Chapter 5
Time stopped.
Michael’s hand flew to the small of his back, where he kept his own gun. But Victoria shook her head.
“Uh-uh,” she said. “Don’t even think about it. I’ve got three men with rifles on this hallway right now. If you so much as twitch, they’ll shoot first and ask questions never. Now. Everybody inside the elevator. Nice and slow.”
No one moved.
“NOW!” Victoria screamed.
They filed in. Michael stood in front of Emily and Sophie. The guards had their hands up. Bennett was shaking so badly he could barely stand.
Victoria pressed the button for the top floor—the penthouse suite she kept for special occasions. The doors slid shut.
“Mother,” Michael said, his voice dangerously calm. “Put the gun down.”
She laughed. It was a cold, sharp sound that echoed off the metal walls.
“Put the gun down? After you’ve spent all night conspiring against me? After you’ve taken my doctor and started digging up things that were buried very deeply on purpose? I don’t think so, Michael.”
She looked at Emily. Her eyes traveled over the worn coat, the tired face, the little girl clinging to her neck.
“You’ve gotten fat,” Victoria said. “Living on the streets doesn’t suit you.”
Emily said nothing. She only held Sophie tighter.
“Look at me when I’m speaking to you,” Victoria snapped.
Emily lifted her chin.
“I’ve spent two years looking at you in my nightmares,” she said. “I’d rather look at anything else.”
Victoria’s hand tightened on the gun. For a split second, Michael thought she would fire. But then the elevator dinged and the doors opened onto the penthouse.
She gestured with the barrel.
“Out.”
The penthouse was a museum of Harrington family history. Oil paintings of dead ancestors. Silver trophies from business deals won decades ago. A grand piano that no one had played since Michael was a boy.
Victoria herded them into the living room and closed the double doors behind her. She walked to the bar and poured herself a glass of scotch without ever taking the gun off them.
“Sit,” she said.
They sat.
She leaned against the mantelpiece, the gun resting casually in one hand, the scotch in the other. She looked like a queen on her throne.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” she said. “Michael, you’re going to take Sophie and go back to the suite. You’re going to tell your men to stand down. You’re going to forget you ever saw Emily tonight. In exchange, I won’t have her killed. I’ll send her somewhere far away. Somewhere nice. Maybe Italy. She can live out her days drinking wine and watching the ocean. Everyone wins.”
Michael stared at her.
“You’re insane.”
“Am I? Or am I the only one in this room being realistic? Think about it, Michael. If this comes out, the company is destroyed. The Harrington name becomes a joke. Your daughter grows up with a mother who was kidnapped and a grandmother who went to prison for life. Is that the legacy you want to leave her?”
She took a sip of scotch.
“Whereas if we do this my way? You get your daughter. You get the company. You get to be the hero who rebuilt everything after his terrible loss. And Emily? She gets to live. Which is more than she would have gotten if I had been as cruel as everyone says.”
Emily stood.
“You kept me in a cage,” she said. “You told my husband I was dead. You tried to kill his child. And now you want to act like you’re doing us all a favor?”
“I did what was necessary,” Victoria said. “Your father’s will was a ticking time bomb. If I hadn’t stepped in, you would have inherited control of a three-billion-dollar company the moment Michael stumbled. And you were never strong enough for that, Emily. You were always too soft. Too kind. You would have let the sharks tear it apart piece by piece.”
“Who are you to decide that?” Michael shouted. “Who are you to play God with our lives?”
“I’m the one who built this!” Victoria screamed back. “Your father was a dreamer. A good man, but a terrible businessman. I was the one who worked eighteen-hour days while he played golf. I was the one who schmoozed the clients and fired the dead weight and turned a small construction firm into an empire. And I was not going to watch it all fall into the hands of a girl who still cried at dog food commercials.”
She pointed the gun at Emily.
“You were always the problem. From the moment Michael brought you home. Too poor. Too common. Too... everything I hated. And then you got pregnant. And suddenly you weren’t just an annoyance anymore. You were a legal threat.”
Bennett spoke up from the corner, his voice trembling.
“Mrs. Harrington... please. There’s still time to fix this. We can all just—”
“Shut up, Andrew,” Victoria said without looking at him. “You’ve done quite enough. I should have had you killed three years ago when you first started getting weak.”
She turned back to Michael. Her voice dropped. She was pleading now, almost begging.
“Baby, listen to me. I am your mother. I carried you for nine months. I changed your diapers. I stayed up with you when you had fever. Everything I have ever done, I did for you. To make you strong. To make you the man you are today. Can’t you see that?”
