Chapter 6 - The Woman Who Refused to Become His WeaknessBy the third week of Chloe's recovery, Vincent Rossi had developed three habits that would have embarrassed him if anyone had been foolish enough to mention them.
He checked his phone every morning to see whether Chloe had sent a message.
He memorized the schedule of her physical therapy appointments.
And he had begun buying groceries he had no intention of eating because Chloe once mentioned that she liked strawberries.
The strawberries were becoming a problem.
His refrigerator contained four containers of them, two bags of spinach, oat milk, and a jar of peanut butter he had purchased after Chloe complained that the temporary apartment's kitchen was poorly stocked.
Marco DeLuca stood in the doorway of Vincent's kitchen and surveyed the contents.
“Sir, I have a question.”
“Then ask it.”
“Are we opening a grocery store?”
Vincent closed the refrigerator.
“No.”
“Because the strawberries suggest otherwise.”
Vincent looked at him.
Marco remained expressionless.
“I'll have the excess donated,” Vincent said.
“Of course.”
“And if you mention this conversation to anyone, I'll transfer you to the company's accounting department.”
Marco's face remained perfectly neutral.
“Understood, sir.”
He left.
Vincent stared at the refrigerator.
Then he took out his phone.
Vincent: Do you need anything from the grocery store?
Chloe replied three minutes later.
Chloe: Why?
Vincent: Because I'm going.
Chloe: You own a private elevator and have someone who buys your groceries.
Vincent: I can still go to a grocery store.
Chloe: I would pay money to watch you try to choose a ripe avocado.
Vincent smiled at the screen.
Vincent: That can be arranged.
Her reply came almost immediately.
Chloe: Absolutely not. I'm not emotionally prepared to supervise you in public.
He put the phone away.
For the first time in years, the day ahead seemed less like a list of obligations and more like something he might actually enjoy.
Then Marco returned.
“Sir, Daniel Price has agreed to cooperate.”
Vincent's smile disappeared.
“Bring me the interview report.”
Daniel Price had spent eleven years protecting the Rossi family.
He had stood outside Isabella's bedroom during a robbery attempt, escorted Vincent through hostile territory, and once taken a knife wound intended for another member of the security team.
He had also stepped aside when Tommy O'Connor entered the Silver Spoon with a gun.
The contradiction had occupied Vincent's thoughts for days.
Now, sitting across from Daniel in a secure conference room, he finally understood why.
Daniel looked older than his forty-six years. His hair had thinned, his hands shook slightly, and his eyes carried the exhausted look of a man who had been awake too long with his own conscience.
Vincent sat opposite him.
“Tell me what happened.”
Daniel swallowed.
“I made a mistake.”
Vincent's voice remained quiet.
“You will tell me the truth.”
Daniel nodded.
“Three months ago, Anthony approached me. He said there were concerns about the family's security arrangements. He wanted information about your mother's schedule.”
“And you gave it to him?”
“Only the public details at first. Restaurants she visited, the times she usually arrived, the people who accompanied her.”
Vincent felt something cold settle behind his ribs.
“Why?”
“My daughter had medical bills. Her insurance had stopped covering a treatment she needed. Anthony offered to help.”
“You sold my mother's movements for money.”
Daniel lowered his eyes.
“I told myself it wasn't dangerous. I thought he wanted to know whether the security team was doing its job.”
“And when you realized what he intended?”
Daniel's silence answered the question.
Vincent leaned forward.
“You saw Tommy O'Connor enter that restaurant. You knew who he was.”
“I recognized him.”
“And you moved aside.”
Daniel's face crumpled.
“I thought he was going to scare her. I thought there would be a confrontation, maybe a warning. I didn't know he would shoot.”
“You didn't know?”
“I swear to you, I didn't know.”
Vincent looked at the man who had once helped him carry his mother's groceries into the house when she broke her ankle.
He wanted to believe that there had been a limit to Daniel's betrayal.
