Chapter 3 - ROOM 814
“No.”
The word left my mouth before fear could stop it.
Mitchell stared at me as if I had spoken in a language he didn’t understand.
During our marriage, I had refused him plenty of things.
A charity dinner when I had the flu.
Selling my father’s house.
Giving up Tessa because he thought she was “a disruptive influence.”
But eventually, after enough silence and disappointment and cold meals at opposite ends of our dining table, I usually gave in.
He had trained me to believe peace was something I purchased with pieces of myself.
Not anymore.
I closed my fist around the brass key.
Mitchell’s expression hardened.
“Listen to me.”
“I did that for seven years.”
“This is bigger than our marriage.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Your father hid records. Records that can hurt people.”
Nikolai gave a humorless smile.
“You mean hurt you.”
Mitchell turned on him.
“And you’re innocent?”
“No.”
The answer startled all of us.
Nikolai continued calmly.
“But unlike you, I don’t require her to believe I am.”
I looked at him.
For a man everyone called dangerous, he had an unsettling habit of telling the truth at the worst possible moment.
Mitchell pointed toward the photograph.
“Ask him about Pier Nine.”
Nikolai’s jaw tightened.
“Not here.”
“Why not?”
“Because the people in this room came for scholarships and champagne, not your family’s crimes.”
“My family?”
Mitchell laughed.
“You really are going to stand there like your father wasn’t involved?”
I stepped between their words before they could bury me beneath another twenty years of history.
“Stop.”
Both men did.
That irritated me almost as much as when they didn’t listen.
I held up the photograph.
“Who took this?”
Mitchell answered first.
“Your mother.”
My throat closed.
My mother had died when I was twenty-four.
Not suddenly. Not violently.
Cancer had taken her by inches.
Near the end, she had talked about my father constantly but never once mentioned the Reeds.
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’ve seen another copy.”
“Where?”
“With my father.”
Nikolai looked sharply at him.
Mitchell’s smile was thin.
“There are always two copies when men don’t trust each other.”
Another answer.
Two new questions.
Exactly how my life seemed to work now.
“What was Pier Nine?”
Nikolai responded.
“A cargo terminal on the East River that no longer exists.”
“My father owned cargo terminals?”
“Part of one.”
“He sold insurance.”
“He also inherited land.”
That, at least, sounded familiar.
My grandfather had owned odd parcels all over New York—parking lots, warehouses, a tire shop in Queens.
Dad rarely discussed them.
Mitchell took advantage of my silence.
“Your father and Reed’s father owned forty percent each. My father managed the remaining interest through Mercer Development.”
“So?”
“So twenty years ago, the city approved redevelopment. That land became worth hundreds of millions.”
My knees almost weakened.
I laughed because the alternative was crying.
“My father drove a twelve-year-old Buick.”
“Your father spent his life trying not to touch that money,” Mitchell said.
“Why?”
This time, neither man rushed to answer.
Nikolai finally said, “Because he believed some of it was dirty.”
The room seemed colder.
“My father?”
“No. The money.”
Mitchell scoffed.
“Nice distinction.”
Nikolai ignored him.
“Your father discovered shell companies were moving money through the terminal. He wanted out.”
“And your father?”
“Wanted to find out who was doing it.”
I looked at Mitchell.
He met my gaze without blinking.
“You think my father was stealing.”
“I think all three men were hiding something,” he replied. “Including yours.”
That was the first thing he had said that sounded less like manipulation and more like a warning.
I hated him for making me notice.
Nikolai touched the earpiece hidden beneath his hair.
“We’re done here.”
Mitchell laughed.
“You don’t decide that.”
“I already did.”
The ballroom doors opened.
Not dramatically.
No weapons raised.
Just six large men making it clear the evening was over for three particular guests.
Mitchell looked at me.
“Do not go to St. Alden with him.”
“Why?”
“Because Room 814 was rented under Reed Holdings for nineteen years.”
My gaze snapped toward Nikolai.
His face gave nothing away.
Mitchell continued.
“Ask yourself why your father hid something in a room paid for by Nikolai’s family.”
Then he allowed Nikolai’s security to escort him away.
At the elevator, he looked back.
