Chapter Three

Emma's POV

Grace waves her phone. "Told you she's a good person."

The corner of Nathan's mouth twitches, just barely.

"Good eye."

The two of them leave, and my phone starts buzzing nonstop with messages from family members. Some congratulate me, some question me, and one warns that Father already knows about the dock.

But I look at the meeting address Nathan just sent over and hit confirm anyway.

From this moment on, the Whitfield family doesn't answer to anyone.

My first month running the family, three warehouse managers hand in their resignations at the same time.

They've decided a twenty-five-year-old woman won't last a week, and they've already moved the south district's goods to private warehouses ahead of time, trying to force me to beg them back.

I don't beg.

That night, I bring in a team and lock down the warehouses, pull five years of shipping records, and lay it all out on the family meeting table: proof that all three of them have been skimming off the top and reselling shipments on the side.

One man's uncle slams his hand on the table and stands up. "They've worked for the Whitfield family for twenty years!"

"Which is why I didn't hand this over to the feds."

I slide the resignation papers across to them.

"Leave Chicago tonight, or go to prison in the morning. Pick one."

That earns me a grudge with the oldest faction in the family, and I lose two of my best shipping lines in the process. For the next two weeks straight, I sleep three hours a night, personally training new people to rebuild the routes and the warehouse system from scratch.

It costs me, but nobody waiting for me to fall on my face dares try anything else after that.

The dock operating rights Nathan handed over go into effect not long after. I connect the lake shipping, the rail lines, and our existing road routes into one system. Three months in, the Whitfield family's revenue doubles.

At the family meeting, Father looks over the reorganized books, pleased, and says right in front of everyone, "I should've handed this over to Emma a long time ago."

That evening, Grace invites me to a private dinner. At the agreed time, a low-key black car pulls up outside the office. The driver's window rolls down, and there's Nathan's face.

"Grace had something come up." He looks at me. "I'm here to pick you up."

I get in, and the car goes quiet except for the hum of the heater.

"You drive your sister around a lot?"

"Sometimes."

"Whose dinner is this tonight?"

"Mine."

I turn to look at him. "So Grace bailing was your last-minute decision too?"

Nathan keeps his hands on the wheel and doesn't answer.

The car crosses the Chicago River, rows of lights lining the banks. The silence stretches two blocks before he finally speaks. "Those three in the south district. You handled that well."

"You've been watching me?"

"Keeping an eye on a business partner."

"Including how many hours she sleeps a night?"

He finally glances over at me, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly.

"You're harder to deal with than the rumors say."

"Same to you."

My phone rings. Chloe's name flashes on the screen.

I pick up and put it on speaker.

"Why haven't you been answering me?" Her voice comes through sharp, filling the car. "You think just because you got the dock, you can start ignoring me?"

"Get to the point."

"The Whitfield family's only standing right now because I married Derek to keep the alliance together. You owe me. Give me five million now, and whenever I need money after this, you're giving it to me too."

Nathan doesn't say anything, just keeps his eyes on the road ahead.

I happen to get a photo from one of my contacts right then. Ten minutes ago, Derek walked into a members-only club by the river with his arm around some blonde woman.

I forward the photo to Chloe.

"How's it been going with Derek lately?"

"Great, obviously. He's always—"

She stops mid-sentence.

A few seconds later, a scream tears through the phone.

"Where is this? Who's that woman? When did you take this?"

I hang up.

Nathan says, "Your intel network moves faster than I expected."

"When you're in logistics, you have to know where every truck's headed and who's riding in it."

"Tipping off an enemy that her husband's cheating. Aren't you worried it'll just make her hate you more?"

"Whether she hates me or not doesn't change whether the photo's real."

A week later, Chloe shows up at the Whitfield estate for a family gathering.

She's half an hour late, and the second she walks in, she announces she's pregnant.

She's wearing a high-necked, long-sleeved dress, one hand resting on a stomach that's still flat.

"What's the point of women fighting so hard for power?" She sits down across from me. "A woman who's actually smart knows how to build a marriage and keep the bloodline going. Emma, you spend your days dealing with dock workers and truck drivers. If something happened to you, you wouldn't even have anyone to protect you."

Mother smiles. "How far along?"

"Six weeks."

"What did the doctor say?"

"The baby's healthy."

The room's plenty warm, but she buttons her collar all the way up and tucks her wrists into her sleeves.

Mother asks if she's too hot. Chloe says right away that she's been running cold since getting pregnant.

She reaches for her water glass, and her sleeve slides up an inch.

There's a ring of purple bruising around her wrist.

I look at her neck next. Heavy foundation, but it doesn't quite cover the bruise behind her ear, shaped like five fingers pressed in tight.