Chapter 1 - The Wrong Name
At 2:17 a.m., Emily Hart tried to text her brother.
Come get me.
Please.
I’m scared.
Her thumb found a familiar conversation near the top of her screen. She pressed send before the letters stopped swimming.
Only afterward did she see the name.
Vincent Caruso.
Her boss.
For one ridiculous second, embarrassment frightened her more than the man waiting outside the nightclub’s staff restroom.
Then someone tried the handle.
“Emily. Open up.”
She had never told him her name.
Two days earlier, she had been sitting outside Vincent’s office, correcting a redevelopment proposal while rain gathered over the Chicago River.
She had worked for him for eight months. At twenty-five, she knew how he took his coffee, which meetings needed an attorney, and when his silences meant he was thinking rather than angry.
She knew almost nothing about the man himself.
At thirty-seven, Vincent had already built the kind of reputation most men needed several lifetimes to earn.
Chicago supplied rumors freely.
His family had once controlled businesses that appeared more often in criminal investigations than financial magazines. Vincent had spent the last decade turning Caruso Development into a legitimate company.
People disagreed about whether he had changed the business or merely improved its stationery.
Emily preferred calendars to speculation.
“Page nineteen,” he said that Thursday.
She looked up from the doorway.
“The meeting date is wrong.”
Her cheeks warmed.
“I’ll replace the packet.”
He crossed out the date instead.
“One number doesn’t require fifty-six new pages.”
She almost smiled.
As she turned away, he added, “There’s a company car downstairs. Take it home.”
“I usually take the train.”
“I know.”
That unsettled her.
Not because he sounded threatening.
Because being noticed by Vincent Caruso felt like standing beneath a light that could either warm you or burn.
Friday brought Madison Reed’s birthday.
By ten that night, Madison had persuaded Emily to exchange vendor contracts for a crowded River North nightclub called Ember Room.
By midnight, Emily wanted her quiet apartment back.
By one-thirty, something was wrong.
She had consumed two drinks over several hours, but her legs felt unreliable. The music seemed to arrive from very far away.
A man in an expensive jacket sat beside her.
“What’s your name?”
“I’m waiting for a friend.”
“Madison?”
Emily looked at him.
His smile widened.
“She’s busy.”
She reached for her phone.
He placed a hand over it.
“Relax. We should talk about your job.”
Everything inside her sharpened despite the fog.
“What?”
“Your boss trusts you with access.”
She pulled the phone free.
“I need to find my friend.”
He followed when she stood.
At the edge of the dance floor, she spotted Madison near a cluster of coworkers, but bodies shifted between them. Emily tried to call.
The screen blurred.
The man caught her elbow.
“Wrong direction.”
She twisted away.
“Don’t touch me.”
A passing server looked over.
The man immediately lifted his hands, smiling.
“She’s had too much.”
Emily hated how easily the explanation fitted what people could see.
A woman unsteady on her feet.
A man apparently helping.
She moved toward a sign marked STAFF ONLY. Behind it, a narrow corridor led to a restroom and an exterior service door.
The restroom lock clicked beneath her shaking fingers.
Now the man stood outside.
“Open up.”
Emily looked at the message she had sent.
Read.
Then her phone rang.
Vincent.
She answered without speaking.
“Emily.”
His voice was different.
Not the voice that requested financial summaries.
“Where are you?”
“Ember Room.”
“Are you alone?”
“In a bathroom.”
“Is someone keeping you there?”
A knock struck the door.
She closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Listen carefully. I’m calling emergency services. Stay behind the locked door if it’s safe.”
“Please don’t be angry.”
Silence.
Then, very quietly, “I’m not angry with you.”
She pressed the phone harder against her ear.
He asked which corridor, which entrance, whether she was injured. She answered as best she could.
“I’m nearby,” he said. “My security lead is with me.”
Outside, the man stopped knocking.
That frightened her more.
“Vincent?”
“I’m here.”
She had never used his first name.
He had never sounded like that.
Somewhere beyond the wall, an engine approached through the rain.
Her phone showed 2:27.
Ten minutes.
Then a voice came from the corridor, low and unmistakable.
“Step away from that door.”
The man outside laughed once.
“Mr. Caruso. This isn’t what it looks like.”
May you like
Emily slid down against the wall.
For the first time that night, she believed she might get home.
