Chapter 3 - A Father’s Bargain
Sebastian arrived in Philadelphia without the procession Elena remembered from childhood.
One car.
One driver.
A cane he had not needed three years earlier.
Nora opened the door and stared at him.
“You look terrible.”
“Good morning to you, too.”
“You get one hour.”
“I came to see my daughter.”
“And I’m making sure you remember whose house this is.”
For a moment, Elena almost recognized an ordinary family.
Then Sebastian entered the kitchen, and the old tension returned with him.
He had always filled rooms before speaking.
Now he looked around Nora’s small kitchen as though uncertain where to put himself.
Elena pointed to a chair.
He sat.
She remained standing.
“I heard what happened,” he said.
“From whom?”
“Rourke called me.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That he said something cruel because he believed it would discourage Viktor from using you against him.”
Elena laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“He discouraged him by offering permission?”
Sebastian lowered his eyes.
“He said his judgment was indefensible.”
That surprised her.
She had expected Gabriel to defend the performance.
To explain how dangerous Viktor was.
To insist that she did not understand the room.
“He also told me,” Sebastian continued, “that you owe him neither contact nor forgiveness.”
Elena sat slowly.
Nora watched from beside the stove.
“What did you say?” Elena asked.
“That I agreed.”
Her father rested both hands on his cane.
“I wanted to threaten him.”
“Of course you did.”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
She studied him.
He looked tired.
Not strategically tired. Not the theatrical exhaustion of a powerful man seeking sympathy.
Actually tired.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Sebastian glanced at Nora.
“Answer her,” Nora said.
He looked back at Elena.
“My heart. Two procedures this year.”
For one selfish, frightened moment, she was eight again, standing outside his bedroom after a nightmare.
Then she remembered the rest.
The locked gates.
The approved friendships.
The engagement her father had once described as good for the family without asking whether it might be good for her.
“Being sick doesn’t fix what you did.”
“I know.”
“You tried to decide my entire life.”
“I called it keeping you safe.”
“You made escape the only decision that belonged to me.”
Sebastian’s fingers tightened around the cane.
“Yes.”
The admission unsettled her more than denial would have.
She had spent years preparing arguments against a man who never conceded.
Now he sat in her aunt’s kitchen, offering her nowhere to put the anger except exactly where it belonged.
Nora poured coffee.
Nobody thanked her.
She did not appear offended.
After several minutes, Sebastian reached into his coat.
Elena stiffened.
He stopped immediately.
“An envelope,” he said.
He placed it on the table.
Inside were copies of business records and the name of a federal prosecutor.
Elena looked up.
“What is this?”
“My attorney has been speaking with them.”
“About what?”
“Cooperation.”
She stared at him.
For thirty years, Sebastian had treated cooperation with law enforcement as a betrayal worse than death.
“What changed?”
“You left.”
“That was three years ago.”
“I’m a slow learner.”
Nora made a disbelieving sound.
Sebastian accepted it.
“I also learned your uncle Julian has been moving money without authorization. Viktor’s name appears in the records.”
Elena felt the room sharpen.
“Julian?”
Her father’s younger brother had attended every birthday. Brought expensive presents. Called her his little queen.
He had also been the loudest voice supporting the marriage she had fled.
“What do they want?”
“Control,” Sebastian said. “Of my operations. Of Rourke’s routes. Of whatever remains when men like me finally fall.”
Elena touched the envelope.
“And me?”
Her father looked directly at her.
“Your disappearance has become useful to them. If they convince people Rourke harmed you, they can turn a business takeover into a family obligation.”
Elena thought of Viktor laughing inside the study.
And if I took her?
He had not been improvising.
She pushed back her chair.
“We’re calling Miriam.”
Sebastian nodded.
May you like
For once, he did not tell her what came next.
He waited while his daughter decided.
