Chapter 2 - The Bride Who Wouldn’t Flinch
Emma stopped breathing.
The photograph on Matteo’s phone was grainy, captured beneath the shadow of the west gate.
But she knew that walk.
The slight angle of the shoulders.
The left hand always hanging lower because of an old warehouse injury.
Her father had walked exactly like that.
“No.”
Lorenzo took the phone.
“Enhance it.”
Matteo touched the screen.
The face enlarged.
Emma gripped the desk.
Peter Carter.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
“That’s impossible,” she whispered.
Lorenzo was already moving.
“Lock the house.”
Matteo nodded.
“No one enters or leaves.”
Emma stood.
“Where are you going?”
“To find him.”
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
She stared at Lorenzo.
He stared back.
It probably worked on other people.
Emma picked up her shoes.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking these off so I can run.”
“Emma.”
“You don’t get to show me my dead father and then put me in a bedroom.”
“You are not going anywhere near an unknown intruder.”
“He isn’t unknown.”
“You saw a photograph.”
“I buried him.”
“Which makes him extremely unknown.”
She hated that he had a point.
Lorenzo walked to a wall panel.
It opened onto a security room.
Emma blinked.
“You have a secret door.”
“Yes.”
“That is aggressively mafia.”
“Stay here.”
“Stop ordering me around.”
He turned.
“Someone photographed you entering my home and then a man who looks exactly like your dead father walked onto my property. For the next ten minutes, I’m ordering everyone around.”
Emma folded her arms.
“Ten.”
“What?”
“You have ten minutes.”
Lorenzo stared.
Then, impossibly, he nodded.
“Ten.”
He disappeared with Matteo.
Emma watched the security monitors.
Guards moved through hallways.
Two checked the gardens.
Another searched the guest wing.
The west-side cameras showed nothing.
Peter had vanished.
Seven minutes passed.
Then nine.
At exactly ten, Emma opened the study door.
A young guard blocked her.
“Ma’am.”
“Your boss gave me ten minutes.”
“He told us you’d say that.”
“Did he tell you what happens at eleven?”
The guard looked uncertain.
Emma smiled.
“He’s learning.”
“Mrs. Carter—”
“Emma.”
“Emma, please.”
She softened.
“I’m not trying to make your job difficult.”
The guard looked relieved.
“I’m trying to make Lorenzo’s difficult.”
His relief disappeared.
Emma walked back into the study.
She could wait.
For now.
She looked again at her father’s torn letter.
Do not sell the company.
Never tell anyone what I hid inside—
Inside what?
The office?
A truck?
Their childhood house?
Her father collected strange hiding places.
He once hid Emma’s birthday present inside a tire because he thought nobody would search there.
A memory flashed.
The old green delivery truck.
Her father had refused to sell it even after it stopped running.
“Some things carry more than cargo,” he used to say.
Emma froze.
She grabbed her phone.
Carter Freight’s yard had cameras.
She opened the security application.
Camera six showed the old green truck parked beside Warehouse B.
Emma zoomed in.
The driver-side door was open.
It had been closed that morning.
Her heart accelerated.
Someone had been there.
Lorenzo returned eleven minutes later.
“Gone,” he said.
“You owe me one minute.”
He stared at her.
She held up her phone.
“Someone opened my father’s truck.”
Lorenzo took the device.
“When?”
“Within the last few hours.”
“Who has access?”
“Employees.”
“Names?”
“Eighty-three.”
“Useful.”
“I try.”
He called Matteo.
“Send men to Carter Freight.”
Emma snatched the phone from his hand before he could finish.
“No.”
Lorenzo’s expression became lethal.
Not at her.
At the situation.
“This isn’t negotiable.”
“Yes, it is.”
“That property may be compromised.”
“And sending six black SUVs full of your men will make whoever is watching disappear.”
Lorenzo paused.
Emma knew she had him.
“We go quietly,” she said.
“We?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Your ten minutes expired.”
His jaw tightened.
Twenty minutes later, Emma was sitting in the passenger seat of Lorenzo Duca’s black sedan.
She smiled.
He looked over.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You look pleased.”
“I won.”
“You are under the impression that I allowed this.”
“You’re under the impression that distinction matters.”
He stared forward.
“I understand why other men find you exhausting.”
“Other men?”
A pause.
“I investigated you.”
“Romantic.”
“It was necessary.”
“How many ex-boyfriends?”
“Three.”
“Wrong.”
Emma turned.
“What?”
“Two serious relationships. One man you dated four times before he moved to Denver.”
“That absolutely counts.”
“No.”
“You’re strangely invested in this.”
“I like accurate records.”
She laughed.
The sound changed the car.
Lorenzo noticed.
Emma noticed him noticing.
Neither mentioned it.
At Carter Freight, everything looked normal.
That frightened Emma more.
Night workers loaded pallets.
Forklifts moved.
Office lights glowed.
Her life continued while the ground beneath it shifted.
They entered through the side gate.
Lorenzo had brought only Matteo.
Emma led them to the old truck.
The door hung open.
She touched the handle.
“My father loved this thing.”
“Why?”
“Because it was terrible.”
Lorenzo frowned.
She smiled sadly.
“He bought it when I was six. It broke constantly. Mom hated it. Dad said anything worth loving required maintenance.”
“That sounds inconvenient.”
“You’re one to talk.”
His gaze shifted toward her.
Emma crouched near the seat.
Nothing.
Glove compartment.
Empty.
Under the mat.
A rusted wrench.