Tears were actually running down her face now. Michael watched them, and for the first time in his life, he felt absolutely nothing for the woman who had given him birth.
“You did it for you,” he said. “Not for me. Not for the company. For you. You like power, Mother. You like controlling everything and everyone. And when I chose Emily over you, you couldn’t handle it. So you got rid of her.”
Victoria’s face hardened. The tears vanished as though they had never been.
“Fine,” she said. “If that’s how you want it. But remember this, Michael. You pushed me to this.”
She raised the gun.
And then the doors exploded inward.
Men in tactical gear poured through, shouting orders. Flashbangs went off. The room filled with smoke and noise. Michael threw himself over Emily and Sophie, covering their bodies with his own.
Somewhere in the chaos, a shot rang out.
Then silence.
The smoke cleared.
Victoria was on the floor. Two men had her arms pinned behind her back. The gun was across the room, skittering across the marble floor. Standing in the doorway was Arthur Voss.
He held up a badge.
“Federal Marshal,” he said. “Mrs. Harrington, you’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder, kidnapping, fraud, and about a dozen other things I’m going to enjoy reading to you on the way to the precinct.”
Michael stared.
“Arthur? But Bennett said—”
Arthur smiled. The kindly old lawyer was gone. In his place stood a man who had been playing the longest game of all.
“Bennett only knew what Victoria let him know,” he said. “I’ve been working undercover with the FBI for three years. Ever since your father died and I found out what she was planning. I couldn’t arrest her then—I didn’t have enough evidence. But I could stay close. Feed her just enough information to keep her trust. And wait for the moment she’d make a mistake big enough to take her down forever.”
He walked over and helped Michael up.
“The guard who helped Emily escape? That was my man. I sent him in when I found out Victoria was planning to eliminate them both. I’ve been guiding Emily toward you for six weeks. Making sure she stayed alive. Making sure she reached the hotel at exactly the right moment.”
Emily gasped.
“The bus tickets. The extra cash someone kept leaving in my bag when I wasn’t looking. That was you?”
Arthur nodded.
“Victoria had eyes everywhere. I had to be subtle. But I never let her get too close. And when you walked through those hotel doors last night? That was the final piece. I knew she’d come for you. I knew she’d show her hand. All I had to do was wait for her to pull the trigger.”
He looked down at Victoria. She was staring up at him with pure hatred in her eyes.
“You played me,” she spat. “Thirty years. I trusted you.”
“You should have trusted yourself less,” Arthur said.
The marshals pulled Victoria to her feet. They cuffed her hands in front of her. As they led her toward the door, she twisted around and looked at Michael.
“This isn’t over,” she said. “I have friends. People who owe me favors. You’ll never keep me locked up. And when I get out? I’m going to take everything from you. Slowly. Starting with that little girl.”
The door closed behind her.
The room was quiet again. Broken glass glittered on the floor. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air.
Emily looked at Sophie. The little girl had slept through the entire thing, her thumb tucked firmly in her mouth.
Michael wrapped his arms around both of them.
“It’s over,” he whispered. “It’s finally over.”
Arthur walked over holding the brown paper package.
“Marcus picked this up from Grand Central ten minutes ago,” he said. “Everything is inside. Bank records. Witness statements. The whole truth. With this and Bennett’s testimony, Victoria is going away for the rest of her natural life. You have nothing to worry about anymore.”
Michael took the package. It felt heavy in his hands. Two years of pain. Two years of lies. All contained in brown paper and string.
“Thank you,” he said.
Arthur smiled.
“Your father asked me to look after you,” he said. “I’m just sorry it took me so long to get it right.”
He left them alone in the penthouse.
Emily walked to the window. Far below, she could see Victoria being led out of the hotel in handcuffs, a jacket thrown over her head to hide her face from the cameras that were already gathering. Reporters shouted questions. Flashes popped. The fall of Victoria Harrington had begun.
Michael came up behind her and put his arms around her waist. Sophie, now awake, reached up and grabbed a handful of his hair.
“Dada,” she said happily.
Michael kissed the top of her head. Then he kissed Emily’s neck.
“Now what?” she asked.
“Now,” he said, “we go home. The real home. The house in Connecticut where we were supposed to raise our family. We’re going to paint Sophie’s room pink. We’re going to plant a garden. We’re going to do all the normal things we were robbed of for two years.”
Emily turned in his arms. She looked into his face—the face she had dreamed of every night in that cabin.
May you like
“Normal sounds perfect,” she said.
And for the first time in two years, she allowed herself to believe it.
