Chapter 3 - The Coldest Stare
The Peninsula Hotel’s presidential suite was a fortress of glass and limestone thirty floors above Michigan Avenue.
Inside, the lights were dimmed. Leo was fast asleep in the master bedroom, worn out from the gala, clutching a velvet bear. Through the open door, the rhythmic sound of his peaceful breathing was the only anchor holding Anna together.
She stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, holding a glass of sparkling water. Her emerald dress was unzipped slightly at the back, revealing the intricate latticework of scars that snaked from her left shoulder blade down to her hip.
The physical remnants of a promise broken at thirty thousand feet.
"You did well," Julian’s voice broke the silence. He set a file on the mahogany desk and walked over, his eyes softening as he looked at her scars. "Seeing him face to face wasn't easy."
"Seeing him was easy," Anna said, her voice hard as diamond. "Keeping my hands from wrapping around Sophia’s throat was the difficult part."
"Sophia is already unraveling," Julian noted, leaning against the glass. "Our people reported that after you left the ballroom, she nearly collapsed in the lobby. She knows her golden cage is cracking. But Vincent... Vincent isn't going to let this go. He’s already stationed six cars along the perimeter of the hotel."
Anna took a slow sip of her water. "Let him watch. He spent three years living comfortably with his guilt while Sophia warmed his bed. He thinks a few tears and a broken voice can wipe away the smell of jet fuel? He thinks I forgot the sound of the emergency hatch closing while he carried her out?"
A knock echoed through the suite’s heavy double doors.
Julian frowned, his hand instinctively moving toward the inside of his jacket. "It’s 1:00 AM."
Anna turned toward the door, her expression settling into a mask of pure, regal frost. "Open it. It’s him."
Julian checked the security monitor by the foyer. On the screen stood Vincent Moretti, alone, drenched in the sudden Chicago downpour, his tie undone, looking like a man who had walked through hell just to reach this doorstep.
"Do you want me to have security remove him?" Julian asked.
"No," Anna replied, tightening the silk robe she had thrown over her shoulders. "I want to see how much a monster can bleed before he dies."
Julian unlocked the heavy door and pulled it open.
Vincent stood there, chest heaving, his dark hair plastered to his forehead by the rain. When he saw Anna standing in the soft light of the foyer, his eyes locked onto her with a terrifying, desperate hunger.
"Anna," he breathed, taking an aggressive step forward.
Julian stepped directly into his path, his forearm blocking the doorway. "One more step, Moretti, and you leave this floor in a body bag. I don't care about your family’s influence in this city."
Vincent didn't even look at Julian. His eyes remained fixed on Anna.
"Five minutes," Vincent pleaded, his voice cracking with humiliation. The feared kingpin of Chicago, a man who had brought syndicates to their knees, was practically begging. "Just five minutes. Please. If you want me to get on my knees, I’ll do it. Just let me talk to you."
Anna walked forward, her bare feet silent against the plush carpet, stopping just behind Julian.
"Let him in, Julian," she said quietly. "Wait with Leo."
Julian hesitated, his eyes narrowing at Vincent with lethal warning. "My men are in the hall. Shout, and he won't make it to the elevator."
Julian walked into the bedroom, closing the heavy oak door behind him.
The suite fell into a suffocating silence. Only the rain drumming violently against the glass windows broke the quiet.
Vincent stood there, soaking wet, his gaze drifting from Anna’s cold eyes down to the scar peeking through the collar of her robe. His breath caught in his throat. He reached a trembling hand out, longing to touch the skin he had once caressed every night.
"Don't," Anna whispered, her voice like the cocking of a gun. "If your filthy hands touch me, I will have you killed where you stand."
Vincent pulled his hand back as if burned. "Anna... God, Anna. You survived. How? The plane exploded... I saw it! I tried to run back, I swear to God I tried to reach you—"
"You took her out first."
The sentence hung in the air, heavy and lethal.
Vincent flinched as if struck across the face. "The aisle was blocked! Sophia was hysterical, she was blocking the forward exit—I thought if I cleared her out, I could come back and carry you—"
"I was seven months pregnant with your child!" Anna’s voice didn't rise; it dropped into a pitch of terrifying, quiet venom. "I sat in that burning metal tube, trapped beneath the luggage rack that fell on my legs, screaming your name while the smoke filled my lungs! And do you know what I saw through the cracked cockpit glass, Vincent?"
Vincent was shaking violently, tears tracking through the rain on his cheeks. "Anna, please..."
"I saw you," she continued, stepping closer, her eyes flashing with pure fury. "I saw you carrying Sophia across the tarmac, holding her close, shielding her from the heat. You didn't look back until the first fuel tank ignited. You chose her. You made a calculation: the woman who abandoned you five years ago was worth more than the wife who gave you her life."
"That's not true!" Vincent broke down, dropping to his knees on the marble foyer, his hands clutching the hem of her silk robe. "It was never true! I was blind, I was an idiot, I panicked! Not a single day has passed where I didn't wish it was me in that wreckage! I died that day, Anna! I died with you!"
Anna looked down at the most powerful man in Chicago kneeling at her feet.
There was no satisfaction in her heart. Only a deep, freezing ocean of disgust.
"Get up," she commanded coldly.
Vincent looked up, his face wrecked with grief. "Let me see my son. He’s mine, isn't he? Leo. He has my eyes. He’s the baby you were carrying."
Anna tilted her head, her lips curling into a cruel, devastating smile.
May you like
"Your son died in the fire, Vincent. The boy sleeping in that room is Julian Sterling’s heir. He has nothing to do with a coward who abandons his family to burn."
***
