Chapter 2 - The Ghost of Emerald Tower
By noon, my pristine corporate sanctuary looked less like a Wall Street executive suite and more like a chaotic daycare center crossed with a disaster zone.
Pancake crumbs littered the custom wool rug. Sticky strawberry jam stained the edge of my glass coffee table. And Lucas was currently using a multi-million-dollar architectural model of the Meridian Tower as a makeshift parking garage for a plastic fire truck he had pulled out of their backpack.
I sat at the end of the conference table, my laptop open to a stalled spreadsheet, though I hadn't looked at a single number in three hours.
Liam sat quietly in the large leather chair—my chair—flipping through a picture book Claire had somehow managed to source from a corporate daycare three floors down. Every few minutes, he would glance up to make sure I was still there, his gaze calculating, evaluating every movement I made.
"Mr. Miller?" Claire whispered, stepping cautiously into the office as if navigating a minefield. "The executive board is threatening revolt. Mr. Sterling called twice. He wants to know why you blew off the Meridian closing."
"Tell Sterling to take a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge," I said without looking up.
"Sir, we can't just—"
"Claire," I interrupted, raising my eyes to meet hers. "Look at them."
She glanced at the twins, then back at me. The striking similarity—the shape of the jaw, the sharp bridge of the nose, the undeniable ice-blue eyes—was impossible to ignore. A look of profound realization washed over Claire's face, softening her rigid corporate exterior.
"Oh," she breathed. "Are they...?"
"They're mine," I said quietly, the confession feeling heavy and irreversible. "Or at least, I need to find out why they're sitting in my office."
"What are your plans for the afternoon?" she asked gently. "We can't keep them here in the tower. Child services will eventually get involved if building management notices—"
"They're not going to child services," I cut her off instantly, a fierce, protective instinct I didn't know I possessed flaring up in my chest. "Order a private car. We're going to my penthouse in Tribeca."
"Your penthouse?" Claire blinked. "Mr. Miller, your apartment has white leather furniture, glass staircases, and no child-proofing whatsoever. It's a museum of sharp corners."
"Then we'll buy a rug," I said, standing up. "Clear my schedule for the rest of the week. If anyone from the board asks, tell them I'm dealing with a hostile takeover of a very different kind."
An hour later, I found myself buckling two wiggly, suspicious little boys into the backseat of my bulletproof Maybach.
The ride across lower Manhattan was silent, save for the low hum of the engine and Lucas softly humming a nursery rhyme while staring out the tinted window at the towering skyscrapers. When the car pulled into the underground garage of my Tribeca residence, the boys looked out with wide, unimpressed eyes.
"It's tall," Liam noted as we rode the private elevator up to the penthouse. "Like a cage."
"It's not a cage," I said, unlocking the heavy double doors. "It's home. For now."
The penthouse was vast, freezing, and blindingly white. As Claire had warned, every surface was glass, chrome, or polished marble. There were no toys, no clutter, no life.
Liam and Lucas walked in slowly, their sneakers squeaking against the pristine white marble flooring. They didn't run around or touch things like normal four-year-olds. They moved with a cautious, watchful restraint that tore at my insides.
"Where is Mommy's room?" Lucas asked suddenly, stopping near the edge of the sunken living room and looking up at me.
My breath hitched.
I knelt down beside him, placing a gentle hand on his small shoulder. The fabric of his red hoodie was worn thin at the elbows.
"Your mother... I don't know where she is right now, buddy," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "When you came to my office this morning, you had a backpack. Let's see if she left anything inside to help me find her."
Liam immediately unzipped the blue nylon bag.
Inside, there were no clothes. No extra socks, no blankets, no diapers.
There was a half-empty box of animal crackers, a small plastic dinosaur with a broken tail, a worn-out notebook filled with grocery lists and scribbled drawings, and a cracked silver locket.
Liam handed the locket to me.
My fingers brushed the cold metal. I popped the clasp open.
Inside was a photograph taken five years ago in a cramped, sunlit kitchen in Astoria. I was laughing—a genuine, unguarded laugh I hadn't made in a decade—with my arm wrapped around a woman with warm hazel eyes and a radiant, defiant smile.
Emma.
The only woman I had ever truly loved.
And the woman I had walked away from because my father told me she was a distraction from my destiny.
"She said you would remember her," Liam whispered, watching my face carefully. "She said if we gave you the locket, you'd remember why you left us behind."
May you like
I closed my fist around the locket, the metal digging into my palm until it hurt.
"I never forgot her," I whispered back, staring at the empty white walls of my expensive prison. "Now, we just have to figure out where she went—and why she sent you to me alone."
