Chapter 2
Victor let my call ring until it nearly died.
Then he answered.
“Boss.”
His voice was calm.
Too calm.
I stood alone in Emily’s apartment with the flash drive in my pocket and the smell of laundry soap around me.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Warehouse meeting.”
“Which one?”
A pause.
“South Pier.”
I looked at the laptop screen.
The South Pier cameras showed no Victor.
I smiled without feeling it.
“Good. Stay there.”
“Problem?”
“Maybe.”
“With what?”
“Trust.”
Silence.
Then Victor laughed softly.
“You sound dramatic tonight.”
“I feel dramatic.”
“Want me at the house?”
“No,” I said. “I want you exactly where you are.”
Another pause.
“I’m always where you need me.”
That was the old Victor.
The loyal brother.
The man who knew what to say.
But now every word sounded like a knife with a polished handle.
I ended the call.
Then I called Marcus Vale.
Marcus was not part of my organization.
He was older.
Retired.
A man my father had once feared and respected.
Most importantly, Victor did not know I still spoke to him.
Marcus answered on the second ring.
“Adrian.”
“I need men who do not know Victor Hale.”
“That is a dangerous sentence.”
“It’s a dangerous night.”
“What did he do?”
I looked at Emily’s note.
“He took a woman from my house.”
Marcus went quiet.
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
“You know that?”
“I have to.”
Marcus sighed.
“Send me what you have.”
“No digital trail.”
“Then come to me.”
I took the flash drive, wiped the surfaces I had touched, and left Emily’s apartment through the back stairwell.
On the drive, I kept seeing Lily’s hand hooked around mine.
Pinky promise.
I had made a promise to a child who trusted me because she had no one else powerful enough to trust.
That kind of trust was heavier than fear.
At Marcus’s office, the blinds were down and the lights were low.
He sat behind an old wooden desk, white hair combed back, eyes sharp as ever.
I handed him the drive.
He read Emily’s note first.
His face did not change.
Then he opened the files on an air-gapped machine.
For twenty minutes, the room was filled only with the clicking of keys.
Finally, Marcus leaned back.
“This is not simple theft.”
“I know.”
“These names are not only your people.”
“I saw.”
“Dock workers. Drivers. Their wives. Children.”
“Families.”
Marcus nodded.
“And the Judge?”
“I do not know yet.”
He tapped a photograph of Daniel Hart.
“This man was a problem for them.”
“Emily’s husband.”
“He spoke to a federal inspector.”
“Then died in an industrial accident.”
Marcus looked at me.
“Accidents can be purchased.”
A cold pressure built behind my ribs.
I had known violence.
I had ordered it.
I had survived it.
But this was different.
Daniel Hart had been a working man with a wife and baby.
Emily had been left to bury him and raise Lily alone.
Then she walked into my house and found the truth by accident.
And Victor took her for it.
Marcus copied key files to a secure drive.
“We need the hotel.”
“What hotel?”
“Hale Maritime Holdings owns three worthless properties. Two are paper only. One still has active utilities.”
He turned the monitor.
An abandoned coastal hotel near the old ferry road.
My jaw tightened.
“Victor has her there.”
“Likely.”
“I’m going tonight.”
“You go loud, she dies.”
“I know.”
“Victor will expect your men.”
“That’s why I came to you.”
Marcus studied me.
“You look like your father when you are angry.”
“My father would have burned the hotel.”
“Yes,” Marcus said. “And killed the woman inside.”
I hated that he was right.
“What do you suggest?”
“Watch first. Confirm. Then cut the exits.”
I nodded.
“And Victor?”
Marcus’s eyes narrowed.
“If he is working for someone called the Judge, Victor is not the top.”
“I want Emily alive before revenge.”
“Good,” Marcus said. “Hold on to that thought. It may save her.”
Back at the mansion, Rose met me in the hall.
Her face was pale.
“Lily won’t sleep.”
I went upstairs.
Lily sat in my bed with Mr. Buttons tucked under her chin.
She looked too small against the pillows.
