Chapter 2 - The Man Who Had Been Watching MeI woke beneath a ceiling painted with gold clouds.
The second time, he was smiling.
That was how I knew I had to run.
Rain hammered the windows of our Brooklyn apartment hard enough to blur the city into gray streaks. I stood barefoot beside the kitchen island with blood dripping from the corner of my mouth, staring at the man I had once thought I would marry.
Marcus Vale blocked the hallway.
His white dress shirt was half untucked. One cuff was stained red where I had scratched him trying to get away.
“You made me do this, Elena.”
I had heard those words before.
Not after a punch.
Not after he slammed my phone against the wall.
But in smaller ways.
After he screamed because dinner was cold.
After he accused me of flirting with a waiter.
After he took my debit card because I was “too irresponsible” with money.
Each apology had become permission for something worse.
Tonight there was no apology.
Marcus walked toward me.
“You think you can embarrass me?” he whispered. “You think you can leave?”
My hand closed around the ceramic fruit bowl behind me.
He noticed.
His smile vanished.
“Try it.”
I threw it.
The bowl shattered against the wall beside his head.
I ran.
Marcus grabbed the back of my sweatshirt, but the fabric tore as I twisted away.
I reached the apartment door.
“Elena!”
His hand caught my hair.
Pain exploded across my scalp.
I screamed, kicked backward, and felt my heel connect with his shin.
He cursed.
I ripped free.
Then I was in the hallway.
Barefoot.
Bleeding.
Running.
I didn’t wait for the elevator.
I flew down five flights of stairs while Marcus shouted above me.
By the time I reached the street, rain soaked through my clothes.
I turned left without thinking.
Then right.
Then another right.
My only plan was distance.
Every set of headlights looked like Marcus’s car.
Every footstep sounded like him.
I reached Manhattan without remembering half the journey.
A cab driver refused me when he saw the blood.
A hotel security guard told me to move away from the entrance.
My phone was gone.
My purse was still inside the apartment.
I had no coat.
No shoes.
No money.
And Marcus knew every friend I might call.
Then I saw the black awning.
THE VELVET CROWN.
No address displayed.
No menu.
No opening hours.
Just two enormous men in black suits standing beneath brass lanterns.
I had no idea what kind of place it was.
I only knew Marcus’s headlights had just turned onto the block.
So I ran toward it.
One guard stepped forward.
“Ma’am—”
“Please.”
Something in my face stopped him.
The door opened.
I stumbled inside.
Warmth hit me first.
Then silence.
The room looked like another century.
Crystal chandeliers.
Black marble.
Dark wood.
Men in tailored suits seated around tables where bottles of wine probably cost more than my yearly rent.
A silver-haired judge I recognized from television slowly lowered his glass.
A famous real-estate billionaire stopped speaking mid-sentence.
Nobody asked who I was.
Nobody seemed shocked that a barefoot woman had just burst into their private world.
They looked toward the staircase.
That was when I saw him.
Adrien Viscari.
I didn’t know his name yet.
I only saw a tall man in a black suit descending the stairs with the calm of someone who had never needed to hurry for anyone.
Dark hair.
Severe features.
A thin scar beside his left eyebrow.
The entire room seemed to shift around him.
He stopped when he saw me.
For one terrible second, I thought I had chosen the wrong door.
Then Marcus burst inside.
“There you are!”
I flinched so hard I nearly fell.
Marcus pointed at me.
“She’s my girlfriend. She’s having some kind of episode. Elena, come here.”
I backed away.
Adrien reached the bottom stair.
Marcus finally noticed him.
Something drained from Marcus’s face.
“Mr. Viscari.”
Adrien said nothing.
Marcus forced a nervous laugh.
“I apologize. Private situation.”
Adrien looked at the blood on my cheek.
Then at the bruise forming around my wrist.
Then at Marcus’s knuckles.
His voice was quiet.
“Did you do that?”
Marcus swallowed.
“It isn’t what it looks like.”
Adrien removed his jacket.
He placed it around my shoulders.
The gesture was strangely careful.
Then he turned back toward Marcus.
“Leave.”
Marcus stared.
“She belongs with me.”
Adrien’s expression changed.
Not dramatically.
Somehow that made it worse.
“No woman belongs to you.”
Marcus stepped closer.
“Elena. Now.”
I felt Adrien’s hand settle lightly against my upper back.
Not trapping me.
Steadying me.
“I’m not going,” I whispered.
Marcus’s eyes became black.
“You’ll regret this.”
Two security men moved toward him.
Marcus finally retreated.
But before the doors closed, he looked straight at me.
The message was obvious.
This wasn’t finished.
My knees gave out.
Adrien caught me before I hit the marble.
Someone called for a doctor.
Someone else brought towels.
I barely heard them.
Because Adrien had frozen.
He was staring at my neck.
More specifically, at the silver locket that had slipped from beneath my soaked shirt.
It was the only thing I owned from my mother.
Adrien touched nothing.
But his face went pale.
“Where did you get that?”
“My mother.”
“What was her name?”
I hesitated.
“Isabelle Hart.”
The glass in someone’s hand shattered behind us.
Adrien slowly looked toward an older man standing near the private office.
The older man whispered something in Italian.
Adrien ignored him.
“Your full name?”
“Elena Hart.”
Adrien stared at me as though I had returned from the dead.
Then he ordered, “Bring me the photograph.”
“What photograph?”
Nobody answered.
Three minutes later, a locked wooden box was carried from an office upstairs.
Adrien opened it.
Inside lay a faded photograph.
A young woman stood beside a lake holding a baby.
The woman was my mother.
The baby was me.
And standing behind us, one hand resting protectively on my mother’s shoulder, was Adrien Viscari.
Except the photograph had been taken twenty-seven years ago.
When Adrien could not possibly have been more than eighteen.
My hands began shaking.
“That’s impossible.”
Adrien turned the photograph over.
Three words had been written across the back in my mother’s handwriting.
Protect my daughter.
Underneath was another sentence.
Tell Elena the truth only if they find her.
I looked at Adrien.
“Who are they?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
His gaze moved toward the club entrance.
Toward the street where Marcus had disappeared.
May you like
Then he said the words that changed my life.
“Your boyfriend may not have found you by accident.”
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