Chapter 2 - The Empty Room
The screen of my phone felt ice-cold against my palm. The timestamp on the text read 10:42 PM—two minutes ago.
“What is it?” Dominic’s voice cut through the hum of the HVAC system. He was already moving, his long strides crossing the suite toward me with a speed that defied his calm demeanor.
I didn't answer. I held the phone out so the light caught the image.
Dominic’s expression didn't shift into surprise; it hardened into something lethal. The scar running down his temple seemed to pale against his darkening skin. He didn't ask who sent it. He already knew.
“Vance,” he murmured, more to himself than to me. He reached past me, lifting the cream-colored folder and sliding the envelope and photographs inside with a single, practiced motion. “Reynolds! Get the car. Now.”
The guard by the door nodded once and vanished into the hallway.
“Wait,” I said, backing away toward the door. “My mother—she can barely walk three steps without an oxygen tank. If Vance’s people took her—”
“They didn't take her to hurt her,” Dominic interrupted, grabbing my arm with a grip that was firm but not bruising. His fingers were warm, steady, and entirely immovable. “They took her to draw us out. Vance knows the ledger is tied to her memory. As her health fails, he thinks she told you where it is.”
“I don't know anything about a ledger!” My voice cracked, the panic finally breaking through the numbness. “I spent my entire morning worrying about whether I could afford a box of groceries and a prescription refill! I clean tables for a living, Mr. Castellano! I don't run criminal syndicates!”
“I know you don't,” he said, his tone softening just enough to make it terrifying. He looked down at me, and for a second, the dangerous boss of Chicago vanished, leaving only a man weighed down by an old, heavy debt. “Which is why we are going to get her back before Vance realizes that neither of you knows a damn thing.”
We didn't take the elevator. Dominic led me down a private service stairwell at the back of the East Wing, his hand resting lightly at the small of my back to guide me through the heavy fire doors. Down, down, past concrete walls and flickering fluorescent lights, until we reached the underground valet garage where a black town car was idling with its headlights off.
Reynolds stood by the rear door, holding it open.
“Is the team in position?” Dominic asked as he bundled me into the back seat.
“In position,” Reynolds replied, sliding into the driver's seat. “Though Vance’s men aren't subtle tonight. They left a tail on the west exit.”
“Let them follow us for two blocks, then lose them,” Dominic ordered, climbing in beside me and pulling the heavy door shut. The interior smelled of leather, expensive cologne, and rain.
As the car glided out of the subterranean garage into the damp Chicago night, I pressed my forehead against the cool glass of the window. The streets were slick with a late-October drizzle, casting long, blurred reflections of neon signs across the pavement.
“Why didn't you protect her?” I whispered into the dark cabin.
Dominic was looking out the opposite window, watching the city blur past. He didn't look at me when he answered. “Because she asked me not to. When a woman like your mother spends twenty years building a fortress out of ordinary life, you don't tear down the walls unless you're ready to invite the war inside.”
“And now the war is here.”
“It never left,” he replied quietly. “It was just waiting for you to clock out.”
Thirty minutes later, the car didn't stop at the main entrance of the St. Jude Care Center. Reynolds pulled into the unlit delivery alley behind the kitchen, where industrial trash bins sat like wet metal monoliths under a flickering sodium light.
The back door of the facility was propped open with a rubber doorstop.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I reached for the door handle, but Dominic’s hand caught my wrist. His skin was warm, his pulse steady against mine.
“Stay behind me,” he said, reaching inside his jacket. When he pulled his hand out, he wasn't holding a weapon; he was pulling on a pair of leather driving gloves, his movements unhurried, terrifyingly calm. “If anyone comes through that door, you don't run. You drop behind the industrial bins and you stay down.”
“She’s my mother,” I hissed, pulling my wrist free. “I’m not hiding.”
I pushed the door open before he could stop me and stepped into the linoleum-floored service hallway of the care center. The hum of the commercial freezers echoed through the passage. Room 304 was only forty feet down the hall, past the laundry room and the nurse's station.
The door to Room 304 was standing ajar.
A single streak of yellow light spilled across the scuffed floor tiles. I crept forward, my black serving shoes silent against the wax, holding my breath so hard my lungs burned.
I reached the doorframe and peered inside.
The bed was empty. The gray blanket was thrown back, revealing a crumpled sheet. An IV pole stood abandoned in the corner, its plastic tube dripping clear saline onto the linoleum, plip, plip, plip.
Standing by the window, looking out at the rain, was a tall man in a dark trench coat. He was holding an empty oxygen mask in one hand, turning it over slowly.
He didn't turn around when I stepped into the room.
May you like
“Grace,” Arthur Vance said, his voice smooth and unnervingly polite. “I was wondering when Dominic’s shadow would catch up. Though I must admit, I thought he'd bring you through the front door.”
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