his hat.
It was Salvatore Moretti.
He was in his sixties, elegantly dressed beneath the stolen coat, with white hair and a grandfatherly smile.
“Emily Carter,” he said warmly. “You look exactly like your mother.”
She backed toward the elevator, but another man pressed a gun against her spine.
Moretti approached and touched a strand of her hair.
“Adrian told you I killed your father, didn’t he?”
Emily said nothing.
Moretti sighed. “The DeLucas killed Thomas. I have spent twelve years trying to recover the proof.”
The elevator doors opened behind her.
Adrian stood inside with a pistol aimed directly at Moretti’s heart.
Moretti’s men raised their weapons.
Adrian’s guards appeared on the upper level.
No one moved.
“You came into my home,” Adrian said.
Moretti smiled. “I came for what belongs to me.”
“She belongs to no one.”
“How noble. Does she know what your father did to hers?”
Emily looked at Adrian.
His face revealed nothing.
Moretti leaned toward her. “Ask him about the night your father died. Ask him who was sitting in the passenger seat of the car that forced Thomas off the bridge.”
Adrian’s silence became an answer.
Emily’s voice barely emerged. “Were you there?”
“Yes,” Adrian said.
The garage seemed to tilt beneath her.
May you like
He had been there.
The man she had saved might have helped murder her father.
