Chapter 2 - The Woman in the Locked PenthouseNoah’s penthouse occupied the top three floors of a stone tower overlooking Manhattan.
Lyra hated it immediately.
It was beautiful in the cold, controlled way museums were beautiful. Black marble floors reflected soft golden light. Floor-to-ceiling windows revealed the glittering city below. Every piece of furniture looked expensive enough to require its own security team.
Nothing looked lived in.
No photographs.
No clutter.
No evidence that Noah Moretti existed when he was not being feared.
“You’re staying here,” he said.
Lyra stood in the entryway wearing a borrowed coat over her glass-covered clothes.
“No.”
Noah continued walking as though she had agreed.
Two men waited near the elevator. Both wore dark suits and expressions suggesting they had forgotten how to smile.
“Vincent and Elias,” Noah said. “They’ll remain outside.”
“Outside what?”
“Your room.”
“My room?”
He opened a door at the end of the hall.
The bedroom beyond was larger than her entire apartment. A fire burned beneath a pale stone mantel. Fresh clothes had been arranged across the bed: jeans, sweaters, socks, even pajamas.
Lyra stared at them.
“How did you get my size?”
Noah glanced at her. “I pay attention.”
“That is deeply unsettling.”
“It’s meant to be reassuring.”
“It isn’t.”
A doctor arrived fifteen minutes later and removed a piece of glass from Noah’s shoulder. He endured the procedure without anesthesia, sitting at the kitchen island while Lyra watched from across the room.
The cut was shallow, but the sight of his blood disturbed her more than she wanted to admit.
The doctor left with strict instructions that Noah avoid lifting anything heavy.
Noah put his shirt back on and immediately lifted a heavy crystal decanter.
Lyra took it from him.
“The doctor said not to do that.”
“He also said I should rest.”
“You should.”
“I don’t rest when someone shoots at you.”
“They were shooting at the shop.”
“They knew you were inside.”
He said it with such certainty that Lyra had no answer.
Noah poured two glasses of water instead of whiskey.
“Marco Salvatore has been trying to provoke me for months. He thinks I’ve become weak.”
“Have you?”
“No.”
“Then why does he think that?”
Noah looked at her over the rim of his glass.
“Because I started visiting the same tailor every Thursday.”
Lyra’s fingers tightened around her drink.
“You came for suits.”
“I own fifty suits.”
“Then why did you keep coming?”
The silence lasted too long.
Noah looked toward the city.
“Your father made my first suit.”
Lyra blinked. “You knew him?”
“I was nineteen. Broke, angry, and trying to look like I belonged in rooms where everyone wanted me dead.”
“That sounds very similar to your current life.”
His mouth curved briefly.
“Your father knew I couldn’t afford the suit. He made it anyway.”
“My father never gave anything away.”
“He told me I could pay him when I became important.”
“That sounds like him.”
“I returned six months later.”
“With the money?”
“With ten times the money.”
“Also sounds like him to accept it.”
“He didn’t. He took the original amount and told me a man who paid too much was either guilty or showing off.”
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it.
Noah watched her with a softness she had never seen in the shop.
“When he died,” he continued, “I heard you had taken over.”
“So you became a loyal customer out of gratitude?”
“At first.”
The two words settled between them.
Lyra looked away.
“This is a bad idea.”
“What is?”
“Whatever this is.”
Noah’s expression hardened. “There is no this.”
“You threatened an imaginary boyfriend.”
“I asked a question.”
“You nearly broke your lighter.”
“It was poorly made.”
“It was solid gold.”
“Gold can be unreliable.”
Despite herself, she laughed again.
Noah stared at her, almost startled.
It occurred to Lyra that very few people laughed around him. Fewer still laughed at him and lived long enough to do it twice.
Her amusement faded when she noticed a security monitor near the wall.
One of the camera feeds showed the front of her tailor shop. Police tape moved in the wind.
“My shop.”
“It will be repaired.”
“With whose money?”
“Mine.”
“No.”
His jaw tightened. “We are not discussing this again.”
“Yes, we are. You do not get to solve every problem by buying it.”
“I solve most problems by methods you would like less.”
“That is not comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Lyra set down her glass.
“I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“No.”
“You said Salvatore targeted me because of you. Staying near you makes me a larger target.”
“You’re already a target. At least here, you have protection.”
“Protection or imprisonment?”
Noah moved closer.
“If I wanted to imprison you, you wouldn’t be standing near an elevator.”
She pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
He glanced at the panel. “It requires a key.”
“That is imprisonment with expensive furniture.”
Something almost playful passed through his eyes, but the moment ended when Paulie entered.
“We found the car,” he said. “Burned near the river.”
“And Marco?”
“Missing.”
Noah’s attention sharpened.
Paulie handed him a phone sealed inside a plastic evidence bag.
“This was left in the driver’s seat.”
The screen displayed a photograph of Lyra leaving the tailor shop three weeks earlier.
Someone had circled her face in red.
Beneath the image was a message.
ASK MORETTI WHAT HE’S WILLING TO LOSE.
Lyra’s stomach turned cold.
Noah became completely still.
Paulie looked uncomfortable. “There’s more.”
He swiped to another photograph.
It showed Lyra sitting across from a young man at a coffee shop.
Noah’s gaze fixed on it.
“Who is he?”
Lyra stared at him in disbelief. “That is what concerns you?”
“Who?”
“My accountant.”
“He’s smiling at you.”
“He was explaining tax deductions.”
“He looks very happy about taxes.”
Paulie suddenly became fascinated by the ceiling.
Lyra crossed her arms. “Are you jealous of my accountant?”
“No.”
“You are.”
“I’m deciding whether he’s a security risk.”
“He weighs one hundred and thirty pounds and has asthma.”
“Those details don’t eliminate him.”
“His name is Owen. He is married to a dentist named Patrick.”
Noah’s expression eased almost imperceptibly.
Lyra shook her head. “Unbelievable.”
Paulie’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, and went pale.
“What?” Noah asked.
“The shop.”
Lyra’s chest tightened.
Paulie turned the phone so they could see the live camera feed.
Flames climbed behind the broken windows of Bellini Bespoke.
For one unbearable second, no one moved.
Then Lyra ran toward the elevator.
Noah caught her before she reached it.
“Let me go!”
“You can’t go down there.”
“My father’s things are inside!”
“The building is burning.”
“His books, his patterns—everything he left me!”
She fought him, striking his chest with both hands. Noah absorbed every blow until her strength collapsed.
Then she pressed her face against him and broke.
“I can’t lose it,” she whispered. “I can’t lose the last piece of him.”
Noah held her tightly, one hand cradling the back of her head.
The man who frightened an entire city said nothing.
He simply stood there while she cried.
Paulie quietly left the room.
Hours later, when the flames were finally extinguished, Lyra sat beside the penthouse windows wrapped in a blanket.
Noah returned shortly before dawn. His coat smelled of smoke.
“How bad?” she asked.
“The front room is destroyed. The cutting room survived.”
“My father’s pattern cabinet?”
“Damaged, but standing.”
Her eyes filled again.
Noah knelt in front of her.
“I made you a promise.”
“You never promised anything.”
“I did. The first day I returned to your shop.”
She frowned.
“You didn’t hear it,” he said. “But I promised your father I would never let anyone take that place from you.”
“You cannot protect everything.”
“No.”
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His hand closed gently around hers.
“But I can destroy the man who tried.”
