Chapter 4 - THE BRACELET
The velvet box slipped from Harper’s fingers, hitting the hardwood floor with a dull thud. The silver bracelet tumbled onto the rug.
“A contract?” Harper’s voice was barely a whisper. The room began to spin. “My own father paid someone to kill me?”
Victor stepped forward and gripped her shoulders, steadying her. His hands were warm and grounding.
“Your father has been cooking his books for a decade,” Victor explained, his voice low and urgent. “He committed massive wire fraud. He knows the FBI is closing in. He took out a ten-million-dollar life insurance policy on you six months ago. Diana is the beneficiary, but your father controls her accounts. If you die, he gets the cash, pays off his creditors, and vanishes.”
Harper stared blindly at Victor’s chest.
All the years of emotional abuse, the hand-me-down clothes, the constant reminders that she was worthless. It wasn’t just cruelty. She was an investment. A lamb being fattened for a very specific slaughter.
“Who did he pay?” Harper asked, her voice turning cold.
“A Russian crew operating out of the South Side,” Victor said. “They specialize in making murders look like accidents. A mugging gone wrong. A slip on the ice. That’s why I had to pull you out of that gala tonight. They were waiting in the valet line.”
“Uncle Vic?”
Leo’s small voice broke the tension.
The six-year-old was standing in the hallway wearing oversized dinosaur pajamas. He was holding a small glass of water, looking nervously at Harper.
“Is the lady sad?” Leo asked.
Harper forced herself to take a deep breath. She pulled Victor’s coat tighter around her shoulders and managed a weak smile.
“I’m okay, Leo,” Harper said, her voice shaking only slightly. “I just have a headache.”
Leo walked over. He didn’t go to Victor. He walked directly to Harper and held up his glass of water.
“Water helps,” Leo said seriously. “When I get sad about my dad, Uncle Vic gives me water and a story.”
Harper’s heart broke. She looked down at the boy, realizing that this child was Julian’s son. Her mother’s lover’s son.
She knelt on the rug, her bare knees touching the soft fabric, and took the glass.
“Thank you, Leo,” she whispered.
Before she could take a sip, the private elevator at the far end of the penthouse pinged.
Victor spun around, his hand instantly disappearing inside his tuxedo jacket to grip the handle of his weapon. No one came up to this floor without his explicit authorization.
The metal doors slid open.
Dante, Victor’s massive, heavily scarred chief of security, stepped out. He was breathing heavily, his suit jacket torn at the shoulder.
But he wasn’t alone.
He was dragging a woman by the arm.
“Let go of me! You animal!”
It was Diana.
Her crimson gown was ruined, torn at the hem and soaked in dirty slush. Her perfect hair was a tangled mess, and mascara streaked down her panicked face.
Dante threw her roughly onto the floor near the sofa.
“She breached the lobby perimeter,” Dante growled, glaring at Victor. “She was screaming your name. The Russians were three blocks behind her.”
Diana looked up and saw Harper kneeling on the floor in Victor’s coat.
“Harper!” Diana shrieked, scrambling to her feet and running toward her sister.
Victor stepped smoothly between them, blocking Diana’s path like a brick wall.
“If you touch her, you lose the hand,” Victor stated.
Diana recoiled, bursting into violent, ugly tears. She reached into the bodice of her ruined dress and pulled out a crumpled, blood-stained piece of paper.
She threw it onto the coffee table.
“Dad left us!” Diana sobbed hysterically. “He left me!”
Harper stood up slowly, her bare feet silent on the rug. She walked around Victor and looked at the paper on the table.
It was a first-class boarding pass. A one-way ticket to Geneva, Switzerland.
“I found it in his safe,” Diana cried, trembling uncontrollably. “He wasn’t at the gala. He packed his bags and left for the airport. He took everything, Harper. The offshore accounts, the jewelry, everything.”
Harper stared at the bloody fingerprint on the edge of the ticket. “Whose blood is this, Diana?”
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Diana let out a choked wail.
“The men... the men he hired,” Diana stammered, looking terrified at Victor. “They came to the house. When they realized Dad was gone and the money wasn’t there, they beat our housekeeper to death. And they said... they said they’re coming here.”
