Chapter 4 - THE GLASS TOWER
The Maybach pulled into the private underground parking garage of The Pinnacle—a seventy-story glass-and-steel luxury residential tower in downtown Pittsburgh.
Nathan led June into the private elevator. He pressed the button for the top floor: PH1.
When the doors slid open, June gasped.
The penthouse was a sprawling six-thousand-square-foot sanctuary of polished concrete, white marble, floor-to-ceiling glass, and minimalist designer furniture. Through the windows, the entire skyline of Pittsburgh burned bright against the dark night sky, the three rivers gleaming like liquid silver below.
It was breathtaking, magnificent, and entirely cold. There were no family photographs on the walls. No colorful rugs. No mess. It looked less like a home and more like a high-end modern art gallery.
“This is where you live?” June whispered, walking forward on tiptoes as if she were afraid the glass floors might break under her weight.
“It is,” Nathan said, removing his suit jacket and tossing it onto the back of a sofa. He looked around the vast, silent space and, for the first time in ten years, realized how utterly lifeless it was. “It’s... a little big.”
“It looks like the palace in my storybook,” June said softly, stopping in front of the massive window. She looked at her reflection in the glass, her small, pale frame dwarfed by the endless expanse of the city. “Where do I sleep?”
Nathan led her down a wide hallway to the primary guest suite. The room featured a king-sized bed wrapped in crisp, high-thread-count white linens, an en-suite marble bathroom, and a private balcony view.
June stood in the doorway, staring at the massive bed. She didn't walk in.
“Is something wrong?” Nathan asked, frowning slightly. “Is it too dark?”
“It’s too big,” June whispered, clutching her backpack tightly. “At the shelter, we had four girls in one room. If I sleep in that big bed, I’ll get lost.”
Nathan looked at the pristine, cavernous guest room, then down at his small niece. He remembered how Vivian used to feel in the massive, drafty foster homes—terrified of open spaces, craving small, enclosed nooks where she could feel protected.
Without a word, Nathan walked into the guest closet. It was a walk-in wardrobe lined with cedar shelving, soft carpeted flooring, and motion-sensor lights.
Nathan pulled four plush decorative pillows from the main bed, along with a heavy goose-down duvet. He arranged them neatly on the plush carpet inside the walk-in closet, creating a cozy, enclosed nest against the back wall.
He stepped out and looked at June. “How’s that?”
June looked into the cozy cedar closet. A bright, genuine smile—the first real smile Nathan had seen all evening—broke across her small face.
“It’s perfect,” she said.
She immediately kicked off her mismatched sneakers, set her backpack beside the closet door, and crawled into the nest of blankets. She pulled the heavy duvet up to her chin, letting out a deep, contented sigh.
Nathan knelt by the closet door. “I’m going to be right down the hall in my office, June. If you need anything—anything at all—you just shout my name.”
June looked at him from beneath the duvet, her gray eyes heavy with sleep. “Uncle Nate?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you really going to let me stay?”
“June,” Nathan said, his voice thick with emotion. “I searched twenty years for your mother. I lost her once. I am never letting you go.”
June smiled softly, her eyes fluttering shut. Within three minutes, her breathing slowed into the deep, peaceful rhythm of sleep.
Nathan stood up, pulled the closet door slightly closed, leaving a three-inch gap for light, and walked down the hallway to his private study.
He sat down at his desk, opened his laptop, and dialed Arthur Sterling on a secure video line.
The distinguished silver-haired attorney appeared on the screen immediately. “Nathan. I’ve completed the preliminary audit on the Hawthorne estate.”
“Tell me,” Nathan commanded.
Arthur leaned into his camera, his expression grim. “Vivian’s adoptive father, Charles Hawthorne, established a fifty-million-dollar irrevocable trust for Vivian when she turned eighteen. However, the trust agreement had an unusual clause inserted by Charles’s younger brother, Richard Hawthorne.”
“What clause?”
“If Vivian died without legal issue before her thirtieth birthday, the entire fifty-million-dollar principal reverts directly to Richard Hawthorne’s commercial development firm,” Arthur explained. “If Vivian did have a child, that child inherits the entire trust upon their tenth birthday—which, according to June’s birth certificate, is six months from now.”
May you like
Nathan’s eyes flared with dangerous intelligence. “So if June remains a ward of the state or disappears into foster care, Richard gets fifty million dollars in six months?”
“Correct,” Arthur said. “And Richard Hawthorne’s company is currently facing severe insolvency. He needs that fifty million dollars to avoid bankruptcy. If he finds out you have temporary custody of June, he will use every crooked legal maneuver in the book to rip her away from you.”
