Chapter 8 - THE WOMAN HE COULD NOT ORDER
Rachel’s face on the phone screen destroyed every illusion Emily had left about distance.
She had told herself Derek’s violence belonged to their marriage. That friends and employees were collateral only in the social sense—people he charmed, isolated, or pushed away.
Now Rachel sat tied to a dining chair inside Emily’s former home because three years earlier she had believed Emily when Emily could not believe herself.
Derek leaned toward the camera.
“Come home.”
Alexander reached for the phone.
Emily moved it away.
“No.”
His eyes narrowed. “We trace the feed.”
“You trace it while I keep him talking.”
“Emily.”
She looked at him.
Not afraid.
Not this time.
He saw it and stopped.
Emily pressed the speaker icon.
“Derek.”
His smile widened.
“There’s my wife.”
“I’m not your wife for much longer.”
Rachel made a muffled sound behind him.
Derek slapped the back of her chair.
Emily’s pulse spiked.
“Don’t touch her.”
“There she is. Always brave for other people.”
Alexander signaled to Lucia, who passed the phone data to a federal technician.
Emily forced herself to keep Derek focused.
“What do you want?”
“You.”
“You had me at the warehouse.”
“Thomas ruined it.”
“He’s in custody.”
For the first time Derek’s expression flickered.
Emily pressed.
“Price too.”
Derek’s jaw clenched.
“You think that saves you?”
“No. I saved myself when I left you.”
His face changed.
Alexander mouthed, Keep going.
Emily did.
“You know what I finally understand? You never wanted a wife. You wanted an asset that cooked dinner and signed documents.”
Derek laughed. “You were useless at the company after your father died.”
“So you admit you took control.”
“I had to.”
“You forged approvals?”
“I fixed what your father broke.”
“By killing him?”
Silence.
Rachel’s eyes widened.
Derek smiled slowly.
“You should be careful with accusations.”
“Martin Shaw saw you there.”
That hit him.
“How do you know Martin?”
“Because he survived you.”
Derek’s face twisted.
Alexander pointed to the technician.
The man held up five fingers.
Five minutes.
Emily needed longer.
“My father was alive when you left.”
Derek stared into the camera.
“You think your father was some saint?”
“No.”
The answer surprised him.
Emily continued. “I know what he did with the Morettis. I know he hid things from me. I know he made terrible choices. But none of that gives you the right to kill him.”
Derek’s breathing changed.
“I didn’t kill him.”
“What was in the syringe?”
His eyes flicked sideways.
There.
Emily saw it.
He knew.
“Thomas gave it to you?”
Derek stepped closer to the camera. “Your father was going to destroy everything.”
Alexander went perfectly still.
Emily’s voice barely moved. “Everything meaning South Harbor?”
“Everything meaning my life.”
The sentence came out with such self-pity that Emily almost felt nothing.
That was his center.
Not greed.
Not even cruelty.
Entitlement.
The belief that any obstacle to the life he deserved became guilty simply by existing.
“My father said no to you,” Emily whispered.
Derek’s eyes burned.
“He humiliated me.”
“And you poisoned him.”
“I told him to sign.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
Emily felt Alexander’s hand hover near her shoulder without touching.
Derek continued, words coming faster now.
“He started laughing. Said I would never run Carter Industries. Said you would leave me once you understood what I was.”
Emily stopped breathing.
Her father had known.
Derek smiled bitterly.
“He was right about one thing.”
The technician held up one finger.
Then pointed to a tablet.
Location confirmed.
Alexander leaned toward Lucia.
But Emily saw something on Derek’s screen.
The window behind Rachel.
No city lights.
A dark yard.
Not the condo.
The room was staged.
“Wait,” she whispered.
Alexander looked at her.
Derek heard.
“What?”
Emily studied the image.
Their condo had floor-to-ceiling windows. The bedroom shown behind Rachel looked similar, but the trim was wrong. The headboard was their old one. Derek had recreated the room somewhere else.
The phone trace was bait.
“He wants you to go to the condo,” Emily said.
Derek’s face changed.
Alexander understood instantly.
“Kill the deployment,” he ordered.
The federal technician grabbed his radio.
Derek swore and ended the feed.
The screen went black.
Lucia stared at Emily. “How did you see that?”
“The window latch. Ours slid left. That one slides up.”
Alexander’s expression held something almost fierce.
“You just saved a team from walking into an ambush.”
Emily looked at the black screen.
“And Rachel is still with him.”
They returned to the lake house before dawn because federal agents insisted Emily needed secure separation from active operations.
