Chapter 2 - The Man Behind the Suit
For three seconds, the elevator was completely black.
I could hear my own breathing.
Then Julian’s phone flashlight came on.
He was standing in front of me, gun angled down but ready.
“Are we going to die?” I asked.
“No.”
“You sound extremely confident for a man trapped in a box with organized criminals.”
“I dislike inaccurate optimism.”
“That was almost reassuring.”
He pressed the emergency panel.
Nothing.
Then he removed his tie.
Under any other circumstances, that action would have represented the fulfillment of at least seventeen percent of my recent inappropriate thoughts.
Now he wrapped the silk around his hand and used it to grip the seam between the elevator doors.
“What are you doing?”
“Creating leverage.”
He pulled.
The doors opened two inches.
I stared at his forearms.
Even terrified, my brain betrayed me.
Julian glanced back.
“Not now, Harper.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You did with your face.”
I wanted the floor to open.
Technically, it almost had.
He forced the doors wider.
We were between the forty-second and forty-third floors. Concrete wall filled most of the gap, but above us was the lower half of the forty-third-floor landing door.
Julian holstered the gun.
“Can you climb?”
“I did indoor rock climbing twice in college.”
“Why only twice?”
“I discovered brunch.”
His eyes almost softened.
Then the emergency speaker crackled again.
“You always did like difficult women, Julian.”
The words froze him.
This was not a stranger taunting him.
This was personal.
Julian reached upward, forced the outer door, and pulled himself onto the forty-third floor with terrifying efficiency.
Then he lay flat and extended one hand.
“Come on.”
I looked at the dark shaft below me.
My stomach turned.
“Harper.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Do it later.”
I took his hand.
He hauled me up as though I weighed nothing.
For one second, I landed half across his chest.
His shirt collar had opened when he removed his tie.
A scar ran beneath his left collarbone.
Long.
White.
Not surgical.
Violent.
I stopped breathing.
Julian saw what I was looking at.
He stood quickly and buttoned his collar.
“You wanted to know,” he said quietly.
My face burned.
“That is not what I meant.”
“I know.”
The teasing disappeared again.
We ran through an unfinished office floor while Marcus called from the emergency stairwell.
Within minutes, we were moving through a service corridor and into a black SUV waiting below street level.
Theo drove.
Marcus sat in front.
Julian pulled me into the rear seat and locked the door.
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere secure.”
“My apartment?”
“No.”
“I have clothes there.”
“I can purchase clothes.”
“I have a cat.”
That stopped him.
“You have a cat?”
“His name is Chairman Meow.”
Marcus turned slowly from the front seat.
Theo coughed.
Julian stared at me.
“What?” I said. “I was twenty-two.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
“I’ll have someone get the cat.”
“You are not sending armed strangers to abduct Chairman Meow.”
“Harper.”
“He has anxiety.”
“So do I now.”
That silenced the vehicle.
I looked at him.
Julian Rourke had made a joke.
Apparently assassination attempts expanded his personality.
Twenty minutes later, we entered an underground garage beneath a limestone townhouse on the Upper East Side.
The security system looked military.
The interior looked nothing like Julian’s office.
Warm wood. Books. Old photographs. A piano.
A home.
I stopped at one framed picture.
Julian at perhaps sixteen stood beside a dark-haired woman and a younger boy. Behind them was an older man with Julian’s eyes.
“Your family?”
Julian removed his coat.
“My mother. My brother, Daniel. My father.”
“Where are they?”
His face closed.
“My mother died when I was nineteen.”
“I’m sorry.”
“My father died six years later.”
“And Daniel?”
Silence.
Marcus walked past us.
“Daniel is the reason Vescari still has a pulse.”
Julian turned sharply.
“Marcus.”
“No. She needs enough truth to stay alive.”
I looked between them.
Marcus continued.
“Julian’s father wasn’t just a businessman. He ran crews along the East River docks. Protection, gambling, cargo theft. Old-fashioned organized crime dressed in expensive coats.”
I looked at Julian.
“You inherited a criminal family?”
“I walked away from it.”
“Did you?”
The question came out before I could soften it.
He flinched so slightly most people would not have noticed.
I did.
“I built Northline with legitimate money,” he said. “Every dollar audited. Every contract clean.”
“But the people around you—Marcus, Theo—”
“Were once part of my father’s organization.”
“And now?”
“Security. Intelligence. Occasionally problems that do not fit neatly inside legal departments.”
“That is a very elegant sentence.”
“It is an accurate one.”
I folded my arms.
“Who is Vescari?”
Julian poured water into a glass but did not drink it.
“Salvatore Vescari was my father’s partner. After my father died, he expected me to merge our organizations. I refused. My brother Daniel did not.”
I understood.
“Daniel joined him.”
“Yes.”
“Is Daniel the one who called?”
Julian looked at me.
“Yes.”
That hurt him.
Not anger.
Something older.
“What happened between you?”
Julian’s eyes went to the family photograph.
“He believed I abandoned him when I left.”
“Did you?”
“I tried to take him with me.”
“What happened?”
“He was seventeen. Angry. Grieving. Salvatore told him I thought I was better than our family.”
“And Daniel believed him.”
“Yes.”
Marcus’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, and swore.
“What?” Julian asked.
Marcus looked at me.
“Someone went to Harper’s apartment.”
My blood turned cold.
“My cat.”
“The neighbor called police after hearing glass break. Our people got there first.”
“Chairman?”
Marcus paused.
Then, unbelievably, smiled.
“The cat is fine. One intruder is not.”
“What does that mean?”
“He required stitches.”
I pressed a hand to my chest.
“That’s my boy.”
Julian actually laughed.
It was brief.
Low.
Completely unfair.
Then Theo entered carrying a gray cat in a pet carrier.
Chairman Meow looked furious enough to overthrow a government.
I opened the carrier.
He climbed into my arms immediately.
Julian watched me hold him.
Something in his expression changed.
Softer this time.
Real.
At midnight, after Marcus and Theo disappeared downstairs, Julian showed me a guest room.
“You’ll be safe here.”
“And you?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I set Chairman on the bed.
“Julian.”
He stopped at the door.
“Why did Daniel threaten me instead of simply deleting the files?”
“Because he wants me distracted.”
“By me?”
His gaze held mine.
“Yes.”
The room suddenly felt smaller.
“Why would he think that would work?”
Julian did not answer immediately.
Then he said, “Because my brother knows me better than I would prefer.”
He closed the door behind him.
May you like
And for the first time since the elevator stopped, I was afraid of something other than the Mafia.
I was afraid Julian Rourke might want me too.
