I hadn't slept properly in four days.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Vincent Morrison's smile in the red emergency lighting, or that photograph of me and Daniel in the elevator. Every shadow on the street could be one of Vincent's watchers. Every unexpected noise made me jump like I was already guilty of crimes I hadn't committed yet.
Which, depending on how you looked at it, maybe I was.
By Wednesday morning, I looked like death warmed over. Dark circles that makeup couldn't hide, hands that trembled when I tried to pour coffee, and a nervous energy that made customers glance at me twice. Marcus took one look and sent me home.
"Emma, you look like you haven't slept since the Clinton administration. Go home. Rest. Don't come back until you look human again."
If only rest could fix what was wrong with me.
Back in my shoebox apartment, I spread the photos from Daniel's phone across my kitchen table like I was laying out evidence at a crime scene. The images were grainy from being photographed in dim light, but clear enough to make my blood run cold.
Chen Investment Partners.
My father's old firm, now run by his former business partner David Chen. No relation to me despite the name, but he'd been Dad's friend for twenty years. A decent man trying to run an honest business in a world full of sharks.
Vincent's emails laid out a systematic plan to destroy Chen Investment through coordinated market manipulation. Stock price attacks starting next Monday. Orchestrated client withdrawals. Planted stories in financial media about "accounting irregularities" and "management instability."
By month's end, Chen Investment would be worthless, and Vincent would acquire their client list and assets for a fraction of their value.
Just like he'd done to my father.
I stared at the timeline until my eyes burned. I could stop this. One phone call to David Chen, one warning about what was coming, and he could prepare defenses. Alert his clients. Maybe even turn the attack back on Vincent.
But if I warned David, Vincent would know someone had access to his private communications. He'd know his son's phone was compromised. And then he'd start asking questions I couldn't answer.
Questions that would lead him straight to me.
My phone rang, making me jump. Daniel's name on the screen sent my pulse racing for reasons I didn't want to examine.
"Emma? I know you called in sick, but I was hoping we could have lunch. There's something important I need to talk to you about."
Something in his voice—urgency mixed with exhaustion—made me pause. "I don't know, Daniel. I'm really not feeling well—"
"Please. Emma, this is... it's about my father. About things I've discovered. I need to tell someone, and I trust you."
Trust. The word hit like a physical blow.
"Where?"
"Café Luna, near Union Square. Do you know it?"
I did. Small, quiet, the kind of place people went for conversations they didn't want overheard.
"Give me an hour."
---
Café Luna smelled like espresso and secrets. Daniel was already there when I arrived, hunched over a corner table with two cups of untouched coffee growing cold in front of him. He looked almost as rough as I felt—hair uncombed, stubble along his jaw, shadows under his eyes that suggested he'd been wrestling with demons.
"Thank you for coming," he said, standing to brush a kiss across my cheek. The casual intimacy of it made my chest ache.
"You sounded upset."
"I am upset. Sit, please."
I slid into the booth across from him, noting how his hands wouldn't stay still. Drumming on the table, adjusting his coffee cup, running through his hair. Classic signs of someone about to confess something that would change everything.
"Daniel, what's wrong?"
"Everything." He leaned forward, lowering his voice to barely above a whisper. "Emma, I need to tell you something, and I need you to promise you won't run away when you hear it."
My mouth went dry. "Okay."
"I've been investigating my father. Not just wondering about inconsistencies or having vague suspicions—actually investigating. I hired a private detective, accessed confidential files, followed money trails." His voice cracked slightly. "Emma, my father is a criminal. Not just unethical—criminal."
The words I'd been waiting three years to hear, coming from the lips of the person who could destroy Vincent Morrison completely.
"What kind of criminal?"
Daniel pulled out a manila folder thick enough to be a novel and slid it across the table. "Systematic embezzlement. Client accounts drained over decades, assets transferred to shell corporations, life savings just... gone. And anyone who threatened to expose him ended up destroyed."
I opened the folder with trembling fingers. Bank statements, wire transfer records, email chains, photographs of forged documents—enough evidence to put Vincent away for the rest of his life. More than enough.
"There's something else," Daniel continued, his voice tight with pain. "Richard Chen. The man who tried to expose my father five years ago. Dad didn't just ruin him financially—he had him killed."
My heart stopped beating for several seconds. "What?"
"Made it look like suicide after financial collapse, but it was murder. Cold, calculated murder to protect the business." Daniel's hands were shaking now. "Emma, my entire life is built on blood money. Every meal I've eaten, every school I attended, every dollar in my trust fund—it's all stolen from people whose lives my father destroyed."
I stared at the evidence spread between us, my vision blurring. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I can't live with it anymore. And because..." He reached across the table to take my hand, his fingers warm and gentle. "Because I'm falling in love with you, and I can't start something real while living a lie this big."
The words hit like bullets. Love. He was falling in love with me—the woman who'd been using him since day one, who'd been lying about everything, who was planning to tear his world apart.
"Daniel—"
"I know it's insane. I know we've only known each other for a few weeks. But Emma, when we were trapped in that elevator, talking in the dark, I felt something I've never felt before. Like I could tell you anything and you'd understand. Like you'd still see something good in me even after knowing the worst."
His thumb traced circles on my knuckles—the same gesture that had once felt like manipulation now felt like a dagger through my heart.
"What are you going to do with this?" I gestured at the folder.
