Chapter 6 - The Heiress Who Came Back Begging
Celeste Marquetti looked nothing like the woman who had walked into St. Cordova two nights earlier.
That woman had worn diamonds.
This one wore fear.
Her expensive coat was buttoned incorrectly.
Mascara shadowed the skin beneath her eyes.
Her hands shook as she held the flash drive toward Damon.
“No tricks,” Damon said.
Celeste gave a broken laugh.
“My father is about to lose everything. Marcus threatened to kill me if I talked. Dr. Renner has enough information to ruin half the people who might help us.”
She looked toward Adriana.
“And I slapped a pregnant woman because she spilled wine on my dress.”
Shame crossed her face.
“I’m running out of reasons to believe I’m the good person in my own life.”
Adriana studied her.
“You didn’t know who I was.”
“No.”
“If you had?”
Celeste looked directly at her.
“I would like to tell you I wouldn’t have touched you.”
A pause.
“But two nights ago, I was cruel enough that I don’t know.”
That answer surprised Adriana.
It sounded honest.
Celeste lowered the drive.
“I’m sorry.”
Adriana did not forgive her.
Not yet.
“Why help us?”
“Because my father sent men to my apartment.”
Damon’s expression sharpened.
“For what?”
“To take my phone.”
“Did they?”
“I gave them one.”
“You have two.”
“I’m spoiled, not stupid.”
Jonah almost smiled.
Celeste continued.
“My father thinks I embarrassed the family by failing to secure your financing.”
Damon said, “You did.”
“Yes.”
“For once, your failure may have been useful.”
She ignored that.
“I overheard him talking to Marcus. They’re moving something from St. Agnes tomorrow at midnight.”
“The archive,” Lena said.
Celeste nodded.
“They’re burning it.”
Damon’s eyes hardened.
“When?”
“After they copy what they still need.”
“What do they need?”
Celeste looked toward Ella.
“Her hospital identification data.”
Adriana’s entire body tightened.
Celeste raised a hand.
“I told you I’m not proud of who I was.”
“Don’t look at my daughter.”
Celeste immediately turned away.
“I’m sorry.”
Damon stepped between them.
“What’s on the drive?”
“My father’s backup accounting files.”
Lena took it.
“Password?”
Celeste gave it.
Jonah left with Lena to inspect the files on an isolated computer.
That left Damon, Adriana, and Celeste.
Silence stretched.
Celeste looked toward the floor.
Adriana finally asked, “Why did you hit me?”
Damon glanced at her.
Celeste looked up.
“There is no good answer.”
“I didn’t ask for a good one.”
Celeste swallowed.
“I was desperate.”
“So you slapped someone weaker.”
“Yes.”
“You were angry at Damon.”
“Yes.”
“At your father.”
“Yes.”
“At your family collapsing.”
“Yes.”
“And I was standing there.”
Celeste’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Adriana nodded slowly.
“That’s what cruel people do.”
Celeste lowered her head.
“Yes.”
“You find someone who cannot hurt you back.”
“Yes.”
“And then afterward you tell yourself you were under pressure.”
Celeste said nothing.
Adriana touched the fading mark on her cheek.
“I spent my childhood in foster homes with people who did that.”
Celeste looked up.
“They were always stressed.”
“They always had reasons.”
“They always apologized after they believed someone important might find out.”
Her voice remained quiet.
“I don’t care why you hit me.”
Celeste wiped at her face.
“I understand.”
“No.”
Adriana looked at Ella through the glass.
“You understand now because something frightened you.”
Celeste flinched.
Adriana continued.
“If you want to become someone different, do it when no one is watching.”
The words struck harder than any insult.
Celeste nodded.
“I will.”
Adriana turned away.
The conversation was over.
Lena returned twenty minutes later.
“The drive is real.”
Damon looked at her.
“How useful?”
“Very.”
She placed several printed pages on a table.
“Payments to Marcus. Renner. Two judges. A deputy mayor. Three police officers.”
Jonah added, “And one federal prosecutor.”
Damon understood how Marcus had been released.
Lena pointed to another entry.
“St. Agnes receives maintenance payments every month through a Marquetti nonprofit.”
