Chapter 5 - The Confession in the Dark
The air in the grand study felt sucked out of the room, leaving me gasping silently like a fish out of water. The photograph of my former self—smiling, innocent, and completely ignorant of the nightmare that would soon swallow my family—stared up from the mahogany desk.
"You think I'm a spy," I whispered, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. "You think I targeted you. You think I snuck into that gala to dig up dirt on your corporation."
"Shouldn't I?" Alessandro replied, his voice devoid of anger, which somehow made it infinitely more terrifying. It was the voice of a man calculating odds, weighing collateral damage, and deciding whether to crush an insect or keep it under glass. "A ghost with a forged identity walks into my hotel, seduces her way into my private suite, and shares my bed. In my world, Elizabeth, coincidences don't exist. People like you—smart, desperate, running from ghosts—are usually pawns played by much more dangerous players."
"I didn't target you!" I cried out, the frustration and terror finally breaking through my defenses, hot tears springing to my eyes. "I didn't even know what Meridian Bio was until after my parents died! My father wasn't embezzling money, Alessandro—he was the chief accountant who discovered that your company's parent subsidiary was dumping toxic chemical waste into the Ohio municipal water supply! He was going to whistle-blow. And two days before he was supposed to hand over the files, his brakes failed on a rainy highway."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Alessandro didn't flinch. His expression didn't even flicker with shock. But the air around him grew heavy, charged with a dark, brooding electricity. He straightened up slowly, walking back toward the floor-to-ceiling windows where the rain was now drumming a steady, frantic beat against the glass.
"Meridian Bio," he murmured, more to himself than to me. "That acquisition was handled by my uncle, Julian Vitali, five years ago. Before I took full control of the board." He turned back to look at me, his amber eyes searching my face with an agonizingly intense scrutiny. "You think my family murdered your parents?"
"I don't know what to think anymore!" I sobbed, my hands trembling as I clutched my arms across my chest. "All I know is that after they died, men in suits started following me. My apartment was ransacked. Files were stolen. I had to run, change my name, dye my hair, and hide in a cramped spare bedroom with my childhood best friend just to stay alive long enough to finish nursing school. I didn't go to that gala to find you, Alessandro. I went because the catering company was paying three hundred dollars cash for the night, and I desperately needed rent money!"
He stared at me for a long, agonizing minute. Then, slowly, he walked across the room, stopping just inches away. He didn't touch me, but I could feel the radiant heat coming off his body.
"If any of what you just said is a lie," Alessandro said quietly, his voice deadly serious, "my security team will find out within twenty-four hours. And if it's the truth..." He paused, his jaw tightening. "...then you've just walked right back into the lion's den, Elizabeth. Because Julian Vitali is still on my board of directors. And if he finds out you're alive—and that you're standing in my home—he won't wait for a federal investigation to silence you."
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Before I could process the terrifying weight of his warning, a sudden wave of nausea rolled over me, far more violent than anything I had felt at Liam's apartment. My vision blurred, the edges of the room turning pitch black. I swayed on my feet, gasping for air, and collapsed forward into the dark.
The last thing I felt before unconsciousness took me was a pair of strong, warm arms catching me against a broad chest, shouting my real name into the roaring darkness.
