Chapter 3 - The Man Harper Buried
Harper stopped moving.
Only one person had called her Birdie.
Her father.
Sebastian caught her before her knees gave way.
“That isn’t possible.”
Her voice barely existed.
Dante looked at the monitor.
The man outside was older than the father Harper remembered.
Gray threaded through his beard.
A scar crossed his cheek.
But the eyes were the same.
Harper knew those eyes.
Sebastian ordered the guards to bring him inside.
“Wait.”
Harper caught Sebastian’s sleeve.
“What if it’s a trap?”
“It probably is.”
“That doesn’t reassure me.”
“It wasn’t intended to.”
The door opened.
Daniel Evans entered with his hands raised.
Harper stared at a ghost.
He looked at her.
Twelve years vanished from his face.
“My girl.”
Harper slapped him.
The sound cracked through the room.
Nobody moved.
Daniel accepted it.
“You died.”
“I know.”
“I buried you.”
“I know.”
“There was a coffin.”
“I know.”
She hit his chest.
Sebastian stepped forward, but Harper shook her head.
“You let me think you were dead.”
Daniel’s eyes filled.
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“By destroying me?”
“I had no choice.”
“Everyone has a choice.”
Daniel looked toward Sebastian.
“Not in his world.”
Sebastian’s jaw tightened.
“Explain.”
Daniel sat.
What followed dismantled Harper’s understanding of her childhood piece by piece.
Daniel Evans had not been an ordinary accountant.
He had worked for Valerio companies when Sebastian’s father, Vittorio, controlled the organization.
He discovered that Lorenzo Conti was secretly financing a faction trying to remove Vittorio.
Daniel copied financial records.
Conti discovered the theft.
To protect Harper, Daniel staged his death and entered hiding.
“Why come back now?” Harper asked.
“Because Lorenzo knows Sebastian won’t marry Bianca.”
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed.
“How?”
“He’s known for months.”
“Then why force the arrangement?”
Daniel looked at Harper.
“Because Bianca was never the important part.”
Harper’s stomach dropped.
“What was?”
“You.”
Daniel explained.
The evidence he had stolen twelve years ago had been divided.
One part belonged to him.
The other had been placed in a trust under Harper’s name.
She had never known.
The records could prove that Conti money financed murders, bribery, and the attempted assassination of Sebastian’s father.
Lorenzo believed Harper had access.
“I don’t.”
“I know.”
“Does he?”
“No.”
Sebastian paced once across the room.
“So the bride arrangement brought Harper closer to Bianca.”
Daniel nodded.
“And closer to the Contis.”
Harper felt sick.
Every appointment.
Every dress fitting.
Every dinner.
She had unknowingly been placed inside Lorenzo’s reach.
“Who proposed the bride search?”
Harper asked.
Sebastian stopped.
His silence answered.
“The Commission,” she said.
Daniel shook his head.
“Lorenzo.”
Sebastian’s expression became ice.
Dante swore softly.
Harper looked at Sebastian.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
She believed him immediately.
That frightened her too.
Trust had become instinct.
Daniel removed a key from around his neck.
He gave it to Harper.
“Your mother left this.”
Harper stared.
“My mother died when I was six.”
“Yes.”
“What does it open?”
“I don’t know.”
She laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
“Your mother was better at secrets than I was.”
Sebastian studied the key.
A tiny V was engraved on its side.
Valerio.
Harper looked at him.
“Why does my mother’s key have your family initial?”
Sebastian had no answer.
By dawn, nobody had slept.
The Commission gathering was still scheduled for that evening.
Canceling would signal weakness.
Attending could be dangerous.
Sebastian decided to go.
Harper decided she was going too.
“No,” he said.
She folded her arms.
“That word is losing effectiveness.”
“Harper.”
“This involves my father, my mother, my name and apparently a mysterious key connected to your family. I am going.”
“It could be dangerous.”
“Yesterday I fell down stairs carrying a ninety-thousand-dollar gown. My relationship with danger is already established.”
Daniel objected.
Dante objected.
Sebastian objected twice.
Harper won.
Madame Celeste arrived that afternoon carrying the crimson dress.
Harper stared at it.
“I thought we left this at the boutique.”
Celeste smiled.
“Some dresses know where they belong.”
Harper wore it.
Not for Sebastian.
She told herself that repeatedly.
When she descended the staircase, every conversation below stopped.
Sebastian stood near the entrance in black formalwear.