“Abandoned church,” Jonah said.
“Not abandoned,” Celeste replied.
Everyone looked at her.
“My father converted the basement years ago.”
“Into what?”
“Records storage.”
“For blackmail?”
“I thought it was tax documents.”
Jonah stared.
“You never asked why your father maintained armed security at a church full of tax documents?”
Celeste looked tired.
“In my family, not asking questions was considered good manners.”
The plan formed slowly.
They could not raid St. Agnes based purely on stolen financial files and an unclear recording.
Lena needed warrants.
Warrants required judges they could trust.
Trust was now the rarest currency in Boston.
Damon offered a different solution.
“Let them move the archive.”
Jonah frowned.
“That’s risky.”
“They believe we don’t know the location.”
“They may destroy it.”
“They won’t destroy it before copying Ella’s data.”
Adriana said, “No.”
Damon looked at her.
“You don’t even know what I’m suggesting.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You are not going.”
“Correct.”
He blinked.
Adriana continued.
“And neither is Ella.”
Damon almost smiled.
“Agreed.”
“But you are thinking about giving them fake data.”
Damon looked at Lena.
Lena nodded slowly.
“That could work.”
Adriana crossed her arms.
“Explain.”
Lena said, “Renner believes he needs hospital identifiers associated with Ella’s birth. We could create a false record.”
“Then what?”
“We let Celeste deliver it.”
Celeste’s face changed.
“My father will know.”
“Will he?”
Damon asked.
She looked at him.
“If you walk into St. Agnes claiming you stole Ella’s information because you want back into your father’s good graces, would he believe you?”
Celeste thought.
“Yes.”
Adriana studied her.
“Would you do it?”
Celeste looked toward Ella.
Then back at Adriana.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you were right.”
“About what?”
“I only became sorry when someone frightened me.”
Celeste straightened.
“I would like to find out who I am when being decent costs something.”
The next twenty-four hours moved carefully.
Lena obtained a limited surveillance warrant through a federal judge in Rhode Island whose name did not appear in Renner’s records.
Jonah assembled a team.
Damon remained officially absent.
That mattered.
Marcus expected him to attack.
Damon instead disappeared.
At the hospital, Adriana focused on Ella.
The baby improved.
Less breathing support.
Better temperature control.
Tiny amounts of milk through a feeding tube.
Each progress felt enormous.
Damon came and went quietly.
He brought coffee.
Food.
A ridiculous stuffed sparrow from the hospital gift shop.
Adriana stared at it.
“You bought that?”
“It was the least offensive option.”
“It has pink wings.”
“I noticed.”
“And glitter.”
“I did not notice.”
“You absolutely did.”
He placed it beside Ella’s incubator.
“For when she comes home.”
The word home hung between them.
Adriana looked down.
“I don’t know where home is.”
Damon did not say his house.
He did not say the safe house.
He said, “Vermont.”
She looked up.
“Eli’s property?”
“Yours.”
“I haven’t seen it.”
“We can.”
“When this is over?”
“Yes.”
She was quiet.
Then:
“Would you come?”
Damon’s expression changed.
“If you want me to.”
“I think Eli would.”
He nodded.
The next night, Celeste drove alone to St. Agnes.
A wire rested beneath her coat.
The fake hospital file sat in her purse.
Damon listened from an unmarked van three streets away with Jonah and Lena.
Adriana remained at the hospital.
That had been non-negotiable.
Celeste entered through a side door.
Marcus opened it.
“You came.”
“My father called.”
“Your father thinks you’re useless.”
“I brought something useful.”
She held up the file.
Marcus’s eyes sharpened.
“What is it?”
“The baby’s hospital record.”
Silence.
Then Victor Marquetti appeared behind him.
His face looked carved from stone.
“You stole it?”
Celeste met her father’s gaze.
“Yes.”
Victor took the folder.
For the first time in her life, Celeste saw pride in his face.
It made her feel sick.
“Maybe you are my daughter after all.”
In the surveillance van, Damon’s jaw tightened.
Celeste followed them downstairs.
The basement beneath St. Agnes did not resemble a church.
Servers.
Locked cabinets.
Paper files.
