Chapter 2 - By Friday
Friday arrived.
Nico did not forget her name.
He stopped sleeping.
He stopped eating.
He stopped pretending.
Arthur found him at four in the morning sitting alone at the long dining table where Norah used to place breakfast before his meetings.
“You’re going to kill yourself like this,” Arthur said.
Nico looked at the untouched espresso.
“Any sign of her?”
“No.”
“Then don’t talk to me about sleep.”
Arthur pulled out a chair.
“We found her old employer.”
Nico’s head lifted.
“Did she contact them?”
“We don’t know.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I did what you asked and quietly checked. But I’m done crossing lines.”
Nico’s expression hardened.
Arthur leaned forward.
“She left you. That means she has the right not to be hunted.”
“I’m not hunting her.”
“You have forty men checking airports.”
“I’m making sure she’s safe.”
“You’re making sure you still know where she is.”
Nico stood so quickly the chair struck the floor.
“You think I would hurt her?”
“No.”
Arthur did not blink.
“I think you don’t know the difference between protecting someone and controlling the conditions around them.”
The accusation cut because it was true enough to hurt.
Nico looked away.
Arthur placed a business card on the table.
Hartwell Urban Design.
“She worked there before you met. They have an opening for a senior project coordinator.”
Nico stared at the card.
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Because if you really want to help her, do nothing.”
Nico laughed once without humor.
“That’s your advice?”
“Yes.”
“I should sit here while she starts another life?”
“You should let her.”
Nico’s hands closed around the edge of the table.
Arthur stood.
“And if she chooses to come back someday, it should be because she wants you. Not because you made leaving impossible.”
Across town, Norah was doing exactly what Nico feared.
She was rebuilding.
On Monday morning, she walked into Hartwell Urban Design wearing a navy blazer borrowed from Evelyn and carrying a portfolio that had not been updated in three years.
Her former supervisor, Daniel Reeves, stared at her for nearly ten seconds.
“Norah?”
She smiled nervously.
“Hi, Daniel.”
He came around the desk and hugged her.
When he stepped back, his expression changed.
“You vanished.”
“I know.”
“We thought you moved overseas.”
“Not exactly.”
Daniel studied her.
“You were with Moretti.”
It wasn’t a question.
Norah’s stomach tightened.
She had forgotten how impossible anonymity could be when the man you loved appeared in newspapers beside politicians, developers, and criminal allegations no one could prove.
“Yes.”
“Are you still?”
“No.”
Daniel nodded once.
He did not ask why.
For that, Norah was grateful.
“I need work,” she said.
“You need work, or you need this work?”
Norah glanced around the office.
Blueprints covered the walls.
Samples of stone and timber sat in trays.
Two junior designers argued over a model in the corner.
Something inside her loosened.
“This work.”
Daniel smiled.
“Then show me what you’ve been doing.”
Two hours later, Norah pulled up the Hart House plans from her laptop.
Daniel stopped smiling.
He moved closer to the screen.
“You designed this?”
“Yes.”
“On your own?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you get the site data?”
“Public records.”
“The zoning revisions?”
“I tracked them.”
Daniel scrolled through drawing after drawing.
“Norah, this is not a side project.”
“I know.”
“This is fundable.”
She blinked.
Daniel sat back.
“There’s a city redevelopment grant opening next month. Transitional housing. Women leaving domestic instability, financial coercion, dangerous relationships.”
Norah’s hands went cold.
Daniel noticed.
“We can submit this.”
She hesitated.
“If your firm owns it—”
“It doesn’t. You created it.”
“I used no firm resources.”
“Then it’s yours.”
For the first time since leaving Nico, hope felt larger than fear.
“Do you think it has a chance?”
Daniel smiled.
“I think you should stop asking men for permission to believe in your own work.”
Norah laughed softly.
“Point taken.”
By Wednesday, she had a temporary desk.
By Thursday, she had a new prepaid phone.
By Friday morning, Nico had not contacted her.
She did not know that he had found the storage unit.
She did not know that he knew about Hart House.
She did not know that every instinct in his body screamed to walk into Hartwell Urban Design and demand five minutes.
But he didn’t.
At noon Friday, Nico entered St. Michael’s Church in Little Italy.
He had not prayed since his mother died.
Father Dominic recognized him immediately.
“Your mother used to sit in the third pew.”
“I know.”
“You never came with her.”
“I know.”
The priest studied him.
“So why are you here?”
Nico sat in the empty church.
“I hurt someone.”
Father Dominic waited.
“I didn’t hit her. I didn’t threaten her.”
“People usually start with what they didn’t do when they’re afraid of what they did.”
Nico looked at him sharply.
The priest shrugged.
“I have heard confessions for forty years.”
Nico stared at the altar.
“I made her feel cheap.”
The words scraped his throat.
“I made the only person who never asked me for anything believe I thought she could be bought.”
Father Dominic sat beside him.
“Did you apologize?”
“She won’t speak to me.”
“Have you apologized?”
Nico closed his eyes.
“No.”
“Then start there.”
“How?”
“Without asking for something in return.”
Nico sat with that.
Later that afternoon, Norah received an envelope at Hartwell.
No return address.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
She knew Nico’s handwriting immediately.
Norah,
I won’t ask where you are. I won’t ask you to come home. I won’t send anyone after you.
What I said was cruel. The fact that I did not know you heard it changes nothing. I said it. I believed I could reduce what you gave me to money because admitting how much I needed you scared me more than any enemy I have ever faced.
You left everything I bought you.
I understand why.
I am sorry.
Not because you left.
Because I gave you a reason to.
—Nico
Norah read it twice.
Then folded it carefully.
Daniel appeared beside her desk.
“You okay?”
She nodded.
“No.”
He waited.
She smiled faintly.
“Both.”
That evening, Norah walked alone through Central Park after work.
She had expected the letter to make her angry.
Instead, it made her sad.
Because it sounded like the man she had always believed was hidden beneath Nico’s armor.
The problem was that love could not survive on hidden versions of people forever.
Her new phone rang.
Unknown number.
Norah stopped walking.
For one irrational second, she thought it was Nico.
She answered.
“Hello?”
A man’s voice spoke.
“Ms. Hart?”
Her blood chilled.
“Yes?”
“My name is Detective Samuel Price. NYPD Organized Crime.”
Norah looked around instinctively.
“What do you want?”
“I need to speak with you about Nico Moretti.”
She almost hung up.
May you like
Then he said the sentence that changed everything.
“Because someone inside his organization is planning to kill him before Monday.”
