Chapter 4 - The House on West Elm
West Elm Street was everything Bellmont Heights was not.
It was a gritty, forgotten artery on the industrial east side of the city, where the asphalt was permanently cracked, the streetlights flickered with dying amber glows, and the buildings leaned against one another like exhausted workers at the end of a double shift.
The Mercedes crawled down the dark, rain-slicked alleyway until it stopped in front of a crumbling four-story brick tenement building with peeling green paint and broken iron fire escapes.
Robert stepped out into the rain, ignoring the umbrella Thomas tried to hold over him.
“Stay here with the medical team,” Robert ordered, marching toward the front entrance.
The outer door was unlocked—anyone could walk in off the street, and many did. The stairwell smelled of damp plaster, cheap cooking grease, and old bleach. Robert took the stairs two at a time, his polished shoes echoing sharply against the concrete steps until he reached the third floor.
Apt 3B.
The door was an old wooden slab with a rusted padlock chain hanging loosely from a single screw. He didn't bother knocking. He raised his right foot and kicked the door near the knob.
Crack.
The wooden frame splintered, and the door swung inward.
Robert stepped into the apartment, his hand instantly going to his coat pocket where he carried a licensed compact automatic, though he didn't need it.
The apartment was freezing. The radiator in the corner clanked uselessly, blowing out little more than lukewarm air. The walls were bare, the wallpaper peeling away in damp curls. A single overhead bulb hung from a frayed cord, illuminating a small, threadbare sofa and a makeshift kitchenette.
And on a narrow cot in the corner, covered in a patchwork quilt that looked older than she was, lay Grandma Rose.
She was wheezing horribly with every breath, her chest rising and falling in sharp, agonizing jerks. Her face was gray, her silver hair spread across a thin, flat pillow. On the nightstand beside her sat an empty glass of water and the crumpled prescription paper Anna had carried in her pocket.
“Rose,” Robert whispered, the name tearing out of him as he crossed the room and dropped to his knees beside the cot.
The old woman’s eyelids fluttered open. Her eyes, clouded with age and sickness, focused slowly on the man kneeling beside her. At first, she seemed confused, staring at his expensive coat and wet silver hair. Then recognition flashed in her gaze.
“Robert…” she rasped, her voice like sandpaper. “You… you found us.”
“Why didn't you come to me?” Robert demanded, his voice breaking as he took her cold, fragile hand in both of his. “Why did you hide her in this hellhole for ten years?”
Rose let out a bitter, rattling cough, a streak of red staining the corner of her lips. Robert immediately signaled through the shattered doorway, and two medics rushed in with an oxygen tank and a stretcher.
“We couldn't… your father…” Rose whispered, closing her eyes as the medic slipped an oxygen mask over her face. “Harrison… he had people watching us. After Elena… after she faked that crash to save the baby from him… she made me swear… if anything happened to her… never let you near Anna until Anna was old enough to choose.”
Robert felt the world tilt on its axis.
“Elena… she faked the crash?”
“She didn't die in the ocean, Robert,” Rose breathed, tears spilling over her wrinkled cheeks. “She went into hiding across the state line under an assumed name. She raised Anna until… until she passed away three years ago from a weak heart. She left Anna in my care. She told me… she told me you were a good man once, before your father poisoned you. But she was terrified your father would take Anna away and raise her to be a monster like him.”
Robert sat back on his heels, the full weight of a decade’s worth of lies crushing down upon his chest.
His father. The man who had built Miller Industries on ruthlessness, who had controlled every aspect of Robert’s life, who had orchestrated a fake tragedy to sever Robert from the only woman he had ever truly loved.
“He told me she died,” Robert whispered, his voice trembling with a rage so deep and dark it terrified even him. “He looked me in the eye and told me she was gone.”
“Your father is a monster, Robert,” Rose said, her grip tightening faintly on his fingers. “And now… now you have a choice. Are you going to let him control your daughter the way he controlled you?”
Robert looked down at the fragile, dying woman who had sacrificed her final years to keep his child safe. Then he looked around the squalid, freezing room.
In that moment, the billionaire CEO died. Only the father remained.
“No,” Robert said, his voice dropping an octave, absolute and unyielding. “He is done. This entire empire, everything he built on lies and blood—I will tear it down to the last brick if he ever comes near my daughter.”
He turned to the medics. “Stabilize her. Move her to the East Wing immediately. Put her in the room next to Anna.”
“Mr. Miller, her blood pressure is dangerously low, moving her—”
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“If she dies in this room, I will hold every single one of you responsible,” Robert snarled. “Move her!”
The medics didn't argue further. They lifted the stretcher, carefully wrapping Rose in thermal blankets, and carried her out into the rainy Chicago night toward the waiting Mercedes.
