Chapter 2 - THE HOUSE WITH NO LOCKS
Rosa refused to believe him.
That lasted exactly eleven minutes.
She drove back to Carpenter Street with Adrian's security vehicle following several blocks behind.
She hated the idea.
She hated him.
She hated the will.
Most of all, she hated the possibility that her father had spent years lying to her.
The workshop looked exactly as it always had.
Old.
Dusty.
Familiar.
Safe.
Rosa unlocked the door.
Nothing appeared disturbed.
She walked through the front room.
Tools hung in their usual places.
Her unfinished walnut table stood beneath the work lights.
Her father's coffee mug remained beside the old radio.
Rosa stopped.
She touched it.
"He drank from this every morning."
Adrian stood behind her.
"People leave pieces of themselves everywhere."
She looked at him.
"You sound like you know."
"I do."
She turned away.
"Where would he hide a ledger?"
Adrian studied the room.
"Somewhere you wouldn't think to look."
Rosa frowned.
"My father taught me every hiding place in this shop."
"Then he would know you'd search them."
That irritated her.
"You're saying my father outsmarted me?"
"I'm saying he loved you enough to try."
They searched for nearly an hour.
Nothing.
Then Rosa remembered something.
"The walnut table."
"What about it?"
"My father always called it the monster."
She knelt beside it.
One of the legs had been repaired.
She ran her fingers across the joint.
Then stopped.
"This isn't my repair."
Adrian crouched beside her.
"What?"
Rosa examined the underside.
"There."
A tiny seam.
She fetched a chisel.
Adrian watched as she carefully opened the hidden compartment.
Inside was a black leather ledger.
Rosa stared.
Her father's handwriting covered the first page.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
Addresses.
Companies.
Judges.
Police officers.
Politicians.
And one name repeated more than any other.
MATTHEW COLE.
Rosa's stomach dropped.
"Why would my father have this?"
Adrian took the ledger.
His expression became unreadable.
"This could destroy half my organization."
Rosa stared at him.
"And save the other half?"
"Maybe."
A noise came from outside.
Adrian's head snapped toward the window.
"Get down."
"What?"
He grabbed her shoulder and pulled her behind the workbench.
A gunshot shattered the window.
Rosa screamed.
Adrian drew his weapon.
Another shot.
Wood splintered above them.
Then silence.
Adrian moved toward the rear door.
Rosa grabbed his sleeve.
"Don't."
He looked down at her hand.
She released him.
"I don't want you getting killed."
Something flickered across his face.
"I won't."
He disappeared outside.
Rosa waited.
Thirty seconds.
One minute.
Then two.
When Adrian returned, blood stained his shirt.
Rosa rushed toward him.
"You're hurt."
"Not mine."
He opened his hand.
A spent shell casing lay in his palm.
Rosa stared.
"What now?"
Adrian looked at her.
"Now you come home with me."
"This is my home."
"No."
His voice was quiet.
"Not anymore."
Rosa's eyes filled with anger.
"You don't get to decide that."
"I do when someone just shot through your window."
She stepped closer.
"And what happens if I refuse?"
Adrian stared at her for a long moment.
"Then I'll stay here."
"Why?"
"Because your father asked me to keep you alive."
Rosa's anger faltered.
"Before he died?"
"Yes."
She looked toward the broken window.
Then at the ledger.
Then at Adrian.
For the first time, she wondered whether the terrifying man standing in her father's workshop might actually be the safest person left in her life.
She hated that thought.
But she followed him anyway.
At the penthouse, Rosa expected luxury.
She didn't expect Violet.
The little girl sat cross-legged on the living-room floor surrounded by wooden animals.
She looked up.
Her eyes immediately went to Rosa's boots.
"You smell like wood."
Rosa smiled despite herself.
"So do you."
Violet considered this.
"Can you make things?"
"Sometimes."
"Can you make a horse?"
Rosa glanced at Adrian.
He stood several feet away, watching them.
"I can try."
Violet smiled.
Adrian didn't.
But Rosa noticed his shoulders relax.
For the first time, she saw something nobody had told her about Adrian Valenti.
He was gentle with the child.
Painfully gentle.
And that scared Rosa more than his reputation ever had.
May you like
Because monsters were easy to understand.
Men who loved something were not.