Video equipment.
A digital blackmail factory.
Renner sat at a computer.
He opened the fake hospital record.
“Good.”
Marcus asked, “Can you access the archive?”
Renner typed.
Seconds passed.
Then the system rejected the code.
His face changed.
“Again.”
He tried.
Rejected.
Marcus looked at Celeste.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
Victor grabbed her arm.
“You brought fake data.”
Celeste winced.
Damon stood in the van.
Jonah caught his shoulder.
“Wait.”
Inside, Marcus searched Celeste’s coat.
He found the wire.
Silence.
Then he smiled.
“Damon.”
Victor released her.
Renner stepped backward.
Marcus crushed the wire beneath his shoe.
“Of course.”
He looked directly toward the tiny microphone.
“You always did prefer theater.”
Damon’s face hardened.
The audio cut.
Jonah swore.
Lena spoke into the radio.
“Move.”
Federal agents approached the church.
Then every light inside St. Agnes went out.
A blast shook the street.
Not large enough to collapse the structure.
Large enough to fill the basement with smoke.
Damon opened the van door.
Jonah grabbed him.
“You go in there, you contaminate everything.”
“Celeste is inside.”
“She knew the risk.”
Damon looked at him.
Jonah released him.
“Damn you.”
They ran.
Inside the church, smoke rolled through the stairwell.
Agents shouted.
Sprinklers activated.
Damon reached the basement.
He found Victor unconscious near the server racks.
Renner gone.
Marcus gone.
Celeste lay behind a fallen shelf.
Blood ran from a cut above her eye.
Damon lifted the metal frame.
“Can you move?”
She coughed.
“My ankle.”
He pulled her free.
She grabbed his shirt.
“They took something.”
“What?”
“A drive.”
“Who?”
“Marcus.”
Damon looked toward the rear exit.
Celeste tightened her grip.
“He said he was going to the hospital.”
Damon froze.
“Why?”
“He said if the code was fake, he would get the real one.”
Damon took out his phone.
No signal underground.
He ran upstairs.
Outside, he called Adriana.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
At Massachusetts General, Adriana woke in a chair beside Ella’s incubator.
The lights flickered.
A nurse walked past.
Then another.
Everything seemed normal.
Her phone had died twenty minutes earlier.
She stood.
A man in scrubs entered the NICU.
Mask.
Cap.
Badge.
He approached Ella’s station.
Adriana frowned.
“Can I help you?”
The man turned.
She recognized the eyes.
Thomas Baird.
Marcus’s driver.
The man who had tried to enter before.
Adriana screamed.
He moved toward her.
A nurse shouted.
Security alarms sounded.
Thomas grabbed the incubator identification sheet.
Adriana threw herself between him and Ella.
He shoved her.
She struck the wall.
Pain exploded through her shoulder.
Thomas reached again.
Then someone hit him from behind.
Nora.
The sixty-year-old housekeeper stood holding a metal oxygen stand.
Thomas collapsed.
Nora stared down at him.
“I told Damon years ago these things were useful.”
Adriana almost laughed.
Then the NICU doors burst open.
Security rushed in.
Minutes later, Damon arrived.
He saw Adriana sitting on the floor.
Saw the bruise forming on her shoulder.
Saw Ella safe.
And stopped.
Adriana looked up.
“I’m okay.”
He crossed the room and knelt.
“You’re hurt.”
“I’m okay.”
“Ella?”
“Safe.”
Damon closed his eyes.
For one second, his forehead rested against Adriana’s hand.
Not romantic.
Not yet.
Something deeper.
Relief.
When he looked up, fear remained in his eyes.
Adriana had never imagined a man like Damon could look afraid.
He whispered, “I almost failed him again.”
She touched his face.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“You almost lost us.”
“No.”
Her voice became firmer.
“Listen to me.”
Damon did.
“Eli did not die so you could spend the rest of your life believing every bad thing is your fault.”
He went still.
“He chose to save you.”
“That choice belonged to him.”
“You don’t get to turn his love into your punishment.”
Damon stared at her.
No one had ever said that.
No one had dared.
May you like
Adriana lowered her hand.
“Now help me finish what he started.”
