Chapter 4: The Unraveling Alibi
The heavy click of the deadbolt sliding into place sounded like a gunshot in the high-ceilinged quiet of my private dressing suite. Richard didn't move away from the door. He stood with his broad shoulders braced against the dark mahogany, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his tailored tuxedo trousers, staring not at me, but down at the eight-year-old boy sitting quietly on the velvet settee.
Leo hadn't cried. He hadn't flinched when Richard locked us in. He simply sat there, his small white-collared shirt immaculate despite the hour, his fingers still curled protectively around the edge of the antique gold locket resting in his lap. The miniature portrait inside—my own face, painted during a fleeting, terrifying summer when I was barely twenty—seemed to mock the glittering, untouchable life I had spent the last decade building.
"Julianna," Richard said, his voice dropping into that smooth, glacial register he used when he was negotiating a hostile corporate takeover. "Explain to me why a stray child from the lower wards of the city is sitting in our private suite holding a family heirloom you claimed was lost in a luggage fire in Geneva six years ago."
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird, but I forced my chin up. The panic that had threatened to swallow me on the rooftop was receding, replaced by a cold, sharp defensive instinct. I had spent eight years burying that girl in Providence, convincing myself that the sacrifice had been necessary, that the foundation's millions and the society pages were proof I had made something of myself. But looking at Leo's dark, intelligent eyes, I realized the lie had finally caught up to me.
"It wasn't lost in Geneva, Richard," I said, stepping between him and the settee. "I lied. You wanted a pristine bride with a clean lineage, so I gave you one. I didn't know he was alive. The agency swore the file was sealed and the placement was closed."
Richard let out a dry, humorless laugh that didn't reach his eyes. He pushed off the door and walked slowly toward me, his polished dress shoes clicking sharply against the hardwood floor. He stopped just inches away, towering over me, the scent of expensive cologne and scotch washing over us.
"Closed placements don't walk into a charity gala on a Tuesday evening and hand the bride a piece of physical evidence," Richard said quietly, his hand reaching out to graze my bare shoulder, his fingers tightening just enough to remind me of who held the leases on our properties, the board seats, and the social standing. "Which means someone orchestrated this. Someone wants to dismantle everything we’ve built. And you are going to help me find out who."
"Don't touch me," I whispered, stepping back.
I turned my attention to Leo. The boy looked up, blinking slowly. "Are you in trouble?" he asked, his voice entirely devoid of childish whining, carrying instead the heavy, pragmatic weight of a child who had learned early to read the room.
"No, sweetheart," I said, crouching down until I was eye-level with him, ignoring the way Richard's breath hitched in frustration behind me. "I'm not in trouble. But I need to ask you something very important. How did you get here tonight? Who brought you to the hotel?"
Leo reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a crumpled, neon-green paper wristband from the venue's public service entrance. "A lady with red hair gave it to me outside the subway station," he said simply. "She said if I found the lady in the blue dress on the roof and showed her the gold thing, my real mom would finally have to look at me."
Richard stiffened. The red hair. There was only one person in our immediate circle who matched that description, someone who had spent the last three months trying to unseat me as the chair of the municipal arts council.
May you like
"Clara," Richard muttered, his gaze narrowing as the pieces clicked together in his head. "That ruthless, ambitious little viper."
"Clara didn't know about the locket," I said, standing up sharply. "Nobody knew about the locket except for the social worker in Providence and—" I stopped, the breath dying in my throat as I remembered the name of the man who had facilitated the original paperwork back in the winter of my ruin.
