Page 114

I didn't turn. Just tipped back the burning liquid.

"What are you going to do?" Isabella looked at me. "You spent four years looking for her. Now she's right there."

"I won't let go." I stared down, turning the snake-eyed ring on my finger. Voice low. "Whatever it takes. I'm getting her back."

Isabella frowned. "What about the design competition? You're head judge. If you use your power or position to pressure her, or rig anything—Ruby will hate you forever."

"I know her pride better than anyone."

I turned to face my daughter's scrutiny. "I won't interfere with judging. Her design's strong enough. She doesn't need dirty favors. She'll win what belongs to her on her own."

Isabella went quiet. Studied me. Sighed. "What if... she really doesn't want to come back? Daddy, what if after four years, she's over you? You need to learn to let go."

Let go?

The words stabbed into my eardrums like poisoned barbs, dragging my nerves with them.

Let go meant accepting the cruelty and stupidity of that rainy night four years ago. It meant decades ahead in that empty cold apartment with nothing but cigar ash and bourbon. It meant watching another man put his arm around her waist. Hearing her call someone else by tender names.

Just half a second of that thought made my bones scream with bloodthirsty desperation. I didn't even know what Marcelo Moretti was without the obsession of finding her. The thing that crawled out of corpse piles these four years—what the hell was that without her?

The cigarette nearly burned my fingers. I dragged in bitter smoke, shoved the violence back down, locked the mask back in place.

"It's late, Isa." I crushed out the cigarette, avoiding her question. Voice hoarse. "Wind's picking up. I'll have Rocco bring the car. I'll take you back to the Upper East Side."

Isabella's eyes flashed with helpless resignation. She shook her head, adjusted her lambskin wrap. "Don't worry about it, Daddy. My assistant's downstairs. Car's waiting out front."

She reached up, straightened my slightly crooked tie. "Drink less. Go home and rest."

Her heels faded down the terrace corridor into the settling night.

I finished my last cigarette in the cold darkness, then left. Drove back to the Manhattan penthouse.

The fingerprint lock beeped softly. The heavy door closed behind me.

I didn't turn on lights. Just city neon and cold moonlight spilling across marble floors.

I shed my heavy suit jacket. Didn't head for the wine cellar. Walked straight into the study, into the vault room sealed with layers of combination locks.

The safe clicked open.

I reached into the deepest velvet compartment and pulled out a slightly yellowed hardcover album—the intimate photo book she'd left wedged in my couch cushions four years ago, drunk that night she came to my apartment.

The page edges were worn from handling.

By the dim warm lamp in the vault, I leaned against the heavy desk and opened those images burned into my bones.

The girl in the photos was twenty-four. Still had a hint of baby fat in her cheeks. She wore sexy lingerie, amber eyes shyly dodging the camera, awkwardly showing her body.

Nothing like tonight's Ruby. Tonight she was composed, radiant. A queen in control of everything.

But she wouldn't look me in the eye anymore. Wouldn't seek shelter from me. Didn't even bother with disgust—just that perfect social mask. She'd learned to keep invaders out like a true Manhattan hunter. With perfect distance.

I drew a deep breath. My lungs ached from chronic sleep deprivation.

The hole in my chest that'd been empty for four years—it didn't heal when I saw her under those spotlights tonight. It split wider. Like someone poured in a whole bottle of liquor, screaming with sick possessiveness and madness.

I should've known. Four years ago I shoved her off a cliff myself. I believed her desperate words. I threw that goddamn check at her dignity, let her flee across the ocean like a rain-soaked animal.