Chapter 2 - The Fortress on Lake Michigan
The Donatelli estate in Winnetka looked less like a home and more like a fortress designed by someone who expected a naval invasion at any moment.
High limestone walls topped with wrought-iron spikes and motion-sensitive cameras surrounded a sprawling, gothic-revival mansion that brooded over the churning gray waters of Lake Michigan. Armed guards in unmarked black SUVs flanked our vehicle as we rolled through the iron security gates, their earpieces glowing with faint blue LED lights in the gathering dusk.
I sat in the back of a bulletproof Mercedes Maybach, sandwiched between Gabriel and the cold, unyielding silence of his grief. Throughout the forty-minute drive from the cathedral, neither of us had spoken. Gabriel stared straight ahead through the tinted glass, his jaw clenched so tightly I could see the muscle ticking beneath his skin. Every so often, his hand would clench into a fist resting against his thigh, as if he were fighting the urge to reach out and touch me just to make sure I wasn't a hallucination.
When the car glided to a halt beneath the grand stone portico, Franco was out the door instantly, opening my side before I could even reach for the handle.
"Welcome to the house, Miss Cooper," Franco said, offering a gloved hand to steady me as I stepped out onto the wet cobblestones.
The chill wind blowing off the lake instantly whipped my hair across my face, stinging my cheeks. I brushed the wheat-blonde strands away—strands that were the exact same shade, cut, and texture as the dead girl’s in the casket. Walking into this house felt like stepping into an alternate reality where I was playing the ghost of myself.
Inside, the foyer was cavernous and austere, dominated by a sweeping double staircase of dark mahogany and marble floors that reflected the blaze of a massive crystal chandelier. There were no family portraits on the walls—only somber, nineteenth-century oil paintings of stormy seas and brooding landscapes. It was a house built by a man who kept the world at bay.
"Bring her to the study," Gabriel commanded without breaking his stride as he walked past a pair of armed guards standing at attention by the double doors. "And bring us whiskey. Neat."
"I don't drink," I said, following him down a long, high-ceilinged corridor lined with towering bookshelves.
"Tonight, you do," Gabriel shot back over his shoulder, his voice hard as iron.
The study was a sprawling, dimly lit room filled with leather-bound volumes, heavy velvet drapes drawn tight against the night, and a roaring fire crackling in a massive stone fireplace. Gabriel shrugged off his heavy black coat, tossing it carelessly over the back of an oversized leather armchair, revealing a broad chest beneath his charcoal vest and a shoulder holster snugly fitted against his ribs.
He poured two glasses from a crystal decanter resting on a silver tray, sliding one across the mahogany desk toward me. When I didn't touch it, he sighed heavily, rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, and finally looked at me with eyes that looked exhausted down to their very core.
"Sit down, Lauren," he said, the roughness smoothing out of his voice just a fraction, leaving behind something tired and hollow. "Please."
I hesitated, then walked over and took a seat in the wingback chair opposite his desk. The leather was cold at first, then slowly absorbed my body heat.
"You want answers," I said, breaking the silence before he could gather his thoughts. "So do I. Your security chief said something at the cathedral that I can't shake. He said the people who killed Natalie are going to come looking for me."
Gabriel took a slow, deliberate sip of his whiskey before setting the glass down. "Natalie’s death was classified as a single-vehicle accident. A drunk driver crossed the center divide on Lake Shore Drive at two in the morning, hitting her car head-on and plunging it into the lake."
"That's what the email from the gallery said," I replied, narrowing my eyes. "Why do you sound like you don't believe it?"
"Because Natalie didn't drink," Gabriel said flatly. "And she certainly didn't drive on Lake Shore Drive at two in the morning unless she was running from something. Furthermore, the driver of the other vehicle—a man with a clean record and no ties to the city—disappeared from his hospital room three hours after the crash before police could question him. His body was found in a dumpster in Cicero two days later with a syringe full of potassium chloride in his arm."
May you like
My stomach tightened into a hard, painful knot. "That’s not an accident. That’s an execution."
"Exactly," Gabriel leaned forward, resting his forearms on the desk, his dark eyes burning into mine. "Someone engineered her death. And the moment you walked down that aisle looking exactly like her, wearing her face, the people who ordered that hit realized something terrifying: they might have killed the wrong twin."
