Chapter 6 - The Red GlovesRoman reached the stairwell before anyone else moved.
By the time Emma stepped into the hallway with Lily clutched against her chest, the door was already swinging shut behind him. Two guards ran after him. Nico followed. Vincent stayed beside Emma, one hand inside his jacket.
“Do not move from this room,” he said.
Emma laughed once, bitterly. “I’m starting to hate that sentence.”
“I’m starting to mean it.”
Lily clung to Emma’s neck, trembling.
“Baby, are you sure?” Emma whispered. “Was that the lady?”
Lily nodded against her shoulder. “Red lady.”
“What did she do?”
Lily’s little face scrunched with effort. “Bear.”
Emma’s stomach dropped.
“She touched your bear?”
Another nod.
Vincent’s expression darkened.
From the stairwell came the distant thunder of heavy footsteps.
Then silence.
Roman returned three minutes later.
Alone.
His face told Emma everything.
“She’s gone,” Vincent said.
Roman’s eyes burned. “Service exit. Car waiting. No plates.”
“Margaret?” Vincent asked.
Roman did not answer immediately.
Emma knew the answer before he said it.
“No,” Roman said finally. “Margaret is in Europe.”
Vincent stared at him. “Confirmed?”
“Her security team checked in from Paris two hours ago.”
“Then who was the woman?”
Roman looked toward Lily.
Emma stepped back. “No. Don’t look at my daughter like she owes you answers.”
“She recognized her.”
“She’s two.”
“And she may have seen the person who opened her bag.”
Emma knew he was right, and that made her angrier.
Lily buried her face in Emma’s shoulder. “No red lady.”
Emma’s heart broke a little. “Okay. No red lady.”
Mrs. Alvarez called weakly from inside the room. “Emma.”
Emma returned to the bedside.
Mrs. Alvarez’s breathing had grown shallow, but her eyes were urgent. “Listen to me. Caleb said if the woman in red came back, it meant Silas was no longer controlling the game.”
Roman entered slowly.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
Mrs. Alvarez looked at him. “It means someone worse is using his name.”
Roman’s jaw tightened. “My father made enemies for forty years.”
“No,” she whispered. “Not an enemy.”
She looked at Lily.
“Family.”
The word chilled the room.
Roman turned to Vincent. “Find Margaret. Direct voice confirmation. Not through staff. Not through security.”
Vincent nodded and stepped into the hall.
Emma sat beside Mrs. Alvarez, her mind spinning.
A tracker.
A recording.
A hidden mother.
A woman in red.
Caleb’s voice saying Lily was proof.
She looked at Roman. “I need to get the music box.”
Roman shook his head immediately. “Your apartment is unsafe.”
“That’s exactly why we need it before someone else finds it.”
“I’ll send a team.”
“No.”
His eyebrows lowered. “Emma.”
“You already had a traitor on your private floor. Someone walked into your building with enough access to reach my child’s bag. I’m not trusting strangers with the only thing Caleb left behind.”
Roman stared at her.
Most people probably folded beneath that stare.
Emma did not.
She had carried a feverish toddler through snow to work because missing one shift meant losing heat. She had chosen between diapers and dinner more times than she could count. Roman Callahan might frighten judges and politicians, but Emma had survived poverty, grief, and motherhood alone.
He was not the scariest thing she had faced.
Finally, Roman said, “Then I go with you.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t fit in my neighborhood.”
A humorless smile touched his mouth. “I’ll try to survive the insult.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
Vincent returned, phone still in hand. His face looked grim.
“Margaret answered from Paris,” he said. “Video confirmed. She has been there all evening.”
Roman looked unconvinced.
Vincent continued, “But she said something strange.”
“What?”
“She asked whether Lily had opened the bear yet.”
Emma’s blood went cold.
Roman’s voice became lethal. “How did she know about the bear?”
Vincent lowered the phone.
“She ended the call before I asked.”
Roman turned toward Emma. “We leave now.”
Mrs. Alvarez gripped Emma’s wrist suddenly. “Do not go through the front.”
Roman looked at her.
Mrs. Alvarez’s voice trembled. “Caleb said Roman would always choose the obvious exit when angry.”
For a fraction of a second, Roman looked wounded.
Then he nodded once. “Garage tunnel.”
Twenty minutes later, Emma sat in the back of a black SUV with Lily asleep beside her in a car seat Roman had somehow produced from nowhere. Roman sat beside them. Vincent rode in front. Two more vehicles followed at a distance.
Chicago blurred beyond the tinted windows.
Snow had started falling again, soft and relentless.
Emma stared at Lily’s sleeping face.
“My mother worked at Saint Agnes,” she said quietly.
Roman turned toward her.
“She used to come home smelling like soap and lavender gum. I remember that. She said hospitals smelled too sad, so she chewed lavender gum on every shift.”
Roman listened without interruption.
“She died when I was nine. They told me she lost control on an icy road.”
“What was her name?”
“Grace Miller.”
Roman’s expression changed.
Emma saw it. “What?”
He looked toward Vincent.
Vincent had gone very still in the front seat.
“What?” Emma demanded.
Roman spoke carefully. “Grace Miller was the nurse listed in the first investigation into Saint Agnes.”
Emma’s voice disappeared. “Investigation?”
Vincent turned from the front seat. “A sealed inquiry. Missing infants. falsified records. Private adoptions through shell charities. It was buried before charges were filed.”
Emma felt the SUV tilt though it had not moved.
“My mother was involved?”
Roman answered before Vincent could. “Or she found out.”
Emma looked at Lily.
Lily is the only proof I left alive.
The words no longer meant only Caleb.
They meant babies.
Records.
Bloodlines.
A history of stolen children dressed up as charity.
The SUV turned into Emma’s neighborhood near Pilsen. Her apartment building appeared between snow-heavy trees, brick walls cracked, windows glowing weakly.
Roman’s vehicle stopped half a block away.
Something was wrong.
Emma knew it before anyone spoke.
Her apartment window was dark.
Too dark.
She always left the small kitchen lamp on.
Roman’s hand moved slightly, signaling the men in the front.
The first guard’s voice came through the radio. “Rear door open.”
Emma’s heart slammed against her ribs.
Roman turned to her. “Stay here with Lily.”
This time, Emma did not argue.
He stepped out into the snow.
From the SUV, she watched him become the man the city feared.
Not loud.
Not reckless.
Controlled. Silent. Absolute.
He crossed the street with two guards behind him and disappeared into the building.
Minutes passed.
Emma held Lily’s hand.
Then Roman’s voice came through Vincent’s earpiece.
“Apartment clear. She needs to come up.”
Vincent frowned. “Roman—”
“She needs to see this.”
Emma’s blood ran cold.
She carried Lily upstairs herself, refusing the guard’s help. The hallway smelled like old heat and wet coats. Her door hung open.
Inside, the apartment had been destroyed.
Drawers dumped. Mattress slashed. Cabinet doors ripped loose.
The crib had been turned on its side.
Emma made a small sound and covered Lily’s eyes.
Roman stood in the center of the room, holding something in his gloved hand.
The music box.
It was small, blue, painted with faded silver stars.
Emma had never seen it before.
Roman had removed it from beneath the floorboard.
But it was already open.
Empty.
On the inside of the lid, someone had written a message in black marker.
Not for Emma.
For Roman.
YOU WERE ALWAYS TOO LATE.
Beside it lay a photograph.
Roman picked it up slowly.
Emma moved closer.
The photo showed Caleb, alive, bruised, and chained to a chair.
A newspaper lay against his chest.
Yesterday’s date.
Emma’s breath stopped.
May you like
Roman whispered one word.
“Caleb.”
