Chapter 2 - THE MAN IN THE GRAY SUITLena had cleaned the Halcyon Hotel’s presidential suite dozens of times, but she had never imagined entering it surrounded by armed men.
Victor Romano walked through the doors first.
Dominic followed.
Lena came behind them wearing Victor’s jacket over her maid uniform while security officers spread through the hallway.
Nobody spoke until the doors locked.
Victor turned.
“Start from the beginning.”
Lena looked around.
The suite was bigger than the apartment she shared with her twelve-year-old brother Noah in Queens.
Marble fireplace.
Floor-to-ceiling windows.
Original artwork.
Furniture that probably cost more than she earned in five years.
None of it mattered.
“The waiter’s name is Adrian Cole,” she said. “At least that’s what everyone calls him.”
Dominic stood near the windows.
“How well do you know him?”
“I don’t.”
“You ever date him?”
Lena stared.
“No.”
“Fight with him?”
“No.”
“Does he owe you money?”
“No.”
“Do you owe him money?”
Victor lifted one hand.
“That’s enough.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“We don’t know her.”
“She just knocked poison out of my hand.”
“She could be part of it.”
Lena looked at Dominic.
“Then why would I stop you from drinking it?”
Dominic’s eyes hardened.
Victor almost smiled.
“Reasonable question.”
Dominic said nothing.
Victor moved toward a cabinet, poured water, and handed Lena a glass.
Her fingers shook.
Victor noticed.
“Are you afraid of me?”
“Yes.”
His eyebrows lifted slightly.
Most people probably lied.
Lena didn’t have the energy.
“But I’m more afraid of whoever put something in that champagne.”
Victor leaned against the desk.
“Tell me about the man.”
“Late forties, maybe fifty. Gray suit. About six feet. Dark hair going silver. Scar beside his left ear.”
Dominic stopped breathing for half a second.
Lena noticed.
“And a ring,” she added.
“What kind?” Victor asked.
“Black stone. Oval. It had something engraved on it.”
Victor glanced at Dominic.
“What?”
Lena searched her memory.
“A bird. Maybe an eagle.”
Dominic walked toward the minibar and braced both hands against it.
Victor’s expression went flat.
“You know him.”
Dominic didn’t answer.
“Dominic.”
“I might.”
“Name.”
“Silas Kane.”
Lena expected Victor to react.
He didn’t.
That somehow frightened her more.
“Who is Silas Kane?” she asked.
Dominic looked at her as though she had forgotten her place.
Victor answered anyway.
“A dead man.”
Lena stared.
Victor continued.
“Or someone who was supposed to be dead.”
Ten years earlier, Silas Kane had worked for Victor’s father, Antonio Romano.
He wasn’t officially part of any company.
He specialized in solving problems.
Then money disappeared.
People disappeared.
And when Antonio discovered Silas had been selling information to rivals, Silas vanished during a storm off Long Island.
His boat had been recovered.
His body never was.
Dominic said, “If Kane is alive, tonight wasn’t about poison.”
Victor looked toward Manhattan glittering beyond the windows.
“No.”
“It was a message.”
Lena suddenly understood the four words that had made Dominic pale.
He hadn’t known poison was coming.
He had recognized the method.
“What method?”
Dominic looked at her.
Victor answered.
“Kane once killed a man at a wedding with poisoned champagne.”
Silence.
Lena wished she could leave.
Then she remembered the ballroom.
“He’s still downstairs.”
Victor turned sharply.
“What?”
“The gray-suit man. I saw him after the waiter ran.”
Dominic swore.
“Where?”
“Near the east columns.”
Victor immediately reached for his phone.
But before he could dial, someone knocked.
Three short knocks.
Pause.
Two more.
Dominic opened the door only after checking the camera.
A security man entered.
“Hotel sweep is almost complete.”
“And Kane?” Victor asked.
“No sign.”
“Adrian?”
“Nothing.”
Victor’s gaze narrowed.
The guard hesitated.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“We checked the banquet staff roster.”
“And?”
“There is no Adrian Cole.”
Lena felt cold.
Her manager had called him Adrian.
She had seen him around the hotel for weeks.
“How can there be no Adrian?”
The guard continued.
“The employee identification number belongs to a man named Thomas Bell.”
“Where is Bell?”
“Philadelphia.”
Victor looked at Dominic.
“So Kane planted someone inside the hotel weeks ago.”
“Maybe months.”
The security guard cleared his throat.
“We also found this.”
He placed a small plastic bag on the table.
Inside was a silver pin.
A black eagle was stamped into the metal.
The same symbol Lena had seen on Silas Kane’s ring.
Victor studied it.
“Where?”
“Under Mr. Romano’s table.”
Dominic’s expression darkened.
“A warning.”
Victor shook his head.
“No.”
He looked toward Lena.
“An invitation.”
“To what?” she asked.
Victor didn’t answer.
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
Every person in the room froze.
Victor accepted the call and switched it to speaker.
A calm male voice filled the suite.
“Ten years is a long time, Victor.”
Dominic reached for a device to trace the call.
Victor gave a subtle nod.
“Silas.”
Lena’s stomach tightened.
“So you do remember me.”
“I remember traitors.”
Silas chuckled.
“I remember children pretending to understand their fathers.”
Victor’s hand curled around the phone.
“What do you want?”
“I wanted you to drink the champagne.”
“That seems obvious.”
“No. If I wanted you dead, you would be dead.”
Dominic silently gestured that he was working on the trace.
Silas continued.
“I wanted to know whether fate still favored the Romanos.”
His voice changed.
“And apparently fate wears a maid’s uniform.”
Lena stopped breathing.
Silas knew who she was.
Victor’s eyes found hers.
