Chapter 3 - THE SECRET BEHIND MY FATHER’S NAME
“Tell me the truth.”
We were inside Adrian’s penthouse forty minutes later.
Noah had been taken upstairs by two security men Adrian trusted enough to personally name.
I stood in the center of Adrian Kane’s living room with my purse still over one shoulder and anger burning hot enough to drown out the fear.
Adrian remained beside the windows.
Thirty stories below us, Manhattan glittered as though nothing had changed.
Everything had changed.
I held my phone toward him.
“Why did Victor Sloane know about my necklace?”
Adrian said nothing.
“And why did he tell me to ask why you hired me?”
Still nothing.
“Adrian.”
His eyes finally met mine.
“I didn’t hire you because of the necklace.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
“It isn’t.”
He crossed the room.
I hated that some part of me still noticed how controlled he looked.
How perfectly his charcoal suit fit his shoulders.
How calm his gray-blue eyes remained even when everything around him was beginning to collapse.
“Your father’s name was Daniel Bennett.”
My anger faltered.
“Yes.”
“He was an attorney.”
“He handled corporate litigation.”
“He handled more than that.”
I stared at him.
“My father was the most boring man alive. He did crossword puzzles in pen and complained if a restaurant charged more than four dollars for coffee.”
The corner of Adrian’s mouth almost moved.
“Daniel Bennett represented my father.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“What?”
“Not publicly.”
I shook my head.
“My father never represented organized crime.”
“He represented Patrick Kane when Patrick Kane wanted out of it.”
Adrian’s father.
I had seen photographs of him.
Patrick Kane had died twelve years earlier from a heart attack and left control of the Kane organization to Adrian.
“My father spent the last years of his life moving legitimate assets away from the criminal side of the family,” Adrian continued. “Hotels. Property. Shipping interests. Investments. Daniel created the legal structure.”
I folded my arms.
“Why did he never tell me?”
“Because my uncle Malcolm fought him every step of the way.”
The name was familiar.
Malcolm Kane was Patrick Kane’s younger brother.
Seventy now.
Old-school.
Rarely seen.
The kind of man employees stopped talking about the moment he entered a room.
“Malcolm believed my father was destroying the family.”
“And my father?”
“Believed Patrick was trying to save his children from inheriting a war.”
I swallowed.
“Where does Victor fit into this?”
“He worked for Malcolm.”
The answer came immediately.
“Until Evelyn died.”
Adrian looked toward the window.
“My wife discovered that someone had been moving money from legitimate Kane companies into operations I had specifically shut down.”
His voice had changed.
Not breaking.
Adrian Kane probably hadn’t allowed his voice to break since childhood.
But it had gone quieter.
“Evelyn wasn’t involved in business. She hated it. But she was good with numbers. Better than most accountants I hired.”
A tiny smile appeared.
“She saw something on a charity account that didn’t make sense.”
“And?”
“She started asking questions.”
I already knew where this was going.
“She found Victor.”
Adrian nodded.
“Three weeks later, her brakes failed.”
I closed my eyes.
“Noah was in the car?”
“He was supposed to be.”
My eyes opened.
“Evelyn changed plans that morning and left him with my mother.”
Adrian looked at me.
“That decision saved his life.”
There was no self-pity in his voice.
That somehow made it worse.
“We found evidence tying Victor to the mechanic who serviced her car. Then Victor disappeared. Six months later, we traced him to a warehouse in Newark.”
“The warehouse that burned.”
“Yes.”
“And everyone assumed he died.”
“I wanted to believe he did.”
I looked at the necklace beneath my fingers.
“What does any of that have to do with this?”
Adrian’s gaze dropped to the key.
“Your father had one just like it.”
My skin prickled.
I pulled the chain over my head.
The key was no longer than my smallest finger.
Antique brass.
Decorative edges.
A small letter B engraved near the base.
“My father gave me this two weeks before he died.”
“How did he die?”
“A stroke.”
Adrian frowned.
“When?”
“October eighteenth, eleven years ago.”
He went still.
I noticed.
“What?”
“Patrick Kane died October twenty-sixth.”
Eight days later.
Neither of us spoke.
Adrian took out his phone.
“Russo.”
He stopped.
Then slowly lowered it.
“What?”
I demanded.
His eyes sharpened.
“Russo hasn’t checked in.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Very.”
He dialed.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
A sound came from the staircase.
I turned so quickly my heel caught the rug.
Noah stood at the top.
“Dad?”
Adrian’s face immediately softened.
“What are you doing up?”
“I couldn’t find Gerald.”
“The elephant?”
Noah nodded.
Adrian sighed.
“We’ll find Gerald.”
