Chapter 6 – The Backpack in the Attic

The satellite phone slipped from Lily’s hand, clattering against the polished wood floor of the jet.

Nathan caught it before the line disconnected. He put it on speaker, holding it between them.

“Elias,” Nathan growled, his voice a lethal promise. “If you ever threaten her again, I will hunt you to the ends of the earth.”

Elias chuckled, a dry, hollow sound over the static. “I saved her life, Nathan. You should be thanking me. Your wife, on the other hand… she made her own choices.”

“My wife is dead,” Nathan spat.

“Is she?” Elias taunted. “Then why did Julian pay me to derail a train three hundred miles away from her car crash? Your wife found out Julian was stealing from the syndicate. She knew he was going to kill her. So she faked the car crash. She got on that train to vanish.”

Nathan’s face went entirely white.

“Julian derailed the train to finish the job,” Elias continued. “I was sent to make sure she was in the wreckage. But I found the girl instead. And your wife slipped away.”

“What do you want?” Nathan demanded, his knuckles white.

“The evidence,” Elias said coldly. “Before your wife jumped from the train, she hid a ledger in the girl’s backpack. The ledger has Julian’s offshore accounts, but it also has my family’s supply lines. Bring me the ledger, Nathan. Or I’ll tell the Commission that you let your wife fake her death to steal from them. They’ll execute you and your daughter.”

The line went dead.

Nathan stared at the phone. His wife wasn’t a victim of an accident. She had abandoned them. She had faked her death to escape the mafia life, leaving Olivia behind, and nearly getting Lily killed in the process.

He looked at Lily. The young woman was hyperventilating, struggling to process the revelation.

“Lily, breathe,” Nathan said, grabbing her hands. “Look at me. Focus on my lips.”

“I didn’t know,” Lily cried, her words slurring with panic. “I swear I didn’t know she put anything in my bag!”

“I know you didn’t,” Nathan said firmly. “Where is that backpack now?”

Lily swallowed hard. “It’s in a storage box. At my old apartment building back in Chicago. In the attic space I rented before I moved into your mansion.”

Nathan immediately walked to the cockpit. “Turn the plane around. We’re going back to Chicago.”

Twelve hours later, under the cover of darkness, Nathan and Lily stood in the dusty, cramped attic of a dilapidated brick building on the South Side. Marcus and three armed guards secured the perimeter downstairs.

Lily knelt beside a cheap cardboard box labeled College Stuff. Her hands shook as she opened it.

Inside were old textbooks, a faded sweater, and a worn canvas backpack.

Lily unzipped the bag. She reached past her old notebooks and pulled out a heavy, leather-bound journal. It wasn’t hers.

Nathan took it. He flipped open the cover.

Written on the first page, in his late wife’s elegant handwriting, was a note:

To whoever finds this: My husband is a monster. This book contains everything needed to destroy him. Give it to the FBI.

Nathan stared at the words. His wife hadn’t just run away. She had tried to frame him for Julian’s crimes, aiming to burn his empire to the ground so she could disappear with a clean slate.

“She hated me,” Nathan whispered, the betrayal fracturing his carefully constructed stoicism. “I tore this city apart looking for her killers, and she was the one trying to destroy me.”

Lily gently placed her hand over his on the leather cover.

“She didn’t know the man you are,” Lily said clearly, forcing him to look at her. “She didn’t know how much you love Olivia. She only saw the violence. She didn’t see your heart.”

Nathan looked at the deaf girl who had shown more loyalty and courage in fourteen months than his wife had in five years.

Suddenly, a massive explosion rocked the building.

The attic floor heaved, throwing Lily against the wall. Dust and splinters rained down from the rafters. The sound was muffled in her bad ear, but the concussive force knocked the breath out of her lungs.

Below them, gunfire erupted.

“Elias didn’t wait!” Nathan shouted, pulling his gun and hauling Lily to her feet. “He tracked the jet!”

Heavy boots pounded up the wooden stairs toward the attic.

Nathan shoved the ledger into his coat, pushed Lily behind a stack of old trunks, and aimed his weapon at the heavy wooden door.

“Don’t move,” Nathan commanded.

The door burst open, splintering off its hinges.

But it wasn’t Elias Thorne who stepped through the smoke.

Standing in the doorway, holding a smoking shotgun, was Victoria Ashford.

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