Silas said, “Ask Lena what happened to her father.”
Her glass slipped from her fingers.
It hit the carpet without breaking.
Victor straightened.
Lena whispered, “What?”
“You heard me,” Silas said.
“My father died when I was nine.”
“Yes.”
Lena’s heartbeat pounded in her ears.
“He died in a car accident.”
Silas laughed softly.
“No, sweetheart.”
Victor’s expression changed.
Silas delivered the next words almost gently.
“Your father died because he worked for Antonio Romano.”
The phone went dead.
Nobody moved.
Lena stared at Victor.
“My father was an accountant.”
Victor’s face had lost color.
“What was his name?”
“Daniel Hart.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
Victor slowly lowered the phone.
Lena saw the answer before anyone spoke.
“You knew him.”
Victor looked at her.
“Yes.”
The room tilted.
“What did he do for your father?”
Dominic said, “Lena—”
“No. I want him to tell me.”
Victor remained silent long enough to make the truth terrifying.
Finally he said, “Your father kept two sets of books.”
Lena’s throat tightened.
“For who?”
“My family.”
She backed away.
“No.”
“He discovered someone stealing from my father.”
“Silas.”
“Yes.”
Lena remembered her mother crying beside a hospital bed.
A funeral with almost no relatives.
Bills arriving for years afterward.
Her childhood disappearing overnight.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
“My father died because of your family?”
Victor met her eyes.
“He died trying to expose someone inside it.”
Lena wanted to hit him again.
This time not to save him.
Dominic moved slightly between them.
Victor ordered, “Don’t.”
Lena’s voice shook.
“Did your father kill mine?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Did you know he was going to die?”
Victor’s silence lasted one second too long.
Lena’s eyes filled.
“You knew.”
“I knew he was afraid.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Victor looked away.
“I was twenty-three. Daniel came to me because he didn’t trust my father’s people. He gave me a file and told me if anything happened to him, I needed to protect it.”
“What file?”
“The one Silas is trying to find.”
Lena stared at him.
“You’ve had it for eighteen years?”
“No.”
“Then where is it?”
Victor looked directly at her.
“Your father never gave it to me.”
Lena shook her head.
“You just said—”
“He gave me an empty envelope.”
“Why?”
“I’ve wondered that for eighteen years.”
Lena suddenly remembered something her father used to say whenever he tucked her into bed.
A silly sentence.
Something she had dismissed as a childhood joke.
When the eagle comes, count backward from seven.
The eagle.
Her face changed.
Victor saw it.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Lena.”
“I said nothing.”
But Dominic was watching her now too.
She moved toward the door.
“I need to go home.”
“You can’t,” Dominic said.
“My brother is alone.”
Victor’s voice sharpened.
“How old?”
“Twelve.”
He immediately looked at Dominic.
“Send two men.”
Lena stepped forward.
“No armed strangers near my brother.”
“If Silas knows your name, he may know where you live.”
That stopped her.
Victor was already dialing.
Lena hated that he was right.
Then her own phone vibrated inside her apron.
Noah.
She answered instantly.
“Noah?”
At first she heard only breathing.
Then her brother whispered, “Lena?”
Her blood went cold.
“What happened?”
“There’s somebody downstairs.”
Victor was beside her immediately.
“Lock your bedroom door,” Lena said.
“I did.”
“Call 911.”
“I tried. My phone keeps losing service.”
A noise sounded in the background.
Wood breaking.
Noah gasped.
Lena’s heart nearly stopped.
Victor took the phone.
“Noah, listen to me. Stay away from the door. Is there a window?”
“Who is this?”
“Victor. Your sister is with me.”
Another crash.
Closer.
Noah whispered, “They’re coming upstairs.”
Victor snapped his fingers.
Dominic was already moving.
“Address.”
Lena gave it.
Men rushed from the suite.
Victor spoke into the phone.
“Noah, can you climb onto the fire escape?”
“Yes.”
“Do it.”
Lena grabbed Victor’s arm.
“We’re going.”
He looked at her.
“It may be a trap.”
“That’s my brother.”
Victor saw something in her face that ended the argument.
Five minutes later they were inside an armored SUV tearing through Manhattan.
Lena stared at her phone.
Noah had stopped answering.
Victor sat beside her, silent.
Dominic sat across from them with a pistol beneath his jacket.
They crossed the Queensboro Bridge at dangerous speed.
When they reached Lena’s building, the front door stood open.
She jumped out before the SUV stopped.
“Lena!” Victor shouted.
She ran upstairs.
The apartment door had been smashed.
Her living room was destroyed.
Drawers emptied.
Couch cushions slashed.
Cabinets ripped open.
“Noah!”
Nothing.
She ran to his bedroom.
Empty.
Window open.
Victor entered behind her.
Lena turned toward him with tears in her eyes.
“They took him.”
Then a small voice came from outside.
“Actually, they didn’t.”
Lena spun.
Noah crawled through the bedroom window from the fire escape.
She grabbed him so hard he complained.
“I hid on the roof.”
Victor almost smiled.
Dominic entered a moment later.
“Apartment’s clear.”
Lena held Noah against her.
Then Noah reached into his sweatshirt.
“I found this under your mattress.”
He handed her an old photograph.
Lena stared.
It showed her father standing beside a much younger Victor Romano.
Behind them was Antonio Romano.
And beside Antonio stood Silas Kane.
On the back, in Daniel Hart’s handwriting, were seven numbers.
7-1-4-9-2-6-3.
Victor saw them.
His expression changed.
“What does that mean?”
Lena remembered her father’s strange bedtime phrase.
When the eagle comes, count backward from seven.
May you like
She looked at Victor.
“I think my father left us a message.”
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