Chapter 2 - THE SHADOWS OF THE PAST
Thirty minutes later, Emma was wrapped in a cashmere blanket inside the back of Marcus’s armored Maybach, devouring a warm chicken sandwich from a high-end bistro while Lily chattered happily beside her, sharing her juice box.
Marcus sat in the front passenger seat, his phone pressed to his ear. His jaw was locked so tight his teeth ached.
“Viktor,” Marcus ordered into the phone, his voice cold enough to freeze glass. “I want every detail on an address in Cicero. A woman named Karen Miller. Sister-in-law or sister to Grace Miller—find out the connection. And I want her brought to the penthouse tonight. Do not be gentle.”
“Understood, Boss,” Viktor replied instantly.
Marcus clicked off, staring out the tinted window as the Chicago skyline blurred past.
Grace was dead. He had identified the body himself. He had planned the funeral, grieved over the mahogany casket, and visited the headstone at Graceland Cemetery every year on the anniversary of the crash.
Or so he had believed.
As the car glided up the private ramp of Marcus’s subterranean garage beneath his River North penthouse, his mind raced through the impossibilities. If Grace had survived, why hadn't she come back to him? Why hide? Why live in squalor while he sat atop a multi-billion-dollar empire?
When they stepped out of the elevator into the penthouse foyer, Emma looked around wide-eyed at the marble floors, the crystal chandeliers, and the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the twinkling lake.
Mrs. Gable, the elderly head housekeeper who had raised Marcus and now looked after Lily, rushed out of the kitchen, taking one look at Emma and stopping dead in her tracks. Her hands flew to her mouth, a sharp gasp escaping her lips.
“My God,” Mrs. Gable whispered, her eyes welling with tears. “Grace…”
“She’s Emma, Mrs. Gable,” Marcus said quietly, stepping past them. “Get her into a warm bath, find some of Lily’s clothes that fit, and have the private physician examine her immediately.”
“Right away, Mr. Blackwell,” Mrs. Gable said, her voice shaking as she knelt down and gently took Emma’s small hand. “Come along, sweet angel. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
As the two little girls skipped down the hallway toward the lavish guest wing, chattering about dolls and dogs, Marcus walked into his private study. He poured a finger of amber whiskey, downing it in one burn, before opening his wall safe.
From the back of the safe, beneath legal deeds and bearer bonds, he pulled out a weathered manila folder.
The police report from seven years ago.
He opened it to the coroner’s photographs. The car had been crushed beneath a semi-truck on the expressway ramp, engulfed in flames. The dental records matched. The wedding ring found in the wreckage matched.
Yet, looking at Emma’s face, Marcus knew science had lied to him. Or someone had orchestrated a masterpiece of deception.
Before he could dig deeper, the heavy oak doors of his study swung open.
Viktor strode in, dragging a disheveled woman by her forearm. She was screaming curses, her mascara smeared across her flushed cheeks, her cheap leather jacket scuffed at the elbows.
“Let me go!” the woman shrieked. “You have no right! I’ll call the cops!”
“Shut your mouth,” Viktor growled, shoving her onto the leather sofa opposite Marcus’s desk.
Marcus slowly lowered himself into his leather chair. He didn't yell. He didn't threaten. He simply rested his elbows on the desk, steeple his fingers, and fixed his dark eyes on the terrified woman.
“Karen Miller, I presume,” Marcus said softly.
Karen stopped screaming. She swallowed hard, staring at the cold, predatory calm in Marcus’s eyes. She knew who he was. Everyone in Chicago knew what happened to people who crossed Marcus Blackwell.
“I didn't hurt her,” Karen stammered, raising her hands defensively. “I fed her! I kept her alive after Grace died!”
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Marcus stood up. The movement was so slow, so deliberate, that Karen flinched back into the sofa cushions.
“Start talking, Karen,” Marcus said, his voice dropping an octave into a lethal register. “Tell me why my daughter was sitting on a park bench in duct-taped shoes while you played ghost with my life—and tell me why my dead wife’s face is looking at me from down the hall.”