She hated every minute of it.
Alexander came with her only after Lucia threatened to personally sedate him if he tried to command a citywide search without sleeping.
Mrs. Bell took one look at both of them and said nothing.
That frightened Alexander more than criticism.
Emily sat by the lake wrapped in a blanket while the sky turned pale.
Alexander found her there twenty minutes later.
He kept several feet between them.
“Coffee?”
She accepted the cup.
For a while they listened to the water.
“Do you think she’s alive?” Emily asked.
“Yes.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
She appreciated the correction.
Emily stared into the coffee.
“I brought Rachel into this.”
“No.”
“She saved evidence for me.”
“Because she chose to.”
“If I had left Derek the first time—”
“Stop.”
Emily looked at him sharply.
His expression softened.
“Sorry. Bad word.”
Despite everything, she almost laughed.
Alexander sat on the bench beside her, leaving space.
“What I mean is this: Derek made choices. Thomas made choices. Price made choices. You are carrying responsibility for actions that belonged to them.”
Emily looked at him.
“You do that too.”
He frowned.
“With your fiancée.”
Alexander went still.
“You said attachment was irresponsible because she died in a bomb intended for you.”
“That is different.”
“Is it?”
His jaw tightened.
Emily did not push.
A minute passed.
Then Alexander spoke.
“Her name was Sofia.”
Emily waited.
“She was a federal prosecutor.”
That surprised her.
“She knew who you were?”
“Yes.”
“And still planned to marry you?”
“She had questionable judgment.”
Emily smiled faintly.
Alexander looked toward the lake.
“She believed I could separate legitimate businesses from the family’s criminal operations. I told her she was naive.”
“Was she?”
“No.”
The answer came quietly.
“She was right. I was afraid of what leaving would cost. Then the bomb went off before I made the choice.”
Emily understood.
He had spent eight years interpreting tragedy as punishment for hesitation.
“So you made yourself impossible to love.”
Alexander glanced at her. “That sounds dramatic.”
“It sounds efficient.”
He gave her the smallest smile.
Then it disappeared.
“I do not want you to confuse what is happening between us with safety.”
Emily’s heartbeat changed.
“What is happening between us?”
He looked at her.
There it was again.
That strange stillness.
Emily knew fear now. She knew coercion. She knew the sensation of a man wanting something from her and making the wanting her problem.
This was different.
Alexander wanted.
But he was waiting.
“That depends on what you want,” he said.
The answer made her eyes burn.
She put down the coffee.
Then she leaned across the space between them and kissed him.
It was not dramatic.
No thunder. No music. No desperate grabbing.
Alexander did not touch her for the first second.
Then Emily took his hand and placed it against her waist.
Permission.
His breath caught.
The kiss deepened, still careful, until Emily felt something inside her unlock—not because Alexander had opened it, but because she had.
She pulled back first.
He did not chase her.
“Was that a mistake?” he asked.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He nodded once.
Emily laughed softly. “You look like you’re reviewing a contract.”
“I am trying very hard not to ruin this.”
“That might be the least romantic sentence anyone has ever said after a kiss.”
“I can do worse.”
“I believe you.”
His phone rang.
Of course it did.
Alexander looked at the screen.
Lucia.
He answered.
Her voice came through breathless.
“We found Rachel.”
Emily stood so fast the blanket fell.
“Where?”
“Police just got an anonymous call about a woman tied up in an abandoned rental house in Evanston. She’s alive. Shaken, bruised, but alive.”
Emily closed her eyes.
Relief nearly dropped her to her knees.
Alexander caught her hand.
This time she held on.
Lucia continued. “Derek left before officers arrived.”
Emily opened her eyes.
“Did Rachel see where he went?”
“No. But he left something for you.”
“What?”
“A folder.”
Lucia’s tone changed.
“Emily, it contains signed divorce papers.”
Emily stared at the phone.
Alexander frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
Lucia agreed. “There’s more.”
Paper rustled.
“He signed over every claim he has to Carter Industries.”
Emily’s relief disappeared.
Derek never surrendered leverage.
Never.
“What does he want?” she asked.
Lucia was silent for a beat.
“There’s a note.”
Emily’s skin prickled.
“Read it.”
Lucia did.
YOU WANTED FREEDOM. NOW YOU HAVE IT. ASK ALEXANDER WHAT HIS FATHER REALLY DID TO YOUR MOTHER.
Emily stopped breathing.
Her mother had died fifteen years ago.
May you like
Cancer.
At least that was what Emily had always believed.
