Z

The safe house was hidden above an abandoned printing company on the west side of Chicago.

There were no family photographs.

No decorative lamps.

No windows in the interior hallway.

Nothing that suggested people were supposed to live there instead of merely survive.

Nicholas followed me inside without speaking.

Luca locked three separate doors behind us.

I looked around the gray living room.

“So this is where the dead live?”

Nicholas winced.

I almost apologized.

Almost.

“Bedroom is down the hall,” Luca said.

“I’m not staying.”

“Sofia—”

I turned on Nicholas.

“Stop saying my name every time you don’t know what else to say.”

His eyes hardened slightly.

There he was.

The man who could command thirty armed men with a glance.

Unfortunately for him, I had once watched him get food poisoning after insisting gas-station sushi looked “fine.”

I had never been as impressed by Nicholas Moretti as everyone else was.

That was probably why he married me.

Or at least I had believed it was.

“I need answers,” I said.

“You'll get them.”

“All of them?”

He hesitated.

Wrong answer.

I folded my arms.

Nicholas removed his coat and tossed it over a chair.

His shirt had darkened with rain.

And blood.

The cut on his palm was deeper than I thought.

I hated that I noticed.

I hated even more that my instincts still screamed at me to take care of him.

Luca brought a first-aid kit.

Nicholas opened it one-handed.

“Give me that.”

He looked up.

I immediately regretted speaking.

“I can do it.”

“Apparently you can do everything alone.”

He didn’t answer.

I took the gauze from him.

“Sit.”

Nicholas sat.

Luca quietly left the room.

Coward.

I cleaned Nicholas's palm without gentleness.

He didn’t complain.

“When did you find out about the baby?” he asked.

“I told you.”

“Four days after the funeral.”

“Yes.”

“Were you alone?”

The question cracked something.

“My sister was with me when I lost it.”

His eyes closed.

“I should have been there.”

“Yes.”

“I didn't know.”

“That doesn’t change that you weren’t there.”

“No.”

I wrapped the bandage around his palm.

He watched my hands.

“I would have come back.”

“If you knew?”

“Yes.”

“Even if it got you killed?”

“Yes.”

“Then maybe that’s why no one told you.”

His eyes snapped to mine.

“What does that mean?”

I tied the bandage.

“Luca knew.”

Nicholas stood.

“Luca!”

The door opened immediately.

Luca returned.

Nicholas’s voice became frighteningly soft.

“You knew she was pregnant?”

Luca didn’t answer.

That was another answer.

“When?”

“The hospital.”

Nicholas stared at him.

“You knew.”

“She made me promise.”

Nicholas looked at me.

I shook my head.

“No. Don't turn this into Luca’s betrayal. I didn't know you were alive. I thought telling your soldiers I had lost your baby would turn my grief into Moretti family gossip.”

“Sofia—”

“And I didn't want people bringing flowers.”

Nicholas’s expression shattered.

“I hated flowers after your funeral.”

The room fell quiet.

Luca looked away.

Nicholas sat again.

Not because I told him to.

Because his legs seemed unable to hold him.

For one second, I saw what my words had done.

A part of me wanted to kneel beside him.

Another part remembered six months of waking up reaching for a dead man.

Both parts were me.

Neither won.

“Tell me what happened at the warehouse,” I said.

Nicholas looked up slowly.

“The explosion was supposed to be controlled.”

I frowned.

“You did plan an explosion?”

“A small one. Enough to create evidence that I hadn't survived.”

“That sounds insane.”

“It wasn't my first choice.”

“What was?”

“Putting you on a plane and disappearing together.”

That surprised me.

“Then why didn't you?”

“Because of the photograph.”

He stood and crossed to a steel cabinet.

Inside were files.

Hundreds of them.

Photos.

Financial records.

Maps.

Names.

Nicholas spread several pages across the table.

“For eight months before the explosion, someone had been selling details about my organization. Shipments. Meetings. Properties. Employees.”

“Who?”

“I still don't know.”

“You spent six months investigating and don't know?”

“I know who received the information.”

“Who?”

“Victor Moretti.”

I knew the name.

Everyone in Chicago knew it.

Nicholas’s uncle.

The man who had raised him after his father was murdered.

Victor had kissed my cheek at our wedding.

He had stood in the front pew at Nicholas’s funeral.

He had called me every Sunday for two months afterward.

“You think Victor tried to kill you?”

“I know he profited from my death.”

Nicholas slid another document toward me.

Moretti Development voting shares.

Nicholas's shares.

Transferred under his will.

To me.

I stared at the numbers.

“Thirty-one percent?”

“You own the largest single voting block.”

“No, I don't.”

“Legally, you do.”

“I don't want it.”

“Victor does.”

My stomach tightened.

Suddenly I remembered three polite phone calls from Victor's attorney.

Documents I hadn't signed.

Requests to “simplify Nicholas’s business holdings.”

“You knew he was trying to get my shares?”

“Yes.”

“You watched that too?”

“Yes.”

I stepped away from the table.

Nicholas continued.

“Victor controls twenty-eight percent. With yours, he controls everything.”

“Then why not kill me?”

Nicholas’s face went dark.

“He tried.”

The cemetery.

The photograph from our bedroom.

My skin prickled.

“How many times?”

“Twice that I can prove.”

I stared at him.

“Twice?”

“The brake line on your Mercedes.”

I remembered the mechanic calling three months after the funeral.

He had said it was corrosion.

“It wasn't corrosion?”

“No.”

My mouth went dry.

“The second?”

“The gas leak at the lake house.”

I sat down.

The gas leak had happened while my sister and I were there.

We had left early because she developed a migraine.

“If Emma hadn't gotten sick…”

“You'd both be dead.”

My anger changed shape.

It didn’t disappear.

But fear slid underneath it.

“Why would Victor need you dead first? Why not come after me while you were alive?”

“Because I would have burned his entire world down.”

The answer came without hesitation.

I believed him.

“What now?”

Nicholas looked toward the locked door.

“Now he knows I’m alive.”

“How?”

“You were followed to the cemetery.”

“I thought you were watching me.”

“I was.”

“That sentence is still creepy.”

For the first time, something almost human touched his mouth.

Not a smile.

A memory of one.

Then Luca’s phone vibrated.

He checked it.

His expression changed.

“What?” Nicholas asked.

Luca handed him the phone.

Nicholas read the message.

Then looked at me.

“What is it?”

He turned the screen around.

Another photograph.

Taken less than fifteen minutes ago.

It showed Nicholas and me entering the safe house.

Underneath were five words.

THE WIDOW FOUND HER GHOST.

My pulse stopped.

Luca walked toward the security monitors.

“No cars followed us.”

Nicholas looked around the room.

Then at the ceiling.

Then at the steel door.

His face changed.

“We weren't followed.”

Luca understood before I did.

His hand moved toward his weapon.

Nicholas stepped in front of me.

I whispered, “What does that mean?”

His eyes fixed on the hallway.

“It means the person helping Victor isn't outside.”

A floorboard creaked somewhere beyond the kitchen.

Nicholas reached back and pulled me behind him.

His voice dropped to a whisper.

“They're already inside.”