Chapter 3 - A Broken Engagement at Midnight
The gates of the Vance estate did not swing open when my Lincoln pulled up at four in the morning. They were locked tight, heavy iron bars coated in ice, standing against the dark pine trees that lined the drive.
Thomas didn't wait for the intercom. He put his foot on the accelerator, driving the heavy steel bumper of the Lincoln directly into the central latch. The iron groaned, the lock snapped with a sound like a rifle shot, and the gates flew backward, scraping violently against the snowbanks.
We surged up the winding driveway. The house loomed through the blizzard—a massive, grey-stone Victorian structure that my grandfather had bought with bootleg liquor money in 1932. Lights were burning on the ground floor. That was the first mistake Celeste’s people made. In my house, after midnight, the ground floor was kept dark unless there was a body being brought in or taken out.
I stepped out of the car before Thomas had even brought it to a complete stop. My long coat snapped in the sub-zero wind as I walked up the broad stone steps. I didn't use my key. I kicked the heavy oak front door open with the heel of my boot.
The front hall was warm, smelling of pine oil and expensive perfume. Standing near the grand staircase were three men I had never seen before. They wore dark wool coats, tailored well enough to hide the shoulder holsters beneath them, but their postures were wrong. They stood like muscle from the West Side—men who worked for the Vandermark family's private security firm.
In the center of the hall, wearing a long mink coat over her silk dinner dress, was Celeste. She was holding an alligator-skin briefcase. On the table beside her sat her leather travel bags.
She turned when the door crashed open, her dark eyes flashing with a brief, sharp flare of annoyance before her mask slid back into place.
"Marcus," she said, her voice smooth, perfectly pitched, carrying that refined accent her father had paid a quarter of a million dollars to cultivate at Swiss boarding schools. "You're back early. I was just leaving for my father's house. The incident with the nurse... it unsettled me. I didn't think it was safe for me to stay here while the police were involved."
I didn't stop walking. I moved straight down the center of the hall, my leather soles slapping against the marble floor. The three security men stepped forward, their hands moving instinctively toward their coats.
"Thomas," I said without turning my head.
Behind me, Thomas stepped through the broken front door. He didn't draw a gun. He carried a heavy iron tire iron he'd taken from the Lincoln's trunk. Before the first security guard could clear his holster, Thomas swung the iron down hard onto the man's collarbone. The crack echoed through the high ceilings. The man dropped to his knees, screaming, his arm dangling uselessly.
The second guard reached for his piece, but I was already there. I grabbed him by the throat, slamming his head backward into the oak paneling of the wall. The wood cracked. His eyes rolled back, and he slid to the floor in a heap.
The third guard froze, his hand trembling near his lapel, looking between Thomas and me.
"Take your friend," I told the third man, my voice barely above a whisper. "Get him out of my house. If I see either of you on the South Side after sunrise, you go into the river."
The guard didn't argue. He hauled his companion up by his coat collar and dragged the unconscious man out the front door into the howling snow.
Celeste didn't flinch. She stood beside her luggage, her chin raised, her hands resting quietly over her alligator briefcase. But I saw the tiny pulse beating frantically in the side of her pale neck.
"Have you lost your mind, Marcus?" she asked, her voice dropping its artificial warmth. "Those are my father's men. You can't treat us like the gutter thugs you deal with on the docks."
"Your father's men entered my home without my permission," I said, stopping three feet from her. The smell of her expensive jasmine perfume filled the space between us—the same scent I had breathed in for two years during formal dinners, opera galas, and political fundraisers. It made me sick. "And you, Celeste, are standing in my hallway with packed bags at four in the morning."
"I told you, I was shaken by what happened with the nurse—"
"Her name is Delia Marlowe," I cut in.
Celeste’s eyes narrowed slightly. The name hit her like a cold drop of water, but she didn't lose her footing. "The girl is unstable, Marcus. She was stealing from your mother's room. I caught her going through the drawers in the conservatory. When I confronted her, she attacked me. I had to defend myself."
I looked at her—really looked at her. Her hair was perfectly pinned. Her red lipstick was immaculate. There wasn't a scratch on her face, not a tear in her dress.
"She has two broken fingers, Celeste," I said quietly. "A concussion. Cuts from broken glass on her forehead and arms. And she weighs less than a hundred and ten pounds. You dragged her toward the cellar door with a silk scarf."
Celeste let out a short, cold laugh. It was a sound I had never heard from her before—devoid of charm, stripped of the delicate social grace she wore like armor.
"She's a servant, Marcus," Celeste spat, taking a step closer to me. "A little nobody from Pilsen who got herself hired so she could snoop around a house that doesn't belong to her. You're making a scene over a nurse when we have a wedding in three weeks! My father has invited two state senators and the Chief of Police! Do you have any idea how much money is tied up in our marriage?"
"Three million dollars," I said. "In transit bonds. Stolen six years ago from the city coffers."
The silence that followed was total. The wind howled outside through the broken front door, blowing a dusting of white snow across the dark wood of the floor.
Celeste’s face did not pale. Instead, her features turned to stone. The delicate socialite vanished entirely, replaced by the calculating, dangerous woman who had spent six years hunting for a ghost.
"Where is it?" she asked softly.
"In the house," I replied. "Where it’s been since the night your father ordered Pier 44 burned to the ground."
"Ewan Marlowe was a fool," Celeste said, her voice dropping to a low, vicious purr. "He thought he was a crusader. He thought he could take down the Vandermark name with a few sheets of audit paper. He burned because he didn't know his place. And if that little girl in the hospital thinks she's going to finish what her brother started, she's going to end up in the exact same furnace."
I reached out, my hand moving so fast she didn't have time to react. My fingers closed around her jaw, squeezing until her lips parted in a sharp gasp of pain. I pulled her face toward mine until we were breathing the same air.
"You are going to walk up those stairs, Celeste," I said, my voice low, flat, and absolute. "You are going to sit in the guest bedroom. Thomas will be outside the door. If you attempt to use a phone, if you attempt to touch a window, or if you speak a single word to my mother, I will not call the police. I will not call your father. I will take you down to Pier 44, and I will show you what six years of waiting feels like."
I released her. She stumbled back against the table, gasping for air, her hand clutching her bruised jaw. Her eyes burned with a dark, furious hatred, but for the first time since I had met her, she was afraid.
"Upstairs," I ordered.
May you like
She didn't speak. She turned, her heels clicking sharply on the marble, and walked up the grand staircase. Thomas followed two paces behind her, his heavy iron bar resting loosely against his thigh.
I stood alone in the hallway for a moment, breathing in the cold air blowing through the shattered door. Then I turned and walked toward the back of the house, where the conservatory stood in silence under the falling snow.
