Chapter 4 - MY FATHER DIDN'T DIE OF A HEART ATTACK
I stopped breathing.
“What did you say?”
Marcus repeated it.
Slower.
“I think Dad killed Uncle Gavin.”
Damian heard.
His face became stone.
“Why?”
Marcus hesitated.
“Come to my apartment.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“Tell me now.”
“My phone isn't safe.”
“Then why call me?”
“Because I just found something worth risking it.”
The line went dead.
I looked at Damian.
“We're going.”
“No.”
I stared.
He continued:
“If Rowan is watching Marcus, that's where he'll expect you.”
“Marcus may know how my father died.”
“Yes.”
“So we're going.”
Damian studied me.
Then reached for his keys.
“Your stubbornness is exhausting.”
“You've known me four hours.”
“Long four hours.”
Marcus lived in a glass tower overlooking Central Park.
He opened the door before we knocked.
“You brought Vescari.”
“He brought himself.”
Damian said nothing.
Marcus looked terrible.
No smug smile.
No perfect cuff links.
He carried a folder.
Inside were payments.
For eleven months before Dad died, Rowan had been paying a private investigator.
The investigator followed Gavin.
Photographed the shop.
Recorded meetings.
Including meetings with Damian.
Then Marcus showed me the final invoice.
Dated two days before Dad's death.
Medical consultation — A. Kessler.
“Who's Kessler?”
Damian answered.
“A doctor who lost his license.”
“For?”
“Selling prescription drugs.”
My stomach turned.
Dad had supposedly suffered a heart attack.
But no autopsy was performed.
He was sixty-one.
His physician considered the death natural.
I had agreed.
I had been too devastated to question it.
Marcus sat down.
“I found these in Dad's private files.”
“Why were you looking?”
He laughed without humor.
“Because of you.”
“Me?”
“After you left the banquet, he lost his mind.”
That didn't sound like Rowan.
“He ordered security to find you. Then he called somebody and said, ‘Gavin's daughter has the key.’”
The ring.
Marcus continued:
“I started wondering why my promotion depended on humiliating a dead man.”
That sentence changed how I saw him.
Maybe Marcus hadn't enjoyed the speech.
Maybe he'd simply learned to wear the same mask everyone wore around Rowan.
I asked:
“Why have you always treated me like garbage?”
He looked embarrassed.
“Because Dad taught me Uncle Gavin betrayed us.”
“So you believed him?”
“I was twelve.”
“And at twenty-seven?”
Marcus looked away.
“I was comfortable.”
At least it was honest.
Damian suddenly stood.
“We need Gavin's medical records.”
Marcus nodded.
“I already requested them.”
“Who has access?”
“His physician.”
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph loaded.
Dad's grave.
Fresh flowers lay across it.
Underneath:
LET THE DEAD KEEP THEIR SECRETS.
Damian took the phone.
Marcus went pale.
I didn't.
Something inside me hardened.
For twenty-two years, Dad had been mocked for walking away.
For eleven months, I'd mourned him believing his heart simply stopped.
Now somebody wanted me afraid.
I typed back:
NO.
Damian looked at me.
“What did you do?”
“Answered.”
“You should not provoke whoever sent that.”
“They sent me a picture of my father's grave.”
“Yes.”
“So we're beyond etiquette.”
Marcus almost smiled.
Then the apartment lights went out.
Damian moved instantly.
“Elena. Down.”
Glass shattered.
A bullet struck the wall.
Marcus hit the floor.
Damian pulled me behind the kitchen island.
Another shot.
Then silence.
Damian's men entered from the hallway seconds later.
The shooter was gone.
On the broken window, something had been taped from outside.
A photograph.
Young Gavin.
Young Rowan.
And handwritten across Gavin's face:
HE SHOULD HAVE STAYED GONE.
Marcus stared at it.
Then whispered:
“My father didn't send this.”
I looked at him.
“How do you know?”
His face had gone white.
May you like
“Because that's my mother's handwriting.”
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