Chapter 3 – Gathering
2207 Words
GEMMA
The apartment above the gallery was too quiet at seven fifty in the morning.
I had been awake since five, staring at the ceiling, the card still in my back pocket, the message still burning in my phone.
I had not slept. I had lain in bed replaying every word Marcus Steele had said, every look he had given me. The way he said your grandmother like the words had weight.
I pulled on yesterday's jeans and walked downstairs. The gallery greeted me with morning light cutting through the front windows, illuminating everything I had built with my own hands—the frames, the walls, the counters I had sanded until my knees ached. This was mine. Grandma Rose's. The only inheritance that mattered.
I stopped at the window and watched the street.
New York was waking up. Coffee carts rattling. Taxis honking. People walking fast, heads down, already late for something. Normal people with normal lives who did not spend their mornings waiting for a billionaire to explain why he knew about their father.
My phone buzzed.
Leon: You sure you do not want me there?
I typed back: I am sure.
Leon: Text me the second it is over.
I shoved the phone in my pocket and waited.
At seven fifty eight, a black car pulled up outside. Not a taxi. Something low and quiet and expensive. The kind of car that did not belong on my block.
The door opened. Marcus Steele stepped out.
He was dressed differently today—dark coat, no tie, but still that same stillness. That same way of moving like the world moved around him, not the other way. He looked at the gallery window. Looked at me standing behind it.
I did not move.
He walked to the door. I unlocked it before he could knock.
The morning light fell between us. He was taller than I remembered. Or maybe I just had not let myself notice the first time.
"You are here," he said.
"You left me a note about my father." I could not wait. I went straight into why I was here this early.
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "I did."
I stepped back, letting him in. "Then talk."
He walked past me, and I caught the scent of him—something clean and cold, like winter air over stone. He stopped in the center of the gallery, the same spot he had stood yesterday, and looked at the walls.
"Your father and mine," he said slowly, "were partners. A long time ago."
The words landed like stones dropped into still water.
I stared at him. Richard Lawson had never mentioned partners. He had never mentioned anything from before I existed, except the empire he built with his bare hands, the fortune he made from nothing, the name he used to convince the world he was something he was not.
"I do not know anything about that," I said.
"I know." He paused. "That is why I am here."
I waited.
He reached into his coat and pulled out an envelope—not the same one from yesterday. This one was older. Thicker. The paper had that particular yellowing that time leaves behind.
"What is that?" My voice came out quieter than I intended.
"Letters. Documents. Things my father left." He held it out. "I have spent years trying to understand what happened between them. But these papers—they are incomplete. There are pieces missing."
I did not take the envelope. "What does this have to do with me?"
He studied my face for a long moment. "Your grandmother. She kept records. Your father's dealings. The partnership. All of it."
My chest tightened. Grandma Rose had kept a lot of things—journals, documents, a safe I had never been able to open. She had told me once, When I am gone, you will know what to do with them. But I had never looked. I had been too afraid of what I would find.
"How do you know what she kept?"
"Because I have been looking for answers for a long time," he said. "And everyone who had them either will not talk or cannot."
The words hung between us. I thought of the journals in her nightstand. The safe in her closet.
"You want my grandmother's records," I said slowly.
"I want to understand what happened." His voice was steady, calm. "Your father and mine. The partnership ended badly. My father lost everything. I have spent years trying to piece together why."
I crossed my arms. "So you have been trying to buy my family's businesses because of something that happened before I was born?"
Something flickered in his eyes. Almost human. Almost.
"Your family's businesses," he said quietly, "were built on things I am still trying to understand. But you—" He stopped.
"I what?"
He looked at me then, really looked, and for a moment he seemed almost uncertain. "You are not what I expected."
"I do not know what that means."
"It means your grandmother raised you differently." He placed the envelope on the reception desk between us. "I need your help, Ms. Lawson. I need to see what she kept."
I stared at the envelope. Then at him.
"Why should I trust you?"
"You should not." He did not blink. "But you should know what your father is capable of. And those records—they will tell you."
My heart was pounding. I thought of Richard Lawson's letters, the threats, the way he had erased me from his life like I had never existed. I thought of Grandma Rose, whispering before she died, The truth is in the safe, Gemma. When you are ready.
I was not ready. But maybe I would never be.
"I will think about it," I said.
Marcus nodded slowly. He reached into his coat again and pulled out a card—a different one, with a phone number handwritten on the back.
"When you are ready," he said, "call me."
I took the card. Our fingers almost touched. His skin was cold.
He walked to the door, then paused at the threshold. "Be careful, Ms. Lawson. There are people who do not want you looking into the past."
He left before I could answer.
I stood in the center of my gallery, the envelope in one hand and the card in the other, and watched his car pull away.
My phone buzzed again.
Leon: You okay?
I tried to understand everything that was going on. But I could not even think.
I do not know, I typed. Then I deleted it.
Fine, I sent instead.
But I was not fine. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew: whatever was in that safe, whatever Marcus Steele was really looking for—it was going to change everything.
I looked up at the ceiling—at the apartment above, where the safe sat hidden in her closet.
I did not move. I just stood there, the envelope still in my hand, the card still cold against my palm.
I remembered Grandma Rose's words again.
I had heard those words a hundred times. Every birthday. Every Christmas. Every time I called her crying after Richard's lawyers sent another letter. She had never explained what truth she meant. She had just looked at me with those tired, knowing eyes and said, When you are ready.
I was not ready at seventeen. I was not ready at twenty two, when she died and left me the gallery and the safe and a key I had never used.
But maybe now—
I shook my head. No. I could not let Marcus Steele rush me. He was a stranger. A billionaire who had been trying to buy my family's businesses for a year. He was not my friend. He was not my ally.
But he knew things. Things about my father. About the partnership. About Grandma Rose's records.
Maybe it was time to find out why.
I climbed the stairs, the envelope tucked under my arm, and walked to Grandma Rose's room—the room I had kept exactly as she left it. The safe sat in her closet, hidden behind her winter coats.
I knelt down and touched the cold metal.
The key was around my neck. It had been there for five years.
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