Chapter Five
Drew
Boston, Massachusetts
“Classes are great, Drew. Really. My microeconomics professor is a bit of a dry bone, but I think I’m pulling an A.” Nora’s voice was light, airy, and entirely too rehearsed.
I leaned back in my office chair, watching the gray light shift over the Boston skyline, feeling the familiar prickle of unease at the base of my neck. “That’s good, Nora. I’m proud of you. But is that it? Everything else is okay? No drama? No unexpected guests at your parties?”
There was a microscopic beat of silence, the kind that makes a man like me want to start kicking down doors. I’d learned the hard way that pauses mattered more than words.
“Drama? In my life?” She laughed, and for the first time in twenty years, it sounded brittle. “I’m a senior, Drew. I’m trying to make it to graduation in the spring, exactly like we planned. It’s all wonderful. I have to run to the library, but I love you!”
The line went dead before I could mention the word video. Or Holliston.
I stared at the phone. She’d always told me everything.
Every failed test, every boy who wasn’t worth her time, every doubt.
Now, she was sounding “happy” in a way that felt like a coat of paint over a crack in the foundation.
She was selling me a version of her life, and Nora had never been a salesperson.
What was she hiding?
My mind drifted back to Bella Holliston. The gold coin. The starched shadow of a guide. The ridiculous mirror maze. She’d gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to play a power game to tell me my sister was hugging a Holliston.
Was it a stunt? A warning?
A frantic knock at my door snapped me out of it. My secretary, Miller, looked as if he were about to have a stroke. “Mr. Burke, I am so sorry. I told him you were busy, I tried to check the calendar, I—”
“Relax, Miller,” a voice rumbled from behind him.
Dominic Corisi wandered into my office as if he owned the air inside it. He wasn’t dressed for a board meeting. He looked casual, comfortable, and entirely lethal. Dominic didn’t announce himself. He didn’t have to.
Rooms adjusted to him automatically.
“Dominic,” I said, standing immediately. I wasn’t afraid of him, but I wasn’t an idiot. You didn’t stand up a man like Corisi, and I realized with a sinking gut that I had completely forgotten our ten o’clock. “I sincerely apologize. I’ve had a morning.”
Dominic didn’t look angry. He looked concerned. He waved Miller out of the room with a flick of his fingers that sent the younger man scurrying.
“You’ve never stood me up, Drew,” Dominic said, pulling the leather chair across from my desk and dropping into it. He kicked his feet up on the corner of my desk, a move that would have insulted me from anyone else.
From him, it was a gesture of brotherhood.
“So, since you aren’t dead or in jail, I figured I’d come see what was important enough to make you forget our meeting.”
I sat back down, rubbing my face. “It’s Nora.”
Dominic’s expression softened instantly. The tiger went back into the cage, replaced by the father. “Ah. Say no more.”
“I just got off the phone with her,” I admitted. “She says she’s great. Straight As. Happy. But my gut is screaming that she’s lying through her teeth.”
Dominic leaned his head back against the chair.
“I completely understand that kind of stress. Judy is a freshman this year. She told me, in no uncertain terms, not to get involved in anything she’s doing.
She’s not even using the Corisi name. She made me swear I wouldn’t put security all around her every day. ”
I managed a small smirk. “And I’m sure you listened.”
Dominic gave me a slow, dangerous grin. “Of course I have security there. But they’re all pretending they’re not on payroll. I’ll never hear the end of it if she finds out how many of her classmates work for me.”
I laughed, the tension in my chest loosening a fraction. “I’m not at that level yet. But today? Today I wish I had someone at Nora’s school. I don’t know what’s going on with her.”
Dominic’s feet hit the floor. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his dark eyes locking onto mine with the intensity that had built his empire.
“I trust your gut, Drew. Your instinct was what first brought you to my attention. When Jeremy told me what you did for him, how you spotted that glitch in the infrastructure before his own team did, I knew. You have a track record for seeing the things other people miss. So, what are you basing this on?”
“It’s more than a feeling,” I said, my voice dropping. “Someone came to me. They told me Nora showed up in a video with someone she shouldn’t even be in the same zip code with.”
Dominic frowned, his shoulders squaring. “Who?”
“Brady Holliston.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened. “A Holliston? Why she would have anything to do with that family is beyond me. How did you find out? Who told you?”
I hesitated. Bella’s warning echoed in my head. Don’t talk about it. Not to anyone. She’d made it sound dangerous. But this was Dominic. “I was warned never to mention the place,” I said, “but I’m guessing you already know it exists. Bella Holliston summoned me to The Beacon.”
Dominic’s eyebrows shot up. A low whistle escaped his teeth. “The Beacon? The old-money fortress on the Hill? I haven’t thought about that place in years.”
“She sent a gold coin to get me in,” I said, leaning back. “A whole theatrical production of mirrors and a maze. She wanted to show me she had the power, that she knew things I didn’t.”
“Nice power play,” Dominic mused, a flicker of genuine amusement in his eyes. “Did it work?”
“No.”
“Good,” Dominic snapped. He stood, pacing the small space of my office like a predator measuring a cage. “Do you want my advice on this?”
I looked at him. “Do I have a choice?”
“Never,” he joked, though we both knew it was true.
“If I wanted to know what was going on, and someone like Bella Holliston was my only source of information, I’d give her a taste of her own medicine.
I would go to her city and create something she couldn’t get into without me.
” He smirked, a dark, wicked thing. “I might even create something she couldn’t get out of. ”
He reached into his pocket and slid a small, matte-black card across my desk. There was no name, only a phone number embossed in gloss black.
“I have someone who works for me who loves a challenge,” Dominic said. “In fact, challenges are the only thing that keep her from getting into too much trouble. Give her a call. Tell her I sent you.”
I picked up the card. It felt heavy. Like a door that should only be opened with care.
“Tell her,” Dominic continued, heading toward the door, “that you need her to create something that will show you exactly who this Bella Holliston is and what she’s capable of. She’ll do the rest.”
He paused at the door, glancing back over his shoulder. “And Drew? If the Hollistons think they’re the only ones who can play with gold coins, remind them that I own the mint.”