Chapter 2 - The Safe House in Red Hook
The rain grew heavier as Marcus navigated my armored Range Rover through the industrial side streets of Red Hook, Brooklyn.
Behind us, Manhattan’s skyline was a mass of flashing red and blue lights, with smoke still rising from the ruins of the Harrington Cathedral into the low gray clouds.
Lily had fallen asleep against my shoulder, exhausted by the terror and the heat of the car. My arm was numb from holding her, but I refused to shift my position. Every time I looked at her small profile, I saw the face I had spent seven years searching for in every crowd, in every boardroom, in every empty room of my penthouse.
Nora sat beside me in the rear seat, a clean towel pressed to her forehead.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked quietly, looking out the dark window at the wet brick warehouses passing by. "Seven years ago, Nora. I searched for you in three continents. I hired four private intelligence firms. My mother told me you took the money and cleared out your accounts because you were being investigated by the SEC."
Nora let out a hollow, bitter laugh.
"I didn't take three million dollars, Adrian. That money was moved into a dummy account in the Cayman Islands using my digital signature while I was locked in a conference room at Cross Biomedical’s headquarters in New Jersey."
"Who locked you in?"
"Arthur Cross," she said flatly. "And your mother stood outside the glass and watched."
My stomach turned to ice.
"They gave me a choice," Nora continued, her eyes fixed on her daughter’s face. "They told me if I stayed in New York, if I tried to contact you, or if I mentioned the neurological implant side-effects to the FDA, they would make sure Project Lantern was pinned entirely on my research team. They had forged my sign-offs on the human trial data."
"And the three million?"
"It was the 'severance' they used to make me look guilty to the press," she whispered. "I was twenty-six years old, Adrian. I had no money, no family left, and I had just found out I was three weeks pregnant with your child. Your mother told me that if I loved you, I would leave. She said Arthur Cross would ruin you before you ever took the CEO chair if I didn't walk away."
I leaned back against the leather seat, closing my eyes as a deep, agonizing rage settled into my bones.
I had spent seven years believing the woman I loved was a thief. I had spent three years allowing my mother to groom me for a political marriage with Evelyn Cross to 'heal' the rift between our companies. Every board meeting, every product launch, every artificial smile I had shared with Arthur Cross had been built on the erased life of my daughter and the woman sitting beside me.
"Where are we going, Marcus?" I asked.
"An old shipping terminal my family owns near the pier," Marcus replied from the driver's seat. "It’s off the grid. No digital access, no smart locks, no Vale Meridian network nodes. If Arthur Cross is using our vehicle telematics to track us, they lost us the moment we killed the GPS responder in the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel."
The Range Rover pulled through a rusted iron gate and stopped inside a dark, cavernous brick warehouse that smelled of salt water, diesel fuel, and damp wood.
Marcus killed the engine.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
I carefully picked Lily up, keeping her wrapped in my tuxedo jacket, and stepped out onto the concrete floor.
Nora followed, holding the black flash drive tight in her hand.
"There’s a room upstairs," Marcus said, clicking on a heavy tactical flashlight. "Food, fresh water, first-aid kit. I’m going to set up a perimeter on the roof."
"Marcus," I called out as he turned toward the iron stairs.
He stopped, looking back at me through the shadows.
"Why did you clear Nora through security at the wedding?" I asked. "You were supposed to be head of my mother’s personal detail."
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Marcus smiled faintly—a tired, grim expression.
"Your father paid for my daughter’s leukemia treatments fifteen years ago, Adrian," Marcus said softly. "He was an honest man who made a terrible mistake trusting Arthur Cross. When Nora reached out to me three days ago with your father’s final recording, I knew I couldn't let you marry that woman."