“He gets scared if he sleeps alone.”
I crouched.
“I’ll help you.”
Noah came downstairs and took my hand.
For the next fifteen minutes, the most feared man I knew, his secretary, and his six-year-old son searched a multimillion-dollar penthouse for a worn stuffed elephant.
We found Gerald underneath a sofa.
Noah hugged him as if he had returned from war.
Then he looked at me.
“Are you sleeping here?”
My cheeks warmed.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I have my own apartment.”
“But the bad man knows where you live.”
Adrian’s eyes met mine.
That had been exactly what I was trying not to think about.
“Noah,” Adrian said.
“She can sleep in the guest room.”
“We’re discussing that.”
Noah looked suspicious.
“Adults discuss things too much.”
For the first time that night, I laughed.
Adrian did not.
An hour later, Noah was asleep.
I was still there.
Not because Adrian ordered it.
Because the photograph of me leaving my apartment had made the decision for me.
Adrian poured two glasses of water.
He handed me one.
“No wine?”
“I need you clearheaded.”
“I’m already regretting asking.”
He sat across from me.
“Tomorrow morning, we find out what that key opens.”
“How?”
“Daniel had an office in Brooklyn.”
“It was emptied after he died.”
“Not completely.”
My pulse jumped.
“What does that mean?”
“Your father maintained a private records room through a storage company. The account still exists.”
“How do you know that?”
Adrian hesitated.
That hesitation told me I wouldn’t like the answer.
“I had him investigated when you applied to work for me.”
I put down the glass.
“You what?”
“You were applying to become personal secretary to the head of the Kane organization. I investigate everyone who gets that close.”
“Did you investigate my prom date too?”
“Yes.”
I stared.
He almost smiled.
“You’re unbelievable.”
“He had two DUIs.”
“He was seventeen!”
“Still poor judgment.”
Despite myself, a laugh escaped me.
Adrian watched me.
The room changed.
It happened quietly.
His expression softened.
My amusement disappeared.
Suddenly I was extremely aware that we were alone.
Extremely aware Noah had been right about one thing.
Adrian looked at me.
Not like an employer looked at a secretary.
Like a man looked at a woman he had spent too long pretending not to notice.
“Why haven’t you ever remarried?” I whispered.
The question surprised both of us.
His eyes moved away.
“Because Evelyn deserved more than being replaced.”
“That isn’t how love works.”
“No?”
“No.”
He looked back at me.
“And you?”
“What about me?”
“Why are you alone?”
My smile was smaller.
“Maybe Noah exaggerated.”
“He usually does.”
“But not about that.”
“No.”
The silence stretched.
Then Adrian’s phone rang.
He answered immediately.
“Talk.”
A voice spoke.
His face changed.
“Where?”
Another pause.
“We’re coming.”
He stood.
“What happened?”
“They found Russo.”
Fear crawled up my spine.
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
That should have relieved me.
It didn’t.
“Where was he?”
“Your father’s old office.”
Twenty minutes later, we entered a forgotten brick building in Brooklyn under heavy security.
Marco Russo sat against the hallway wall with blood dried near his temple, furious but conscious.
“They knew we’d come here,” he said.
Adrian helped him stand.
“Who?”
“I never saw.”
He pointed toward a steel door.
“They were already inside.”
My hand moved to the key around my neck.
The lock on the steel door was old.
Brass.
My key slid into it perfectly.
For eleven years, I had worn the answer around my neck.
The lock clicked.
Inside was a narrow room.
Dust.
Metal shelves.
Document boxes.
And one small safe.
The same key opened that too.
My hands shook as I lifted the lid.
Inside was a photograph of my father standing beside Patrick Kane.
Another showed my father beside a woman I recognized instantly.
Evelyn Kane.
Adrian’s dead wife.
Beneath them was a digital recorder sealed inside plastic.
Adrian picked it up.
I pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then a woman’s voice.
“If Adrian is hearing this, then I didn’t survive long enough to tell him myself.”
Adrian froze.
Evelyn.
His dead wife.
The recording continued.
“Malcolm knows Patrick changed the succession structure. He knows Daniel Bennett has the final documents.”
My knees weakened.
“And if anything happens to me, Adrian needs to understand something.”
A pause.
Then Evelyn whispered:
“Victor Sloane was never the man giving the orders.”
Adrian’s eyes hardened.
“Malcolm was.”
Suddenly the lights went out.
Glass shattered.
Adrian grabbed me and pulled me to the floor.
A single gunshot exploded somewhere in the building.
Then another sound came from the dark hallway.
May you like
A man laughing.
“Welcome back to the family, Claire Bennett.”
