Chapter 1 - The Screams Next Door
I hid beneath my own bed because an elderly neighbor claimed she heard my wife screaming every afternoon, begging someone to stop. At first, I thought the warning was ridiculous—no one in Chicago would dare threaten Grace Harrison. But the people tormenting my wife believed I was too powerful to notice what was happening inside my own home, and they had no idea I was lying inches beneath them, listening to every word that would destroy the empire I had spent half my life building.
My name was Elias Harrison. In certain parts of Chicago, people said it only once. Businessmen lowered their voices when I entered a room. Rival organizations negotiated because they understood what happened to men who declared war on me. Judges attended my charity dinners, politicians returned my calls before their own families, and men who valued their lives knew better than to touch anything that belonged to me.
But Grace had never belonged to me.
She had chosen me.
That distinction mattered more than anyone understood.
I met her six years earlier at a children’s hospital fundraiser. She had been standing near the back of the ballroom in a modest blue dress, correcting a wealthy donor who had confused charity with publicity. While everyone else treated me like a loaded weapon, Grace looked directly into my eyes and asked why a man who could donate two million dollars couldn’t spare ten minutes to meet the children he claimed to care about.
I followed her upstairs.
By the end of the evening, three sick children had beaten me at cards, Grace had laughed at my terrible attempts to entertain them, and I had fallen hopelessly in love with the only woman in Chicago who wasn’t afraid of me.
I married her eleven months later.
I promised to keep my darkness away from her, but keeping that promise required me to be away constantly. I left before sunrise, returned after midnight, and surrounded our mansion with men I trusted. I told myself the distance protected her. I never considered that my absence might be the very thing placing her in danger.
The first warning came on a cold Tuesday morning.
Mrs. Evelyn Turner lived in the small brick house beyond the eastern wall of my estate. She was seventy-four, widowed, and stubborn enough to reject every offer I made to purchase her property. Grace adored her. They drank tea together, exchanged gardening advice, and complained about the noise from my security vehicles.
That morning, Mrs. Turner waited beside my front gate in a pale wool coat. Her hands shook around the handle of her cane.
“Elias,” she said as I approached my car. “I need to tell you something.”
My guards moved closer, but I waved them back.
“What is it?”
She glanced toward the mansion.
“I hear Grace screaming.”
I studied her face. “When?”
“Every afternoon. Usually around two.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I know what I heard.”
“My wife is rarely home alone.”
“That doesn’t make it impossible.”
A faint smile touched my mouth. People invented stories when my name was involved. Some wanted money. Others wanted attention. Mrs. Turner appeared to want neither, but age could make ordinary sounds seem sinister.
“You probably heard the television.”
“She was crying, Elias. She was begging someone to stop.”
The smile vanished.
“What exactly did she say?”
Mrs. Turner swallowed. “‘Please, don’t make me do this.’ Then she screamed.”
My driver opened the rear door. I looked toward the bedroom windows on the mansion’s second floor. The curtains were closed.
“I’ll speak with her.”
“Don’t just speak with her,” Mrs. Turner warned. “Listen to her.”
I spent the rest of the day pretending those words hadn’t unsettled me.
That evening, Grace greeted me in the marble foyer wearing a burgundy satin dress. Her blonde hair fell over one shoulder, and her smile was as gentle as ever.
“You’re home before midnight,” she teased. “Should I call the newspapers?”
I kissed her cheek. “I wanted to surprise you.”
Dinner waited beneath silver covers. Candles flickered on the dining table, and an old jazz record played softly from the library. Everything appeared normal.
Almost everything.
Grace lifted her wineglass with her right hand. The left remained hidden beneath the table.
I reached across and touched her wrist.
She flinched.
It was small—nothing another man would have noticed—but I had survived because I noticed small things.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
I turned her hand over. A faint red mark circled her wrist.
Her eyes shifted toward the window.
“I caught it on the garden gate.”
“That looks like someone grabbed you.”
“No one grabbed me.”
I studied her face the way I had studied hundreds of men across interrogation tables. Her breathing had changed. Her smile was too careful. She wasn’t simply hiding something.
She was terrified I might discover it.
“Has anyone been bothering you?”
“No.”
“Has anyone entered this house without permission?”
“Elias, please.” Her voice sharpened, then immediately softened. “I’m tired. Can we have one peaceful dinner without turning it into an investigation?”
I released her hand.
“Of course.”
Relief crossed her face, and that frightened me more than the mark.
Two days later, Mrs. Turner stopped me again.
“This time was worse,” she whispered. “Grace sounded terrified. Please check on her before something terrible happens.”
That night, I found my wife curled on the library couch with a novel open in her lap. She had been staring at the same page for at least five minutes.
“Everything alright?” I asked.
She looked up too quickly. “Everything’s fine.”
Fine.
