Chapter 3 - FOUR MEN AT THE DOOR
The door opened three inches.
I fired once.
The bullet struck the wall beside the man's head.
He slammed the door shut.
"Wrong apartment," I said.
Silence.
Then footsteps retreated down the hallway.
I grabbed Lily's hand.
"Stay behind me."
Emily tried to stand.
"You can't fight them."
I looked at her.
"That's where you're wrong."
I had spent half my life preparing for men exactly like these.
The difference was that tonight I had something to lose.
I moved Emily toward the bedroom.
"Can you walk?"
"Yes."
"Can you climb stairs?"
"I think so."
"Good."
I called my security chief.
"Bring everyone."
His voice sharpened.
"How many?"
"All of them."
"What happened?"
"Mercer found the girl."
The line went silent for half a second.
Then, "On my way."
We escaped through the fire escape.
Emily nearly collapsed on the first landing.
I caught her.
"Easy."
She looked embarrassed.
"I can do it."
"I believe you."
Lily held my coat.
We reached the alley just as two black SUVs turned the corner.
"Down."
I pulled both women behind a dumpster.
Gunfire erupted.
My men arrived from the opposite street.
The alley became chaos.
But I barely heard it.
Lily had buried her face against my chest.
"Are they going to hurt us?"
"No."
"Promise?"
"Yes."
This time, the word meant more.
We reached my estate twenty minutes later.
The gates closed behind us.
The mansion felt different.
It had always been a fortress.
Tonight, it felt like a home for the first time.
I brought Lily to Anna's old bedroom.
She stopped at the doorway.
"Mommy had a room like this?"
"Your mother?"
"Anna."
I nodded.
Lily stepped inside.
She touched the vanity.
Then the white curtains.
Then the framed wedding photograph.
Her fingers stopped.
"That's you."
I swallowed.
"And that's Mommy."
Lily stared at Anna's face.
"She was pretty."
"Very."
"She looked happy."
"She was."
I wasn't sure that was true anymore.
Lily climbed onto the bed.
"I wish I knew her."
I sat beside her.
"You can."
She looked at me.
"How?"
"By letting me tell you about her."
So I did.
I told her about the way Anna stole strawberries from the kitchen.
How she hated thunderstorms.
How she danced badly when she cooked.
How she once yelled at me for buying her a diamond necklace when she wanted a secondhand book.
Lily laughed.
It was the first time I had heard laughter in that room since Anna died.
Then Emily appeared in the doorway.
Her face was gray.
"Jack."
I stood.
"What?"
She held an envelope.
"Anna gave me this."
I took it.
My name was written across the front.
Jack.
Nothing else.
I opened it.
My wife's handwriting filled the page.
Jack,
If you're reading this, then Lily has found you.
I don't know when that will happen.
I don't know whether I'll still be alive.
But I know one thing.
You will be angry.
You will want answers.
You will want to know why I kept your daughter from you.
Please, before you judge me, understand that I was afraid of the world you lived in.
I loved you.
I loved our life.
But I also loved the little girl I brought into this world.
I believed that keeping her away from your enemies was the only way to keep her alive.
If Lily reaches you, it means hiding has failed.
Do not send her away.
Do not let anyone tell you she is a weakness.
She is the best part of both of us.
And Jack—
If Daniel Mercer ever comes back into your life, trust no one.
I stopped reading.
Daniel was dead.
So why had Anna warned me about him?
I turned the page.
There was one final sentence.
He did not die the way they told you.
My blood ran cold.
Emily whispered, "You understand now."
I looked at her.
"Where is Daniel?"
"I don't know."
"Don't lie."
"I'm not."
"Anna believed he was alive."
"Yes."
"Then why didn't she tell me?"
"Because she discovered it too late."
I folded the letter.
"How late?"
"Three weeks before she died."
Everything inside me went still.
Three weeks.
Anna had known someone was alive.
She had known Lily was in danger.
And she had still smiled at me every morning.
I thought about all the times she had said she was tired.
All the times she had told me to go to work.
All the times she had kissed me and whispered, "Come home early."
Maybe those weren't ordinary requests.
Maybe they had been goodbyes.
