Chapter 3 - THE BUTLER’S BETRAYAL
The rain outside Northwestern Memorial turned into a cold, biting sleet by 3:00 AM.
Inside the hospital room, Julian sat on the carpet beside the sofa, his back against the wall, staring at Lily’s sleeping face with a mixture of profound awe and devastating guilt.
Four years.
For four agonizing years, he had believed himself a lonely survivor, mourning the love of his life while building a corporate war machine to crush his enemies. Meanwhile, his daughter had been living in a cramped basement apartment in Dorchester, wearing dresses with lowered hems, eating cheap soup, and sleeping to the sound of passing subway trains.
"Why didn't you come to me?" Julian asked, his voice raw with grief as he looked at Nora. "I would have given you half my fortune. I would have put a thousand men around this child to keep her safe!"
"You don't understand, Julian," Nora said, wiping her eyes with a paper towel. "Claire didn't run from rival gangs. She ran from inside your house. She told me someone inside the DeLuca executive circle discovered her pregnancy and threatened to kill both her and the baby if she didn't disappear."
"Who?" Julian’s eyes turned pitch black. "Who threatened her?"
"She never gave me a name," Nora said. "She was too terrified. She said the man had eyes like ice and knew every move you made before you made it."
Eyes like ice.
Julian closed his eyes as a memory hit him like an electric shock.
Thomas Bell had pale, icy blue eyes.
Thomas had been the one who handled Claire’s security detail four years ago. Thomas had been the one who reported her disappearance to Julian, holding the grieving young boss in his arms while confirming that her car had been found submerged in the icy waters of the Calumet River.
Suddenly, Marco burst into the suite, his tactical radio crackling with static.
"Boss!" Marco shouted, his face white. "We traced the black sedan that picked up Thomas Bell from the estate! It was registered to a shell company owned by Vanguard Shipping!"
Julian stood up slowly, the grief on his face instantly morphing into an icy, lethal focus. "Vanguard Shipping? That’s my uncle Dominic’s offshore enterprise."
"Dominic DeLuca died three years ago," Marco reminded him.
"No," Julian growled, pulling a sleek black encrypted phone from his pocket. "Dominic didn't die. He faked his cancer diagnosis and moved his operations to Montreal. And Thomas was his inside man all along."
"Boss, what are your orders?" Marco asked, unholstering his weapon.
Julian walked over to Nora, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out his personal signet ring—a heavy gold band carrying the crest of the DeLuca lion. He placed it gently into Nora’s palm.
"If anything happens to me tonight," Julian said softly, "take this ring to the Federal Building on Dearborn Street. Ask for Special Agent Miller. He has an envelope in his vault that will transfer full ownership of the DeLuca real estate holdings to a private trust for Lily."
Nora clutched the heavy ring, her eyes wide. "Julian, where are you going?"
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Julian looked down at his daughter one last time, reaching out to gently touch a dark ringlet of her hair.
"I’m going to cut the rot out of my father’s house," he said.