Then she remembered.
Some things carry more than cargo.
She climbed into the back.
“Emma.”
“What?”
“What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The cargo floor had been replaced years ago.
Emma ran her hand along the boards.
One panel sounded different.
She knocked again.
Hollow.
Lorenzo climbed in.
Together they pried up the plank.
Beneath it sat a metal box.
Emma’s hands trembled.
A small combination lock secured it.
“Do you know the code?” Lorenzo asked.
Emma smiled through sudden tears.
“My birthday?”
She tried.
Wrong.
Her mother’s birthday.
Wrong.
Her parents’ anniversary.
Wrong.
Lorenzo crouched beside her.
“What did your father consider important?”
Emma thought.
Then entered 0712.
The day Carter Freight opened.
The lock clicked.
Inside were ledgers.
A flash drive.
Three photographs.
And a wedding invitation.
Emma picked it up.
Her stomach turned.
It was dated eleven years earlier.
The names:
Peter Carter
and
Isabella Duca.
Emma looked at Lorenzo.
He had gone perfectly still.
“Who is Isabella?”
“My aunt.”
“Your aunt married my father?”
“No.”
“But this says—”
“The wedding never happened.”
“Why?”
Lorenzo took the invitation.
“Because Isabella disappeared three days before the ceremony.”
Emma stared.
“My father was already married to my mother eleven years ago.”
“Yes.”
“That makes no sense.”
“No.”
Emma reached for one photograph.
Peter Carter stood beside a younger Lorenzo’s father.
Between them was Isabella.
On the back someone had written:
THE THREE WHO KNEW.
The second photograph showed Carter Freight’s original warehouse.
The third showed a man Emma did not recognize.
Lorenzo did.
His face hardened.
“Who is he?”
“Victor Sanz.”
“Should I know that name?”
“He worked for my uncle.”
“Worked?”
“He disappeared the same week Isabella did.”
Emma looked at the flash drive.
“Do you have a laptop?”
“No.”
“You’re the head of a criminal empire and don’t travel with a laptop?”
“I have people who travel with laptops.”
“Of course.”
Matteo appeared at the truck doors.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We have company.”
Lights swept across the yard.
Three cars entered through the front gate.
Emma recognized the first vehicle.
It belonged to her company’s chief financial officer.
Daniel Mercer.
Her father’s oldest friend.
A man who had attended every Christmas dinner since Emma was a child.
Daniel stepped out.
Two strangers followed.
He saw Emma.
Stopped.
Then noticed Lorenzo.
His face changed.
“Emma.”
She climbed down.
“Why are you here?”
Daniel glanced at the open truck.
“You shouldn’t have touched that box.”
Every instinct inside Emma sharpened.
“You knew?”
“Listen to me carefully.”
Lorenzo stepped beside her.
Daniel’s eyes flicked toward him.
“You brought Duca.”
“He brought himself.”
“This doesn’t concern him.”
Lorenzo’s voice was quiet.
“She concerns me.”
Emma looked at him.
Daniel did too.
Something dangerous moved through the yard.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“Emma, your father made mistakes.”
“My father is apparently alive.”
Daniel’s face went white.
That was all the confirmation she needed.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You did.”
“Emma—”
“You watched me bury an empty coffin.”
“It wasn’t empty.”
The words hit harder.
She stared.
“What?”
Daniel looked sick.
“Your father was in that coffin.”
“But the camera—”
“That wasn’t Peter.”
Emma’s confusion deepened.
Lorenzo stepped forward.
“Who was it?”
Daniel looked toward the dark warehouse.
Then toward Emma.
“The man at the mansion was Peter’s brother.”
Emma laughed once.
A broken sound.
“My father didn’t have a brother.”
“Yes, he did.”
“No.”
“His name was Michael.”
Emma stepped back.
Everything inside her said Daniel was telling the truth.
That made it worse.
“Why didn’t I know?”
“Because Peter spent thirty years making sure you never did.”
Daniel looked at Lorenzo.
“And the moment she opened that box, she became part of something Peter died trying to keep buried.”
Emma held up the wedding invitation.
“This?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“What happened to Isabella Duca?”
Daniel looked at Lorenzo.
“I don’t know.”
Lorenzo moved closer.
Daniel immediately corrected himself.
“I don’t know where she is.”
Emma caught it.
“Is.”
Daniel froze.
“You said is.”
Silence.
“She’s alive,” Emma whispered.
Daniel looked away.
Emma grabbed his arm.
“Where?”
“I can’t.”
“Where is she?”
A phone began ringing inside the truck.
Everyone turned.
Emma’s phone was in her hand.
Lorenzo’s was in his pocket.
Matteo checked his.
Not his.
The ringing came from the metal box.
Beneath the ledgers.
Emma slowly reached inside.
There was an old flip phone she had not noticed.
Its screen glowed.
UNKNOWN CALLER.
Lorenzo said, “Don’t answer.”
Emma answered.
“Hello?”
Static.
Then a woman’s voice whispered:
“Emma Carter?”
“Yes.”
A sharp breath.
“Oh God.”
Emma’s fingers tightened.
“Who is this?”
The woman began crying.
Lorenzo watched Emma’s face.
Then the voice said six words that changed everything.
“My name is Isabella Duca.”
Lorenzo went still.
Emma could barely speak.
“Where are you?”
A crash sounded through the phone.
Isabella gasped.
Then screamed one word.
“Run!”
May you like
The line died.
At the same instant, every light in Carter Freight went black.