A soft voice interrupted my thoughts.
"Daddy?"
I looked at Lily.
The word felt like a wound.
"What?"
She hesitated.
"Can I call you that?"
I could have said no.
Instead, I sat beside her.
"Yes."
She smiled.
"Okay, Daddy."
My eyes burned.
I looked away so she wouldn't see.
Then my phone rang.
The screen showed an unknown number.
I answered.
No one spoke.
Then a man's voice whispered:
"Hello, Jack."
I knew that voice.
I hadn't heard it in fourteen years.
But I knew it.
"Daniel?"
A quiet laugh came through the line.
"Tell my daughter I said hello."
The call ended.
I stared at the screen.
Lily was watching me.
"What happened?"
I looked at her.
And for the first time since Anna died, I understood exactly what she had meant.
Lily wasn't a weakness.
She was the target.
And someone had just announced that he intended to take her.
The man outside the door never came back.
That bothered me.
A professional didn't retreat after one warning shot unless the goal had never been to enter.
They had wanted us to know they could find Emily.
They wanted fear.
Fear made people make mistakes.
I refused to give them one.
Instead, I moved Lily to the far side of the apartment and checked every window.
Emily watched me.
"You've done this before."
"Too many times."
"Anna hated this part of your life."
"I know."
"She wanted you to leave it."
I stopped.
"Did she ever tell you why?"
Emily looked down.
"Because she saw what power was doing to you."
I wanted to argue.
I couldn't.
Anna had once told me that I had stopped sleeping.
That I checked doors twice.
That I no longer trusted silence.
She had been right.
Lily approached me.
"Daddy?"
I crouched.
"What?"
"Can we take the rose?"
I looked at the jar.
"Of course."
She smiled.
We left through the back.
By the time we reached the mansion, my men had already secured every entrance.
Lily walked through the front doors and stopped.
She stared at the marble staircase.
Then the chandelier.
Then the enormous portrait of Anna.
"That's Mommy."
"Yes."
"She looks happy."
"She was."
Lily walked closer to the portrait.
"Did you paint this?"
"No."
"Who did?"
"An artist."
"Mommy didn't like it."
I smiled.
"How do you know?"
"She told me."
That sentence made me stop.
"What else did she tell you?"
Lily thought.
"She said Daddy had a serious face."
"She wasn't wrong."
"And she said you hated dancing."
I laughed.
"Absolutely false."
Lily giggled.
Emily watched us from the doorway.
For a moment, she looked relieved.
Then her expression changed.
"Jack."
"What?"
"Anna had another message."
I turned.
"Where?"
"She told me to give it to you only after Lily was inside your house."
I waited.
Emily reached into her bag and removed a key.
"It's not a key to a door."
"What is it?"
"A key to a safety deposit box."
"Which bank?"
"She never told me."
I examined it.
An engraved number.
No bank name.
Then I noticed a tiny symbol.
A white rose.
I knew that symbol.
Anna had used it in letters when she wanted to tell me something privately.
I suddenly realized there were still layers to this.
The pendant.
The key.
The garden.
The hidden room.
Anna had been leaving a trail.
Not for anyone.
For me.
I looked at Lily.
She was standing beneath Anna's portrait.
For six years, I had thought my wife had left me nothing except memories.
Now I understood.
She had left me instructions.
And somewhere at the end of them was the truth.
That evening, after Lily finally slept, I returned to the garden.
I stood beneath the magnolia tree and looked at the white roses.
Anna had always believed flowers remembered where they were planted.
Maybe people did too.
I found myself remembering our first year together.
She had asked me to promise that the garden would never become a symbol of my business.
I had laughed.
"Everything around me is a symbol of my business."
She had shaken her head.
"That's the problem, Jack."
I hadn't understood then.
Now I did.
The garden had been the one place she believed I could become someone else.
Someone softer.
Someone who didn't need to win every battle.
I looked toward the mansion.
Inside was a six-year-old girl who had unknowingly brought me back to that man.
For the first time, I wanted to become him.
Not for Anna.
For Lily.
May you like
The next morning, I would begin by finding out exactly who had been watching Emily.
And I would do it without turning my daughter into another weapon.
