Chapter 10 - SUNSET AT MERCER TOWERBy the time Ethan reached Mercer Tower, sunset had turned the glass building gold.
News vans crowded the street. Police barricades had gone up after the warehouse discovery, but rumors moved faster than law. Reporters shouted as Ethan’s SUV cut through the garage entrance.
Pike was three minutes behind him.
Sofia was screaming at him through the phone not to go upstairs alone.
Ethan disconnected.
Not because she was wrong.
Because Rosa did not have three minutes.
The private elevator rose too slowly.
Thirty floors.
Thirty-two.
Thirty-five.
He watched the numbers with a stillness that terrified even him.
The doors opened on thirty-eight.
The penthouse was dark.
Every automatic light had been disabled.
Manhattan’s sunset bled through the glass walls, turning the marble floor the color of old blood.
“Rosa,” Ethan called.
No answer.
He stepped inside.
The silence felt staged.
Veronica had always loved staging.
A trail of white rose petals led from the living room toward the master bedroom.
Ethan followed.
Halfway down the corridor, Rosa’s voice came from somewhere ahead.
“Don’t come closer.”
He stopped.
“Rosa?”
“She has a gun.”
Veronica laughed from inside the bedroom.
“Always so literal, Rosa.”
Ethan walked to the doorway.
The scene waiting for him looked obscene in its elegance.
Veronica sat on the edge of his bed in a black dress, hair perfect, one hand holding a gun low against Rosa’s side. Rosa stood beside her, wrists bound in front, face bruised but unbroken.
On the bedspread lay printed photographs.
Mateo dead in the snow.
Helena Cross at a podium.
Daniel Ruiz tied to a chair.
Lily sleeping in the guest room.
Ethan looked at Rosa first.
Her eyes met his.
She was afraid.
But not defeated.
That mattered.
Veronica smiled.
“You came alone.”
“Disappointed?”
“A little. I prepared a speech for Detective Pike.”
“You can still give it. She enjoys evidence.”
Veronica tilted the gun slightly.
“Careful.”
Ethan looked at the weapon, then back at her.
“You don’t want to shoot Rosa.”
“No?”
“No. You want me to watch myself fail.”
Her smile widened.
“There’s the man I almost married.”
“Almost.”
The word struck her harder than he expected.
For one second, pain crossed her face.
Real pain.
Then it curdled into hate.
“I made you better.”
“You made me blind.”
“I protected your world from people like her.”
Rosa’s chin lifted.
“People like me built your world. We cleaned it. Fed it. Parked its cars. Held its babies. Buried its dead.”
Veronica pressed the gun harder against her.
“Still giving speeches? How American of you.”
Ethan stepped forward.
Veronica raised the gun.
“Stop.”
He stopped.
Outside, the sun lowered behind Manhattan. The room darkened by degrees.
“You killed Mateo,” Ethan said.
Veronica sighed.
“We are past that.”
“Say it.”
“Why? So your little detective can record from the hallway?”
Ethan’s face did not change.
Veronica laughed.
“Oh, Ethan. You are not subtle.”
She lifted her voice.
“Detective Pike, if you are outside, come in and Rosa dies first.”
No one moved.
Because no one was outside yet.
Ethan had beaten them there.
Veronica studied him.
Then genuine delight sparked in her eyes.
“You really did come alone.”
Ethan said nothing.
Rosa looked at him in horror.
“Ethan.”
“It’s all right,” he said.
Veronica stood, pulling Rosa with her.
“No, it is not all right. That is the point.”
She moved toward the glass wall overlooking the city.
“I was going to marry you,” she said. “Do you know what that meant? No more pretending to ask donors for money. No more committees. No more smiling beside weak mothers and sticky children. I would have had real power.”
“You had power.”
“I had proximity.”
“That wasn’t enough?”
“Enough is a word invented by people with no imagination.”
Ethan watched her hand.
The gun was steady.
But her emotions were not.
“Why keep Rosa alive?” he asked.
Veronica’s eyes sharpened.
“Because she was useful.”
“How?”
“Her file opened doors. Dead husband. Newborn. No family. Perfect tragedy. Donors cry harder when there is a baby footprint.”
Rosa closed her eyes.
“Stop.”
Veronica leaned close to her.
“You signed beautifully once you understood Lily could disappear.”
Ethan’s voice went quiet.
“And Daniel?”
Veronica smiled.
“Daniel was stubborn.”
“You kept him in a warehouse for three years.”
“Brandon kept him. I don’t like dirty places.”
Rosa suddenly laughed.
It was small and bitter.
Veronica turned.
“What?”
“You keep saying dirty,” Rosa said. “But you are the only person in this room who cannot get clean.”
Veronica’s face twisted.
She struck Rosa across the mouth with the gun.
Ethan moved.
Rosa fell sideways.
Veronica lifted the weapon.
The shot cracked through the penthouse.
Glass exploded behind Ethan.
He had moved just enough.
Pain burned across his shoulder as he hit the floor.
Veronica screamed, furious that she had missed.
Rosa lunged.
Not away.
Toward her.
Bound wrists and all, she drove her shoulder into Veronica’s waist. The gun skidded across the marble.
Ethan pushed himself up, blood spreading beneath his suit jacket.
Veronica clawed at Rosa’s hair.
Rosa held on like a woman who had spent three years waiting for the ground to return beneath her feet.
The elevator doors opened.
“Police!” Pike shouted.
Veronica froze.
Rosa did not.
She shoved Veronica hard.
The woman who had ruled rooms with silk and smiles stumbled backward across the rose petals and landed on the floor beside Ethan’s bed.
Brandon Clay appeared from the service hallway.
Gun raised.
Ethan saw him before Pike did.
“Left!” he shouted.
Pike turned.
Brandon fired.
Pike fired back.
Brandon went down against the wall, weapon clattering from his hand.
Veronica screamed his name.
Not with love.
With rage at losing another shield.
Detectives flooded the room.
Rosa crawled toward Ethan.
“You’re bleeding.”
“So are you.”
She pressed her bound hands against his shoulder.
He looked at her mouth, split from the blow, her eyes blazing through tears.
“You came back for the rabbit,” he said.
She gave a broken laugh.
“I came back for my daughter’s heart.”
Across the room, Pike rolled Veronica onto her stomach and cuffed her.
Veronica’s cheek pressed against the marble.
For the first time since Ethan had known her, she looked small.
But even then, she smiled.
“You think this ends it?” she whispered.
Pike leaned down.
“No. This starts it.”
Outside, the last sunlight vanished.
May you like
By sunset, Ethan Mercer had discovered the woman in his bed had been hiding a crime for three years.
By nightfall, the world would discover she had been hiding many more.
