Faye Hartman POV
The morning sun bled through the heavy curtains of the master bedroom, casting long, pale shadows across the floor. I hadn't slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt the phantom weight of Anthony's jacket on my shoulders and the terrifying emptiness on my left ring finger.
I stared at my hand. A band of untanned skin marked where the sapphire had sat for six months. It looked less like a missing piece of jewelry and more like a scar.
The sharp trill of the landline on the bedside table shattered the silence. My heart hammered against my ribs. Joshua was gone—he had left before dawn, muttering about a crisis at the docks—so I was the only one left to answer.
I picked up the receiver. "Hello?"
"Mrs. Caldwell."
The voice was devoid of inflection, as cold and smooth as polished granite. I recognized it instantly. Clay Shepard. Anthony's Underboss. The man who buried the bodies Anthony left behind.
"Mr. Shepard," I managed, my throat tight.
"The Don has your property," Clay stated, dispensing with pleasantries. "He requires your presence at the Caldwell Shipping Tower to retrieve it."
Panic flared, hot and bright. "I... I can't come there. Just send a courier. Or I can send someone—"
"The Don requires all transactions involving family assets to be conducted in person." Clay's tone didn't shift, but the threat was implicit. It wasn't a request. It was a summons. "Noon. Do not be late."
The line went dead.
I sat there for a moment, gripping the receiver until my knuckles turned white. Family assets. That's what I was to them. That's what the ring was. A piece of inventory to be audited.
I could have run. I could have hidden. But the memory of Anthony's gray eyes—predatory and knowing—told me there was nowhere in Chicago he wouldn't find me. If I wanted to survive this, I had to stop acting like prey.
I walked into the walk-in closet, a mausoleum of silk and designer labels Joshua had bought to dress his doll. I bypassed the floral dresses and pastel cardigans. Instead, I reached for a sharp, tailored white suit. It was stark, severe. Armor.
I pulled my hair back into a tight bun, painted my lips a blood-red that felt like a lie, and drove myself into the heart of the city.
The Caldwell Shipping Tower pierced the Chicago skyline like a needle of glass and steel. It was a monument to the family's legitimate power, a gleaming facade hiding the rot beneath. The elevator ride to the ninetieth floor was a silent ascent into the clouds, my ears popping as the world below shrank into insignificance.
The reception area was empty, a vast expanse of marble leading to a set of imposing mahogany doors. I didn't knock. I pushed them open.
The office was cavernous, walled on three sides by floor-to-ceiling glass that offered a god's-eye view of Lake Michigan. In the center sat a desk that looked more like the hull of a warship than furniture. And behind it sat the captain.
Anthony Caldwell didn't look up as I entered. He was reading a document, his dark suit impeccable, his presence filling the room like a sudden drop in atmospheric pressure.
"You're on time," he said, his voice low, vibrating through the large space.
"I want my ring, Anthony." I stopped in front of the desk, refusing to let my legs tremble. "Give it back, and I will leave."
He finally looked up. His gaze swept over me, lingering on the white suit, dissecting me. A corner of his mouth quirked up—not a smile, but a smirk of acknowledgment.
"That ring," he said, leaning back in his leather chair, "is a gaudy trinket. It suits a woman who enjoys lying to herself."
"It's my engagement ring."
"It's a shackle." He reached into a drawer, but instead of the sapphire, he pulled out a thick manila folder and tossed it onto the mahogany surface. It slid across the polished wood and stopped inches from my hand. "But if you want to talk about your marriage, let's look at the reality of it."
I stared at the folder. "What is this?"
"The truth. Something your husband is allergic to."
With trembling fingers, I opened it.
The first page was a bank statement. Highlighted lines showed transfers—thousands of dollars siphoned from the dock payroll accounts into a private holding company. Theft. Joshua was stealing from his own brother.
I flipped the page. A property deed for a penthouse in SoHo. The owner listed wasn't Joshua Caldwell. It was Carlotta Rowe.
My breath hitched. I knew the name.
"Keep reading," Anthony commanded softly.
The final document was a bill from the city's most exclusive fertility clinic. Prenatal vitamins. Ultrasounds. A scheduled due date.
The paper slipped from my fingers, fluttering to the desk. The silence in the room was deafening, broken only by the rushing of blood in my ears. Joshua had told me we couldn't afford a child yet. He had told me the family business was too unstable.
He was building a life with another woman on the family's dime. He was raising a bastard child while I sat in his empty mansion, polishing his silverware.
"He's a thief," Anthony said, his voice devoid of pity. "And a traitor. In our world, men are killed for less."
I looked up at him, my vision blurring. "Why are you showing me this? To humiliate me? To prove you were right?"
"To show you that the ship you are clinging to is already at the bottom of the ocean." Anthony stood up. He moved around the desk, closing the distance between us with the grace of a stalking panther. He stopped right in front of me, close enough that I could smell the sandalwood and danger radiating off him.
"My family does not tolerate liabilities," he murmured, his eyes locking onto mine, trapping me. "Joshua is a liability. He is a dead man walking."
He reached out, his knuckles grazing the side of my jaw. The touch was electric, terrifying.
"But you, Faye... you are too valuable an asset to be wasted on him."