"Turn him in. FBI, SEC, whoever will listen. I've already reached out to a federal prosecutor who specializes in white-collar crime." Daniel's jaw was set with grim determination. "It'll destroy me too. The company, my inheritance, probably my freedom once they start investigating how much I knew. But I can't keep living on other people's blood."
"That's..." I had to clear my throat. "That's incredibly brave."
"It's not brave. It's the absolute minimum requirement for being human." He squeezed my hand. "Emma, I want you to know that whatever happens when this all comes out, whatever gets revealed in the investigation, you mean something to me. Something real and honest in a life that's been built on lies."
The guilt was suffocating. Here was Daniel, ready to sacrifice everything for justice, pouring his heart out to someone who'd been deceiving him since the first moment they met.
"Daniel, I need to tell you—"
My phone rang, sharp and insistent. Sarah's name on the screen. I almost ignored it, but something in the urgency of the ring made me answer.
"Emma, thank God. Where are you?"
"Having lunch. What's wrong?"
"It's your mom. She collapsed at work this morning—they rushed her to Mount Sinai. Emma, it's bad. They're talking about immediate treatment, about payment plans, about..." Sarah's voice broke. "About what happens if you can't afford what she needs."
The café spun around me. "How bad?"
"Bad enough that they want to discuss options. You need to get here now."
The line went dead. I stared at the phone, my mind struggling to process what I'd just heard.
"Emma?" Daniel's voice seemed to come from underwater. "What happened?"
"My mother. She's in the hospital. I have to go."
"Let me come with you—"
"No." I stood on unsteady legs. "This is family stuff. Private."
"Emma, please. Whatever it is, let me help."
The concern in his voice, the genuine care, made everything ten times worse. "You can't help with this, Daniel. Nobody can."
I grabbed my purse and headed for the door, leaving Daniel's evidence folder on the table. Evidence that could destroy Vincent Morrison. Evidence that Daniel had trusted me with because he thought I was someone worth loving.
---
Mount Sinai's financial services office had the particular atmosphere of a place where hope went to die—fluorescent lighting, beige everything, and the smell of industrial disinfectant mixed with desperation.
The financial counselor was a woman in her fifties with tired eyes and the practiced compassion of someone who delivered bad news for a living.
"Ms. Chen, your mother's condition is serious. The treatments she requires are... comprehensive."
"What does that mean in dollars?"
"We're looking at approximately sixty thousand for the next three months. That's just to stabilize her current symptoms and prevent further deterioration."
Sixty thousand dollars. More money than I'd see in three years of making lattes.
"And if I can't pay?"
"We'd have to transfer her to a county facility. They provide care, but..." The pause said everything. "The level of treatment wouldn't be the same."
"She'd die there."
"I can't make medical predictions, but the resources available at public facilities are... limited."
I looked out the window at the city sprawling below, thinking about options that didn't exist. Three thousand in savings. Credit cards already maxed from previous medical bills. No family with money, no friends with trust funds.
"How long do I have?"
"Her current insurance authorization expires Friday. After that, we'd need to see payment arrangements or begin transfer procedures."
After Friday, my mother would become another victim in Vincent Morrison's war against my family. First Dad, now her.
Unless.
I thought about Daniel's folder, still sitting on our table at Café Luna. Thought about Vincent's plans for David Chen. Thought about Daniel's trust, his love, his willingness to sacrifice everything for justice.
And I thought about the one person in my life who had the power to save my mother—if I could bring myself to cross that line.
My phone was in my hand before I'd consciously decided to make the call.
"Emma?" Daniel's voice was warm with concern. "How is she?"
"Not good. Daniel, I need to ask you something, and if it makes you uncomfortable, just say no."
"What do you need?"
"Money. A lot of money. For her medical bills." The words felt like razor blades in my throat.
Silence on the other end. Long enough for me to imagine him realizing what kind of person asks for money after knowing someone for a few weeks.
"How much?" he asked finally.
"Sixty thousand dollars."
Another pause. Then: "What bank do you use? I'll have it transferred today."
The casual way he said it—like sixty thousand was grocery money—made me want to cry. "Daniel, I can't just take your money—"
"You're not taking anything. I'm giving it." His voice was firm, decided. "Emma, you matter to me. Your mother matters because she matters to you. Let me do this one decent thing with money I probably don't deserve anyway."
"I don't know when I could pay you back—"
"I don't want it back. Emma, listen to me—I'm about to lose everything anyway. My trust fund, my inheritance, probably my freedom. Let me use some of it to help someone who actually deserves it."
After I hung up, I sat in that depressing office and tried to figure out when everything had gotten so twisted. When Daniel had stopped being a means to an end and become someone I genuinely cared about. When my quest for justice had become entangled with real emotions and impossible choices.
Forty-five minutes later, my phone buzzed with a bank notification.
Sixty thousand dollars. Deposited from Daniel Morrison's personal account.
I stared at the screen until the numbers became meaningless.
Vincent Morrison was planning to destroy another innocent family, and I had evidence that could stop him. Evidence that Daniel had given me out of love and trust, along with enough money to save my mother's life.
But using that evidence would destroy Daniel too. The man who'd just handed me salvation without asking for anything in return except the chance to be decent with blood money.
Some lines, once you cross them, change everything.
I was about to find out which side of the moral universe I really belonged on.
**End of Chapter 6**