Chapter 3 - The Drake Suite
The suite at the Drake was larger than the entire apartment my mother had raised my sister and me in.
Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the steel-gray chop of Lake Michigan under an overcast autumn sky. The furniture was all gold leaf, pale cream velvet, and mahogany that had been polished until it mirrored the chandelier above. Room service had brought up a silver cart loaded with poached eggs, fresh pastries, and a pot of dark roast coffee at nine, but the food sat untouched beneath its domed covers.
Every time I looked at the silver cloches, my wrist twitched with a dull, throbbing phantom pain.
Mateo had taken my phone before we left the estate. In its place, he had left a black flip phone on the marble coffee table. It had one contact programmed into its memory: M.
At 1:15 P.M., the phone vibrated.
The low hum against the marble made me jump so hard I spilled hot water onto the linen napkin. I snatched it up, my thumb fumbling on the plastic hinge.
"Hello?"
"Don't look out the window," Luca’s voice came through the receiver, clear and completely stripped of warmth.
My stomach dropped. "What?"
"Step back from the glass. Now."
I backed up three paces, pressing my spine against the cool wallpaper of the entryway hall. "Mr. Moretti, what is happening?"
"Vanessa noticed you weren't on the roster for the afternoon shift," he said, the sound of papers rustling in the background. "She asked the head housekeeper why your cot was stripped. Henderson told her you quit because of your injury."
"Did she believe him?"
"Vanessa doesn't believe anything she doesn't orchestrate herself," Luca replied cold. "Her personal driver just left the Bellini estate on Lake Shore Drive. He isn't headed to the florist or the bridal shop. He’s parked two blocks from the Drake."
My breath caught in my throat. The room, for all its vaulted ceilings and expensive drapery, suddenly felt like a cage. "How did she find me?"
"She didn't find you. She knows I own the fourteenth floor of this hotel. She's guessing." A short pause followed, punctuated by the metallic click of a lighter. "Julian just checked through security at O'Hare. He didn't take a private charter. He flew commercial, under an alias."
"Your brother is here?"
"He landed twenty minutes ago," Luca said. "He’s heading to the warehouse district on 35th. I’m having Mateo pick you up from the basement loading dock in ten minutes."
"Me? Why me? You told me to stay here!"
"Julian has two phones," Luca said, his voice dropping an octave, becoming hard as an iron bar. "The burner Vanessa took, and an encrypted satellite device. We cloned the IMEI number off the burner from the pantry. Whoever is communicating with him is using an old frequency my father set up thirty years ago."
"I don't understand anything about your family's frequencies, Mr. Moretti," I said, my voice rising in panic. "I’m a maid. I fold sheets and polish silver."
"You have ears," Luca countered. "And you heard what Vanessa said before the intercom kicked on. You told me she said, 'You already have a part in it.' What did she mean, Emma?"
I closed my eyes. The smell of cedar shelves and dust flooded back into my memory.
"She... she was holding a key," I confessed, my voice barely a whisper. "Before she dropped the phone, she had a small brass key between her fingers. The kind that belongs to an old safety deposit box. She said, 'If you tell Luca what was in the study, you won't just be out of a job. You'll be out of a family.'"
The silence on the other end of the line was absolute. No breath. No movement.
"She threatened Clara?" Luca asked, using my younger sister’s name.
A chill ran down my neck like melting ice. I had never told Luca Moretti my sister’s name. In two years of working in his house, he had never spoken to me beyond ordering coffee or asking for the library curtains to be drawn.
"How do you know about Clara?" I breathed.
"I know the bloodline of every person who sleeps under my roof, Emma," he said softly. "Get your coat. The service elevator is at the end of the hall. Mateo is waiting with the engine running."
The line went dead.
I didn't bother grabbing the five thousand dollars on the nightstand. I grabbed my wool coat, shoved the black flip phone into my pocket, and opened the suite door.
The hallway was quiet, carpeted in deep burgundy that muffled my footsteps. I hurried toward the service exit, my heart thumping against my ribs like a trapped bird. As I reached the heavy gray fire door, the bell for the main guest elevators chimed at the other end of the hall.
I turned my head.
The elevator doors slid open.
A man stepped out. He was tall, dressed in a sharp camel-hair overcoat, with dark hair cut close at the temples and a jawline that belonged to the Moretti family. But where Luca’s eyes were cold and controlled, this man’s gaze was frantic, burning with a frantic, feverish energy.
Julian Moretti.
He looked down the hall. His eyes swept past the suite doors, caught the slight movement of my coat, and locked directly onto mine.
May you like
He didn't yell. He reached inside his overcoat.
I didn't wait to see what he was pulling out. I threw my weight against the heavy fire door, stumbled down the concrete stairs, and ran into the darkness of the hotel’s service spine.