It was the favorite word of people whose lives were falling apart.
I sat beside her. “Grace, look at me.”
She did.
Her eyes were red.
“Were you crying?”
“Allergies.”
“In December?”
A tired smile appeared. “Apparently my body doesn’t respect the calendar.”
I wanted to press her. I wanted to order every guard in the mansion into the foyer and tear the truth from them. But if Grace was being watched, a direct confrontation could place her in greater danger.
So I kissed her forehead.
The following morning, I left at six-thirty exactly as usual. My driver took the familiar route downtown. Three blocks later, I told him to pull into an underground parking garage.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“I forgot something.”
“I’ll turn around.”
“No. Continue to the office without me.”
He glanced at me in the mirror. “Mr. Harrison—”
“No one can know I returned home.”
That ended the discussion.
I switched cars, entered the estate through an abandoned service tunnel beneath the eastern garden, and disabled the security camera using a code only three people knew. The mansion appeared silent.
I searched every room.
No broken locks. No unfamiliar vehicles. No hidden strangers.
My guards occupied their usual posts. The housekeeper was in the laundry room. The cook was preparing lunch. Grace had gone to visit Mrs. Turner—or claimed she had.
At one forty-five, I entered our bedroom.
If someone came each afternoon, I needed to be somewhere they wouldn’t look.
The closet offered concealment but no clear view. The balcony risked being seen from the garden. Then I looked at the raised mahogany frame beneath our bed.
No one who knew me would believe Elias Harrison would crawl across his own floor and hide in the dust.
That made it perfect.
I removed my jacket, checked the pistol beneath my shoulder, and slid underneath.
At two twelve, the bedroom door opened.
Grace entered alone.
She locked the door behind her and crossed the room. From beneath the bed, I saw her bare feet stop inches from my face. The mattress lowered as she sat above me.
For several seconds, there was only silence.
Then she began to cry.
Not the quiet, graceful tears she had allowed me to see at funerals. These were deep, uncontrollable sobs that shook the entire mattress. Her feet trembled against the marble.
“Please,” she whispered to the empty room. “Please stop.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
Grace drew a broken breath.
“I won’t let them use him against me.”
My fingers closed around the pistol.
“I won’t betray my husband.”
Her phone rang.
She answered immediately. “I did what you asked.”
A distorted male voice emerged from the speaker.
“Not everything.”
“I can’t.”
“You have until midnight.”
“Please. Elias trusts him.”
My blood turned cold.
The caller laughed. “Then your husband is even more foolish than we thought.”
The call ended.
Grace lowered the phone and covered her face. I was seconds from revealing myself when the bedroom handle moved.
Someone unlocked the door from outside.
Grace stood so quickly that the mattress shifted above me.
Polished black dress shoes entered the room and stopped beside her.
The man closed the door.
“Did you tell Elias anything?” he asked.
The voice struck me harder than a bullet.
I knew it.
I had trusted that voice with my money, my operations, my secrets, and my life. It belonged to the man who had stood beside me at my wedding and raised a glass to Grace’s happiness.
My oldest friend.
My second-in-command.
Adrian Cole.
Grace looked at him with tears streaming down her face.
“No, Adrian.”
He stepped closer. “Then why did he come home early two nights ago?”
“I don’t control my husband’s schedule.”
“You’d better start controlling something. Midnight is your last chance.”
“I won’t give you the ledger.”
“You will if you want the child to live.”
The child.
The two words cut through me.
Grace’s breath caught. “You promised he wouldn’t be hurt.”
“And you promised cooperation.”
“Where is he?”
“Safe—for now.”
I silently raised my pistol, aiming between Adrian’s shoes.
Grace spoke again, barely above a whisper.
“If Elias learns what you did—”
“He won’t.”
“You don’t know him.”
A quiet laugh left Adrian. “I know him better than anyone. I’ve spent twenty years protecting Elias from enemies while he took all the power. He trusts me because I taught him to. And tonight, you’re going to help me take everything.”
He reached for Grace.
Before his fingers touched her, I heard a second set of footsteps outside the door.
Adrian turned.
Three short knocks followed—the private signal used by my personal security team.
Someone else inside my house was working with him.
Adrian opened the door only a few inches.
A voice whispered something I couldn’t hear.
He nodded, then looked back at Grace.
“Midnight. Harrison Tower. Bring the original ledger, or the boy dies.”
He left.
Grace locked the door and remained motionless until his footsteps disappeared. Then she sank onto the floor beside the bed.
Her hand landed only inches from mine.
I could have reached out.
I could have told her she was no longer alone.
But before I moved, Grace pulled a small photograph from beneath her dress.
A boy of about five stared at the camera.
Dark hair.
Green-gray eyes.
My eyes.
May you like
On the back, someone had written two words:
ELIAS’S SON.
