Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO COUNTED STEPS
Derek expected Emma to retreat.
She stepped inside his reach.
His fist passed above her shoulder. Emma drove her forearm against his elbow, pivoted on one bare foot, and used his momentum to send him stumbling across the marble. The cheers broke into shocked laughter.
Derek turned red.
He attacked again, faster. Emma did not fight like a street brawler. She counted distance, waited for weight to shift, and punished imbalance. Her father had taught boxing at a community gym before he became security director for Moretti Holdings. He had made her practice footwork with chalk squares until she could cross a room without looking down.
She had not trained in six years.
Her body remembered anyway.
Derek caught her shoulder and threw her against a table. Silverware scattered. Emma gasped, but when he lunged to finish the spectacle, she trapped his wrist, turned beneath his arm, and forced him face-first against the linen. Her forearm pressed between his shoulder blades.
The ballroom went silent.
She could have broken his wrist.
Instead, she released him and stepped away.
“Ten seconds,” she said.
It had taken eleven.
Vincent began applauding. One by one, the guests joined him, transforming their cruelty into admiration as easily as they had transformed Emma into entertainment.
Derek rose with murder in his eyes.
Vincent lifted one finger. Derek stopped.
“You earned one request,” Vincent said.
Emma’s shoulder throbbed. She looked directly at the burn scar on Derek’s arm.
“Tell me what happened to my father.”
The excitement drained from the room.
Twelve years earlier, Thomas Reed had supposedly died in a warehouse fire while protecting Vincent’s father, Carlo Moretti. Police identified him by a watch and a fragment of dental work. Emma’s mother received a sealed coffin and a warning not to ask questions.
Vincent’s smile became smaller and more dangerous.
“I thought you came because you wanted my brother’s blessing.”
“I came because Luca disappeared three days before our wedding.”
Vincent walked close enough that only Emma and Derek could hear him.
“Luca didn’t disappear,” he said. “He found out why your father died.”
He signaled to a man near the stage. The ballroom screen illuminated with security footage of Luca Moretti entering an airport terminal carrying a leather case.
The timestamp was that morning.
“He took eight million dollars,” Vincent said, “and left you to answer for it.”
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Then the image changed.
It showed Emma herself entering the Moretti accounting office after midnight.