“Whatever you find, remember one thing.”
I waited.
He said, “Your father was afraid of the Reeds long before you ever met me.”
The doors closed.
I stood in the silence he left behind.
Tessa reached me first.
“Oh my God.”
She grabbed both my arms.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Fair.”
She looked at Nikolai.
“And for the record, I didn’t know you arranged those invitations.”
“I know,” I said.
“I swear.”
“I know.”
Then Tessa’s eyes narrowed.
“Also, I want my two hundred dollars back because technically he kissed you longer.”
Despite everything, a laugh escaped me.
It broke something open in my chest.
Then I started crying.
Not delicately.
Not attractively.
Five years of grief for my father.
Seven years of marriage.
One year of pretending the divorce had made me completely free.
Tessa held me.
Nikolai stayed several feet away.
He didn’t touch me.
I noticed that.
Eventually I wiped my face.
“What is St. Alden?”
“A hotel,” Nikolai said. “Or it was. My family bought it in 2006. It’s offices now.”
“And Room 814?”
“Storage.”
“Your storage?”
“Yes.”
I looked at the key in my palm.
“You knew.”
“I knew your father kept something there.”
“What?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you open it?”
“Because I didn’t have the key.”
“You could break a lock.”
“I could break the building.”
His gaze held mine.
“But your father asked me not to.”
The words stopped me.
“You spoke to him?”
“Many times.”
“When?”
“Before he died.”
Another secret.
I was getting tired of being the last person invited into my own life.
“Tessa,” I said, “go home.”
Her eyes widened.
“Absolutely not.”
“Nikolai has fifty people with necks the size of refrigerators. I’ll be fine.”
“That is not comforting.”
I squeezed her hand.
“Please.”
She hesitated, then hugged me tightly.
“If he murders you, I will haunt him.”
Nikolai said, “Understood.”
Tessa pointed at him.
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
Twenty minutes later, Nikolai and I were in the back of a black sedan heading downtown.
I sat as far from him as possible.
“You manipulated my invitation.”
“Yes.”
“You knew my father.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Mitchell was watching me.”
“Yes.”
“And you still let me walk across that ballroom and kiss you.”
His mouth almost moved.
“You moved very quickly.”
“You could have stopped me.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
For the first time, the infamous Nikolai Reed looked almost uncomfortable.
“Because I had spent three years telling myself not to go near you.”
That knocked every sensible thought from my head.
“Why?”
His eyes met mine in the darkened car.
“Your father asked me not to.”
We reached St. Alden before I recovered.
Room 814 had become a plain archive room behind a steel fire door.
The brass key fit a small wooden cabinet in the far corner.
Inside hung one thing.
My father’s camel-colored winter coat.
I knew it instantly.
He had worn it every Christmas of my childhood.
My hand trembled as I touched the sleeve.
“It disappeared after his funeral.”
Nikolai said nothing.
I checked the pockets.
Empty.
Then I felt something stiff inside the lining.
A rip had been carefully resewn near the hem.
I tore the stitches open.
Another photograph slid out.
My father again.
Mitchell again.
And Nikolai.
Not Nikolai’s father.
Nikolai himself.
They were standing outside Pier Nine.
My father’s hand was on Nikolai’s shoulder.
Mitchell was beside them, smiling.
The date printed at the bottom was six years ago.
One year before my father died.
I stared at Nikolai.
“You told me Mitchell and you merely knew each other.”
“I didn’t say merely.”
“You worked together.”
“For a time.”
“With my father?”
“Yes.”
My hands shook with anger now.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Nikolai looked at the photograph.
Then at me.
“Your father asked me to help him stop your husband.”
I felt the room tilt.
“My husband?”
“You were already married.”
“That’s impossible. Mitchell barely knew my father’s business.”
Nikolai’s expression turned grim.
“That is what Mitchell needed you to believe.”
I looked down again.
Something was written along the white border of the photograph.
Three words in my father’s handwriting.
WATCH NIKOLAI CLOSELY.
I showed it to him.
His face went still.
Then I flipped the photograph over.
May you like
There was more.
IF HE TELLS HER THE TRUTH, EVERYTHING CHANGES.