But the evidence was not a matter of emotion.
It was a matter of choices.
“You could have stopped him,” Vincent said.
“Yes.”
“You could have called for help.”
“Yes.”
“You could have protected the woman you were paid to protect.”
Daniel began to cry.
“Yes.”
Vincent stood.
He did not strike him. He did not threaten his family. He did not give the order that Daniel had probably spent the past several days fearing.
Instead, he said, “You will provide everything you know to the authorities. My attorneys will arrange for the evidence to be preserved. Your employment with the family is terminated.”
Daniel looked up, stunned.
“That's it?”
Vincent's expression hardened.
“You think losing your job is the punishment? You will have to live with what you did. You will have to explain it to your daughter when she is old enough to understand that the treatment you bought for her came at the cost of another woman's life.”
Daniel broke down completely.
Vincent left the room.
In the corridor, Marco followed him.
“Are you certain about handing everything over to the authorities?”
“Yes.”
“The information could expose some of our own operations.”
“Then we will deal with the consequences.”
Marco nodded.
It was not the answer he had expected.
Vincent looked toward the window at the end of the corridor.
“Someone almost killed my mother. An innocent woman was shot protecting her. I'm not going to make the same mistake by pretending that our reputation matters more than the truth.”
Marco studied him.
“Chloe has influenced you.”
Vincent turned sharply.
“Don't.”
“I wasn't criticizing you.”
“Then don't make her responsible for decisions I should have made years ago.”
Marco accepted the rebuke.
Vincent returned to his office, but the interview continued to occupy his thoughts.
He had always believed loyalty was the foundation of his world.
Now he was beginning to understand that loyalty without judgment could become an excuse for cruelty.
And he wondered how many other things he had mistaken for strength.
Chloe's first independent outing took place on a Saturday morning.
She wanted to visit a bookstore.
Not an exclusive boutique with private shopping appointments. Not a luxury department store where employees addressed her as though she were a visiting dignitary.
A bookstore.
She wanted to browse the shelves, drink an overpriced coffee, and choose a book based on the cover without anyone asking whether she required assistance.
Vincent agreed to accompany her after she made it clear that the security detail would remain discreet.
The bookstore was crowded.
Chloe loved it immediately.
She moved slowly between the shelves, occasionally stopping to examine a title. Vincent followed at a respectful distance, looking profoundly out of place among the college students, parents, and retirees.
She turned a corner and found him holding a cookbook.
“Are you planning to learn how to cook?”
“I can cook.”
Chloe stared at him.
“Name three dishes.”
“Pasta.”
“That is one dish.”
“Roasted chicken.”
“Two.”
“Eggs.”
“Eggs are not a dish.”
“They can be.”
She laughed.
A woman standing nearby glanced at them, then smiled.
For a moment, Vincent felt something almost painful.
He was standing in a bookstore with a woman who had been shot because she saved his mother, arguing about eggs.
No one was afraid of him.
No one was asking him for money.
No one was calculating the value of the conversation.
He wanted to stay there all day.
Chloe pulled a novel from the shelf.
“What do you read?”
“Reports.”
“That's depressing.”
“Biographies, occasionally.”
“Of whom?”
“People who made difficult decisions.”
She studied him.
“Do they ever make good ones?”
“Sometimes.”
“Then you should read more fiction.”
She held out the novel.
“Try this.”
He accepted it.
“What is it about?”
“People who make terrible decisions because they think they know what's best for everyone.”
Vincent looked at the cover.
“Is this a personal recommendation?”
“Entirely.”
He bought the book.
He also bought the novel Chloe had selected for herself, although he did not mention it until they reached the counter.
She noticed the second copy in the bag.
“You didn't have to do that.”
“I wanted to.”
“You understand that buying things for me doesn't automatically make me like you?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She smiled.
“Because I already like you a little, and it's becoming inconvenient.”
Vincent stopped walking.
