Chapter 4 - The Tower in the SkyThe vehicle traveled in total silence through the flooded streets of Manhattan, crossing into the upper East Side.
Instead of stopping at her small, humble apartment in Brooklyn, the armored convoy pulled into the subterranean garage of a glass skyscraper overlooking the East River—the Sanna Tower.
"This isn't my apartment," Nadia said sharply as Dario opened her car door.
"Your apartment in Brooklyn has one lock, a wooden door, and a ground-floor fire escape," Cael explained, stepping out beside her. "Morchetti’s men would have breached it before midnight. You stay here tonight."
"You don't get to kidnap me under the guise of chivalry, Cael!" Nadia snapped, her temper finally breaking through her calm veneer. "I have a life! I have students I teach on Thursday mornings! I have a cat!"
"Dario is already retrieving your cat," Cael said smoothly, walking beside her toward the private penthouse elevator. "And your Thursday morning students have been granted full scholarships to the Juilliard Preparatory Division, paid for by the Sanna Foundation."
Nadia stopped dead in her tracks, her mouth opening in sheer disbelief. "You... you bought off my students?!"
"I secured your schedule," Cael corrected gently, holding the elevator door open for her. "So you can focus on staying alive."
The penthouse occupied the entire eightieth floor. When the elevator doors slid open, Nadia stepped onto deep plush carpeting that muffled every footstep. The air tasted clean, faintly scented with white tea and cedar.
"There are no steps on this floor," Cael guided her softly by her elbow. "The floor plan is open. To your left is a grand piano and a terrace. To your right is a private bedroom suite with a heated marble bath. My quarters are across the hall."
Nadia tapped her cane against the baseboards, mapping the dimensions of the room. "Why are you doing this, Cael? Truly? A man in your position doesn't bring a blind musician to his penthouse out of guilt over a lobby bump."
Cael walked over to the floor-to-ceiling glass wall, looking out over the rain-slicked city lights below.
"Twelve years ago," Cael spoke softly, his deep voice carrying a dark, haunting resonance. "I was twenty-four years old. My uncle ran the family operations in Lower Manhattan. He wanted to clear a block of commercial buildings in Brooklyn to build a supply depot."
Nadia froze, her cane stopping mid-arc against the carpet.
"My uncle hired a local enforcement crew to torch a workshop on that block," Cael continued, his back still turned to her. "A luthier's shop. I found out about the hit twenty minutes before the fires were set. I drove there as fast as I could... but I was too late."
Nadia’s breath hitched in her throat. Her heart began to race like a trapped bird. "The fire..."
Cael turned slowly to face her, his eyes filled with a profound, agonizing grief that had haunted him for over a decade.
"I pulled a twelve-year-old girl out of the burning back room," Cael whispered, his voice breaking slightly. "Her hands were burned, her face was covered in soot, and she was clutching a shattered wooden violin neck. I carried her to the ambulance before my uncle’s men could find her."
Nadia lowered her cane, tears welling in her blind, dark eyes as twelve years of buried memories rushed back into her mind like a flood.
May you like
"The man in the smoke..." Nadia whispered, her voice trembling violently. "The man who wrapped me in a leather jacket and told me to keep breathing..."
"It was me, Nadia," Cael said softly, stepping across the room until he stood directly in front of her. "I killed my uncle three days later for what he did to your father. I destroyed every man responsible for that fire. But I spent twelve years searching for the girl with the silver voice who survived the night."
