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It was usually quiet at the front desk this late in the day. There were a few guests returning for the night, and a few headed out for some reckless fun, but not much for me to do but watch and wait. It wasn’t long before my eyes caught sight of a familiar figure—the same blond hair, though streaked with gray, the same blue eyes. He was an older version of Emerson, with deep creases around his eyes and mouth and a body built more thickly, stretching his suit shirt across the torso.

Reinhold Holland, Emerson’s father.

The man rarely put in an appearance here anymore, though his portrait was hanging in the dining room next to that of the late Friedrich Holland, the hotel’s founder and Emerson’s grandfather. What was he doing here so late in the evening?

Unease crept up my spine as Reinhold marched straight over to Emerson’s office and knocked sharply. When my boss finally emerged, longing burst through me. I wanted him so badly I could nearly taste him, and I clamped my teeth down hard to keep from calling to him.

I frowned, watching as the two men headed across the lobby to the lounge. Emerson’s shoulders were curved, and his usually perfect hair was dangling loose over his forehead, like he’d been running his hands through it. As if he could sense me watching him, he looked over and our gazes met for a single drawn-out moment. My heart tripped over a beat.

Worry skittered through me like static in the air before an impending storm.

Something was very wrong.

4

Emerson

I was glad when my father and I stepped through into the lounge, the door closing me off from Roland’s penetrating gaze. The way he watched me with such intensity and heat, I always craved it, but with how vulnerable I was currently feeling, it wouldn’t take much to make me spill my guts to him, and that simply wasn’t an option. It was impossible to disguise my emotions from him when under the glaring lights of the lobby, but here, within the more private shadows, I felt the first hint of relief I’d felt all day.

Much of the hotel glistened and sparkled with obvious wealth, marble and crystal and bright lights, but the lounge was like another world entirely. It was all gleaming mahogany, dark walls and floor, and thick velvet curtains between the booths to give a sense of privacy. Tiffany lamps suspended over the tables gave a more subtle warm glow, though no less luxurious. Instead of shouting of glitz and glamor, it whispered of nighttime secrets.

I headed straight for a booth in the back, as far from other patrons as possible, nodding at the bartender on the way by. “A bottle of scotch, please, Timothy, and two glasses.”

I slid onto the bench, my back to the wall so I could face the room. “Let’s get this over with,” I muttered. The leather upholstery was cool to the touch, but I knew it would soon warm beneath me, a small bit of comfort.

My father dropped into the booth across from me, steepling his hands on the table. “I haven’t seen you in months. Shouldn’t we catch up?”

“No,” I said shortly. There was no need; nothing ever changed. I worked impossible hours, while he did whatever it was that he did all day, wasting the money I tried so hard to manage. “Just tell me whatever it was you couldn’t say over the phone.”

For all his pompous attitude, I was surprised to see an emotion cross his face that looked a lot like remorse. He opened his mouth to speak but paused as Delia approached the table with our scotch, as well as a tray with two glasses and a small container of ice cubes. “Good evening, sir,” she said softly, almost somberly. She was very good at reading people, and I could see she likely had a better grasp of what was going on than I did.

“Thank you, Miss Carmichael,” I said, not unkindly but with a firm dismissal. She nodded and left.

Neither my father nor I spoke for a long moment, the silence stretching between us until it was taut and brittle. Father busied himself with pouring us each two fingers of scotch, dropping an ice cube in each glass, then slid the drink across the table to me before he finally cleared his throat, ready to begin.

“This hotel was your grandfather’s dream. He came to this country with his young wife, prepared to work hard. After the first world war, the economy was flourishing. Auto and airline industries were booming, and he saw this as the perfect time to invest. He was determined to turn his dream into a reality, and nothing would stand in his way.”

I frowned, spinning my glass on the table in front of me and watching the ice cube slowly melt. “That was almost a hundred years ago. What does this have to do with our current financial problems?”

He shook his head sadly. “It has everything to do with it.” He sighed and took a deep swallow of his scotch, nearly draining his glass in one go. When he set his glass down, he seemed reluctant to say more, but he clearly had no choice. He was cornered. “I wish I could say my father was a good man, that he was loyal to my mother, that he maintained that strong work ethic through his life, but… it wouldn’t be the truth. In reality, he struggled to get a foothold here. He didn’t know anyone, had no family here to support him, and he ended up working low-paying jobs, struggling just to put food on the table. My mother wanted children, but they simply couldn’t afford it. He decided there had to be another way… an easier way…”

“Easier,” I repeated, my unease morphing into dread.

My father nodded, not meeting my eyes. “He got a job working for a man named Barbieri. This was during prohibition, and through Barbieri, my father got into bootlegging, helping with the manufacture and distribution of moonshine. He worked his way up through the organization quickly, with his willingness to do anything, commit any crime, no atrocity too great. And to reward him for his efforts… he and Barbieri came to an agreement.”

My breath skittered past my lips as I tried to keep my breathing steady. “What kind of agreement?” I asked, though every fiber of my being told me I didn’t want to know.

“Barbieri built the hotel using dirty money. My father’s name was on the paperwork, every inch the respectable businessman, all very legit, but there was nothing clean about it. They laundered money, had an illegal gambling hall, prostitution, loan sharking. You name it, they had their hand in it.”

“I always thought he started the hotel with family money.” My stomach twisted dangerously, and I took a swallow of my drink to keep the acid from crawling up my throat, welcoming the burn. “And you? What did you do when you took over?” I asked darkly, glaring across the table at the man who’d raised me. How had I not known any of this? What other secrets was he keeping?

The accusation finally brought his eyes up to mine, a cold fire lit from within. “Nothing. I’m not my father. When I took over the hotel, I put an end to all of it. Except…”

“Except what?” I spat, clenching the cut-crystal glass in my fist. If it had been a cheaper glass, it would’ve cracked for sure.

“Except it didn’t matter,” he growled back, glaring at me. “You can’t just cut ties with the mafia. It doesn’t work like that. Even doing everything aboveboard, I still had to pay them their cut of the profits. My father was dead, but this was a generational kind of debt.” He grabbed the bottle to refill his glass, spilling when his hand shook. “Barbieri is long gone, but do you think that matters? I took over the hotel, and meanwhile, Barbieri’s business was handed down, until it ended up with Bruno Santana.”

Now that was a name I recognized, and I was suddenly glad for the warm leather bench beneath me, helping to hold back the creeping chill taking over my body. Bruno Santana was a well-known gangster who dealt with human trafficking and drugs. “But… wasn’t he arrested?” I’d followed the story in the press. “The FBI took him down, right? Along with a bunch of his associates after some tech whiz got their hands on some incriminating evidence. All the networks covered the court case. They were sentenced, they’ll die in prison. The mob was shut down, and the last mayor, Philip Black, disappeared.”

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