Chloe's expression changed as she realized what she had said.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then she cleared her throat.
“I mean, you're tolerable. Occasionally.”
“Occasionally,” he repeated.
“Don't make me regret saying it.”
“I wouldn't dream of it.”
They left the bookstore together.
Outside, the wind had picked up, and Chloe shivered.
Vincent took off his coat.
She immediately shook her head.
“No.”
“You're cold.”
“I have my own coat.”
“Then put it on.”
She stared at him.
He held her gaze.
Finally, she laughed.
“You're learning.”
“I've had an excellent teacher.”
She put on her coat.
They walked to the car without touching.
Yet Chloe found herself wishing the journey were longer.
That evening, Vincent received a message from Anthony.
We need to talk. Alone.
Vincent considered ignoring it.
Instead, he replied with a time and place at the family office.
Anthony arrived twenty minutes late.
“You look different,” he said as he entered.
Vincent remained seated.
“You look exactly the same.”
Anthony smiled.
“I've heard you've been spending your weekends in bookstores.”
“Whoever told you that has too much free time.”
“People are talking.”
“People always talk.”
“They're saying the waitress has become important to you.”
Vincent's expression remained blank.
“Is there a point to this conversation?”
Anthony sat across from him.
“The family has concerns.”
“The family has not expressed those concerns to me.”
“Because everyone knows how you react when Chloe's name comes up.”
Vincent leaned back.
“Explain.”
“You've become protective. Distracted. You're questioning people you've trusted for years because of a woman you barely know.”
“I am questioning people because one of them helped arrange an assassination attempt.”
Anthony's smile faded.
“You're making accusations without proof.”
“I haven't accused you of anything.”
“You've had my accounts reviewed.”
“As part of an investigation into a company you oversee.”
“And now you're spending time with the girl who witnessed the shooting. Do you understand how that looks?”
Vincent stood.
“It looks like I'm investigating a crime.”
Anthony rose as well.
“And if the investigation destroys the family?”
Vincent walked toward the window.
“Then we will discover what the family was built on.”
Anthony stared at him.
For the first time, the charm disappeared completely.
“You think you can change everything because a waitress made you feel guilty?”
Vincent turned.
“No. I think I can change because I finally have a reason to question what I've always accepted.”
Anthony's face tightened.
“Be careful, cousin. The people around you are not as innocent as you think.”
Vincent held his gaze.
“Neither are you.”
Anthony left without another word.
Vincent remained at the window long after the door closed.
He thought about Chloe in the bookstore, laughing over a cookbook.
He thought about her insistence that she would return to her life, no matter how difficult the process became.
And he realized that the thing he feared most was no longer losing control of his empire.
It was becoming the kind of man Chloe would eventually have to escape.
That night, Chloe received a message from an unknown number.
You should stop trusting Vincent Rossi. Ask him what happened to your father.
She read it once.
Then again.
Her father's death had been caused by complications following surgery. She had spent two years accepting the hospital's explanation, even though the bills had never made sense and one of the medical records had gone missing during an insurance dispute.
She had never connected any of it to Vincent.
Why would she?
Her father had been a maintenance supervisor at a construction company. He had lived quietly, worked hard, and never mentioned the Rossi family.
Chloe looked at the message until the screen dimmed.
Then she took a screenshot and sent it to Detective Ramirez.
A moment later, she opened Vincent's contact.
Her thumb hovered over the screen.
She wanted to call him.
She wanted him to tell her it was a lie.
But another thought stopped her.
What if he knew something?
What if the truth about her father was another part of the world he had been trying to keep hidden?
Chloe set down the phone.
She would not accuse him without evidence.
But she would not ignore the warning, either.
For the first time since the shooting, her fear had nothing to do with the possibility of being physically hurt.
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It had to do with the possibility that she was beginning to care for a man whose past might be connected to the worst loss of her life.
And she didn't know which truth would hurt more.
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