His gaze lifted.
For one moment, the dangerous world around them disappeared.
“You kept it,” he said.
“Apparently the violinist approved.”
Sebastian offered his arm.
Harper took it.
The Commission gala occupied the top floor of the Valerio Grand Hotel.
Bianca arrived in white.
Of course she did.
Her expression hardened when she saw Harper.
Lorenzo looked less surprised.
That worried Harper.
Sebastian presented no bride.
Instead, he addressed the room.
“For a month, many of you have mistaken patience for obedience.”
Nobody moved.
“I will not marry for another man’s convenience.”
Lorenzo stood.
“You would destabilize every agreement in this city.”
“No.”
Sebastian looked at him.
“I would destabilize yours.”
Murmurs spread.
Bianca stepped toward Sebastian.
“You humiliated me.”
“I never proposed to you.”
“You allowed everyone to believe you would.”
“I allowed your father to reveal how badly he needed me to.”
Lorenzo’s face darkened.
Harper felt Sebastian’s hand touch the small of her back.
Protective.
Steady.
Bianca noticed.
“So that’s it?”
She laughed.
“You rejected women born into families that built this city for your secretary?”
Harper stiffened.
Sebastian’s voice was calm.
“Assistant.”
A few people actually smiled.
Bianca did not.
“She’s nobody.”
Sebastian stepped forward.
“Say that again.”
Harper touched his arm.
“Don’t.”
His eyes met hers.
She shook her head.
Harper faced Bianca herself.
“You don’t need to respect me. But you’re going to stop talking about me like I’m not standing here.”
Bianca’s expression flickered.
Harper continued.
“And for the record, I did not steal Sebastian from you. He was never yours.”
Silence.
Dante looked suspiciously pleased.
Lorenzo suddenly smiled.
That was worse than anger.
“You’re very much like your mother.”
Harper went cold.
“You knew her?”
“Better than your father did.”
Daniel moved through the crowd.
“Don’t listen to him.”
Lorenzo laughed.
“Daniel Evans. Back from the grave.”
The room erupted.
Harper stared at her father.
Lorenzo lifted his glass.
“Tell your daughter why Evelyn had a Valerio key.”
Daniel said nothing.
“Tell her who she worked for.”
“Enough.”
Sebastian’s voice silenced the room.
But Lorenzo was enjoying himself.
“Or perhaps Sebastian should tell her.”
Harper turned.
Sebastian looked confused.
Lorenzo reached into his jacket.
Dante’s hand went toward his weapon.
But Lorenzo removed only an envelope.
He threw it onto a table.
“Your father kept everything, Sebastian.”
Inside was an old photograph.
Harper picked it up.
Her mother stood beside Vittorio Valerio.
Between them was a metal safe.
Harper turned the photograph over.
Three words had been written on the back.
FOR HARPER ONLY.
Below them was an address.
Sebastian recognized it.
“My father’s old house.”
Daniel grabbed Harper’s wrist.
“We need to leave.”
“Why?”
“Because if Lorenzo has that photograph, he knows where the second file is.”
The lights went out.
Someone screamed.
Sebastian pulled Harper against him.
A gunshot cracked across the ballroom.
Then another.
Emergency lights turned everything red.
Dante shouted orders.
Harper felt Sebastian’s hand around hers.
“Stay with me.”
“I am.”
The lights returned.
Lorenzo was gone.
So was Bianca.
And Daniel Evans lay on the floor.
Harper rushed toward him.
He was alive.
The bullet had grazed his shoulder.
Daniel grabbed her hand.
“The key.”
“What?”
“Go to Vittorio’s house.”
“Dad—”
“Tonight.”
Sebastian knelt beside them.
Daniel looked at him.
“Don’t let Conti reach the safe first.”
Harper clutched the key.
An hour later, she and Sebastian stood inside Vittorio Valerio’s abandoned mansion.
They found the safe behind a wall in his old study.
Harper inserted her mother’s key.
It turned.
Inside was a ledger.
A photograph.
And one sealed letter.
On the envelope was Harper’s name.
She opened it.
The first line made her hands shake.
My dearest Harper, if Sebastian Valerio is standing beside you when you read this, then everything I tried to prevent has already begun.
Sebastian read over her shoulder.
Harper unfolded the second page.
Then footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Slow.
Approaching.
Sebastian reached for his weapon.
The study door moved.
May you like
Someone on the other side whispered:
“Harper, don’t read the next line.”
