Chapter 7 - The Ghost on Miller Street
The rain picked up as Roman’s unmarked black town car slipped through the deserted industrial grid of the city's east side. Inside the cabin, the heavy scent of aged leather and clean rain hung thick in the air, contrasting sharply with the suffocating silence between them.
Harper sat rigidly against the passenger door, staring blankly out the window as the neon signs of late-night diners and shuttered warehouses blurred into streaks of red and green. Her hands were clenched so tightly in her lap her knuckles looked translucent.
“You don't have to come inside with me,” Harper said quietly, her voice sounding hollow, detached from her own body. “This isn't your fight. Whatever game someone is playing with my past, it has nothing to do with the Moretti family.”
Roman didn’t take his eyes off the wet asphalt ahead, his hands resting easily on the leather steering wheel. “Anyone who leaves messages with my property and my employees makes it my business, Harper. Besides, you think I’m going to let the only person in this city who can talk to my mother without sounding like a corporate auctioneer walk into a trap alone?”
“This isn't a joke, Roman,” she snapped, turning her head to glare at him. It was the first time she had dropped his title, but neither of them seemed to notice. “If what that note implies is true... if someone has been manipulating me for three years... I’m walking into a slaughterhouse.”
“Then we bring our own weapons,” Roman replied flatly.
He pulled the car sharply into the curb of a dead-end street lined with dilapidated, turn-of-the-century tenement buildings. Number 142 loomed ahead like a rotting tooth, its windows dark and broken, the rusted iron fire escape hanging crookedly from the second floor.
The car engine died with a soft purr. The sudden quiet of the street felt heavier than the storm.
Roman reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a heavy, matte-black firearm, checking the magazine with a practiced, fluid click before sliding it snugly into a holster beneath his jacket.
Harper swallowed hard, her throat painfully dry. She pushed open her door, stepping out into the cold, knee-deep puddles of Miller Street. The rain beat a relentless tattoo against her jacket as she walked toward the rusted iron gate of the tenement.
The front door of 142 wasn't locked. It hung off a single hinge, groaning softly in the midnight wind.
Harper pushed it open, stepping into a pitch-black foyer that smelled of damp wood, chemical bleach, and old copper. Roman was right behind her, his large frame a solid, comforting wall of warmth in the freezing dark.
“Stay behind me,” Roman murmured, drawing his weapon as his tactical flashlight flared to life, cutting a brilliant white tunnel through the dust and decay of the hallway.
They moved in tandem past empty mailboxes and peeling wallpaper until they reached the base of a central staircase. At the top of the stairs, a single strip of yellow light bled out from under a closed wooden door.
And from behind that door came a sound that made Harper’s blood freeze solid in her veins.
It was the faint, rhythmic tapping of knuckles against a wooden desk.
Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.
May you like
It was the exact cadence Leo used to use when he wanted her attention across a crowded room.
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