When she saw me, she whispered, “Did you find Mommy?”
“Not yet.”
Her eyes fell.
“But I found something that helps.”
“Is Mommy scared?”
I sat beside her.
“Probably.”
“Can you tell her I’m waiting?”
My throat tightened.
“I will.”
Lily touched my sleeve.
“Mr. Victor said bad people always win.”
“No,” I said.
“Do they?”
I thought about all the ways the world had proved exactly that.
Then I looked at Lily.
“Not this time.”
Rose stood at the doorway.
I saw tears shining in her eyes.
The house around us felt different now.
Every hallway had ears.
Every camera might be watched by the wrong person.
Every guard might be loyal to me.
Or to Victor.
I told Rose to move Lily into the old nursery in the east wing.
No one used it.
No one monitored it.
The cameras there had been disconnected after my mother died because my father hated reminders.
For once, his cruelty had left me a hiding place.
At midnight, Marcus sent the first confirmation.
A heat signature in the basement of the coastal hotel.
Two guards.
One vehicle.
Possible third person inside.
Emily.
My hands curled around the phone.
Then another message came.
Victor left hotel. Heading north.
That changed everything.
If Victor was leaving, he was either confident she could not escape.
Or he was going to meet the person above him.
I called Marcus.
“Tail him.”
“Already done.”
“I’m going to the hotel.”
“You have six minutes before my team reaches the south road.”
“I only need five.”
“Adrian.”
“What?”
“Do not become your father tonight.”
I ended the call without answering.
Because I did not know if I could promise that.
I took the service road alone.
No convoy.
No headlights for the last mile.
The hotel appeared through the fog like a corpse left standing.
Broken windows.
Peeling paint.
A dead neon sign.
I parked behind a collapsed maintenance shed and moved through the side entrance Marcus had marked.
Inside, the air smelled of salt, mold, and old cigarettes.
I heard voices below.
Two men.
Bored.
Complaining.
They were not Victor’s best.
That insulted me.
Emily Hart deserved better enemies.
I moved quietly down the back stairwell.
One guard stood by the basement hall.
The other smoked near the boiler room.
I handled the first before he could speak.
The second reached for his gun.
I pressed mine to his throat.
“Keys.”
He dropped them.
“Who is inside?”
“I don’t know.”
I pressed harder.
“Wrong answer.”
“The maid,” he choked. “Hale said just watch the maid.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
I zip-tied him to the boiler pipe and took the keys.
At the steel door, I stopped.
For the first time all night, fear touched me.
Not for myself.
For what I might find.
I unlocked the door.
Emily Hart sat on the floor with her back against the wall.
Her wrists were bound in front of her.
Her face was bruised.
But her eyes were alive.
She looked up.
For half a second, she thought I was another nightmare.
Then she whispered, “Mr. Mercer?”
I crouched.
“Emily.”
Her face broke.
“Lily?”
“She’s safe.”
A sob escaped her.
“She saw him. I didn’t know she saw him. I tried to keep her upstairs.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t leave her.”
“I know.”
Her shoulders shook.
“I would never leave her.”
“I know,” I said again, because it was the only thing that mattered.
I cut the ties from her wrists.
She winced.
Rage moved through me, clean and bright.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
She tried to stand and nearly fell.
I caught her.
She clutched my coat.
“Victor said you would kill me if I told you.”
I looked down at her.
“He lied.”
“I wanted to tell you Friday.”
“I found the note.”
Her eyes widened.
“The drive?”
“I have it.”
“Then he’ll come for Lily.”
“No,” I said. “He’ll try.”
We moved toward the door.
Then my phone buzzed.
Marcus.
Victor changed direction. Returning to hotel.
My grip tightened around Emily.
Too soon.
Far too soon.
From above, tires crunched over gravel.
Emily heard it too.
Her face went white.
“He’s back.”
I checked my gun.
“Yes.”
She grabbed my arm.
“Please. I need to see Lily.”
“You will.”
“How?”
May you like
I looked toward the basement lights as footsteps sounded overhead.
“By walking out behind me.”
