Chapter 3 - The Man My Father Died ProtectingI didn’t sleep.
At four in the morning, I sat at Roman DeLuca’s kitchen island drinking coffee strong enough to dissolve regret.
Roman sat across from me.
Neither of us had changed clothes.
The skyline glowed beyond the glass walls while my father’s old cassette recorder rested between us.
Vincent had found batteries.
I hadn’t pressed play.
Not yet.
“You were nineteen,” I said.
Roman nodded.
“When my father died.”
“Yes.”
“You knew him?”
“A little.”
“That sounds evasive.”
“It is.”
I looked at him.
“Try again.”
Roman leaned back.
“Daniel wasn’t assigned to me. He worked primarily for my father, Antonio. But after my mother died, my father became…” He searched for the word. “Different.”
“Meaning?”
“Paranoid. Violent. Suspicious.”
“That doesn’t sound like a successful crime family.”
Roman’s mouth tightened.
“My father was many things. Stability was not one of them.”
“And my father?”
“He was one of the few men who would tell Antonio when he was wrong.”
I almost smiled.
“That sounds like Dad.”
“You remember him well?”
“Pieces.”
I stared into my coffee.
“He made pancakes shaped like animals. Badly. His elephants looked like potatoes.”
Roman actually smiled.
“He once broke my nose.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“I was seventeen. I spoke disrespectfully to a waitress at a restaurant.”
“My father punched the boss’s son?”
“Immediately.”
That laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
Roman watched me.
“He said a man who believes money makes him better than the person carrying his plate is already halfway to becoming worthless.”
My eyes burned.
That sounded exactly like the father I remembered.
“Why did he die?”
Roman’s smile disappeared.
“Officially?”
“Car accident.”
“And unofficially?”
“I never believed it.”
I stared at the cassette.
“Then maybe we stop guessing.”
I pressed play.
Static filled the kitchen.
Then my father’s voice came through.
Older than I remembered.
Tired.
But unmistakably his.
“If Claire ever hears this, then I failed to keep this buried.”
My throat closed.
Roman became completely still.
Dad continued.
“There is someone inside Antonio DeLuca’s organization selling names. Police. Judges. Witnesses. Families. Anyone who can be bought or used.”
Roman’s eyes hardened.
“I don’t know who it is yet. Antonio thinks the leak comes from outside. He’s wrong.”
Static.
Then:
“If I disappear, Vincent Morelli knows enough to start looking. But I haven’t told him everything because I don’t know how deep this goes.”
Roman glanced toward the doorway.
Vincent stood there.
He looked like someone had hit him.
The recording continued.
“There is one thing I know. Roman cannot be part of it. The kid saved Claire without knowing who she was.”
I stopped the tape.
“What?”
Roman looked equally confused.
I rewound a few seconds.
Pressed play.
“The kid saved Claire without knowing who she was.”
I stared at Roman.
“You saved me?”
He looked away.
“Apparently.”
“From what?”
“I don’t know.”
Vincent did.
I could see it immediately.
“Vincent.”
He remained silent.
“Tell me.”
His shoulders lowered.
“There was a fire.”
Every childhood nightmare I’d ever had returned at once.
Smoke.
Heat.
Someone carrying me.
A young man’s voice telling me not to look behind me.
I had always assumed it was my father.
“What fire?”
Vincent stepped inside.
“Nineteen years ago, your parents attended a company Christmas party at a warehouse on South Halsted. Your mother brought you because the babysitter canceled.”
I gripped the counter.
“There was an explosion.”
Roman frowned.
“I remember that.”
“You should,” Vincent said. “You pulled Claire out.”
Roman stared at me.
Memory seemed to hit him slowly.
“There was a little girl.”
“Eight years old,” Vincent said.
Roman touched his scar.
Suddenly I understood.
“The scar.”
He nodded.
“A beam fell while I was carrying someone.”
“Me.”
“Yes.”
The room went quiet.
My father’s recording was still turning.
I pressed play again.
“The warehouse fire was deliberate. It destroyed financial records connected to the leak. Roman carried my daughter out before the roof collapsed.”
My eyes filled.
I didn’t wipe them.
“If anything happens to me, tell Claire I didn’t choose this world over her. I was trying to make sure she never had to live in it.”
The recording ended.
For several seconds there was only static.
Then Leo appeared in the doorway wearing dinosaur pajamas.
“Papa?”
Roman stood immediately.
“What are you doing awake?”
“I had the bad dream.”
Roman’s entire posture changed.
He went from feared crime boss to tired father in one breath.
“Come here.”
Leo crossed the room.
Roman picked him up.
The boy rested his head against his shoulder.
I watched them.
Maybe that was the dangerous thing about monsters.
Sometimes they loved people.
Sometimes they made breakfast.
Sometimes they carried frightened children out of burning buildings.
It would have been easier if Roman were exactly what newspapers claimed.
Instead, he was becoming complicated.
Leo opened one sleepy eye.
“Claire staying?”
“For now,” Roman said.
I looked at him.
“For now.”
Leo accepted that and immediately fell asleep against his father.
Vincent cleared his throat.
“There’s something else.”
Of course there was.
“What?” I asked.
“The attack tonight wasn’t random.”
“We figured that out.”
“No. I mean the boy wasn’t the primary target.”
Roman tightened his hold on Leo.
Vincent placed a printed security photograph on the counter.
It showed the ballroom seconds before the attack.
One attacker had his arm extended.
Not toward Roman.
Not toward Leo.
Toward me.
“You were.”
Cold moved through my body.
“Why?”
“Your father must have left something else,” Vincent said.
“The box was nearly empty.”
“Maybe whatever they want was never inside the box.”
Roman handed Leo carefully to Vincent.
Then he approached me.
“What did your father leave you?”
“Nothing.”
“Think.”
“I was ten when he died.”
“Jewelry?”
“No.”
“Documents?”
“No.”
“An object?”
I almost said no again.
Then I remembered.
A cheap brass pendant.
My father had given it to me the week before he died.
I had worn it through high school.
Then college.
Then nursing school.
Even after the chain broke, I kept it inside my jewelry box.
Roman saw the answer in my face.
“What?”
I whispered, “A key.”
His expression changed.
“What kind?”
“I always thought it was decorative.”
“Where is it?”
“My apartment.”
Vincent swore.
Roman was already moving.
“We go now.”
“No,” Vincent said.
Roman stopped.
Vincent held up his phone.
“A team is already at Claire’s building.”
I felt suddenly sick.
“How do you know?”
“The alarm company called police eight minutes ago.”
My voice barely worked.
“What happened?”
“Someone broke into your apartment.”
We reached the building twenty minutes later.
Police cars filled the street.
My front door had been destroyed.
Every drawer overturned.
Mattress cut open.
Cabinets emptied.
But my little jewelry box remained on the dresser.
Open.
Empty.
The brass pendant was gone.
Taped to the mirror was a photograph.
A photograph of my father.
Alive.
Taken fourteen years after his supposed death.
I stumbled backward.
Written beneath it:
ASK ROMAN WHERE DANIEL BENNETT HAS BEEN HIDING.
I turned.
Roman’s face had gone white.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“Look at me.”
He did.
“Did you know my father was alive?”
“No.”
I wanted to believe him.
I wasn’t sure I did.
Then Roman’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A distorted voice spoke loudly enough that I heard every word.
“Bring Claire Bennett to Pier Twenty-Nine tomorrow night.”
Roman’s gaze locked onto mine.
The voice continued.
“If you want her father returned alive.”
May you like
The call ended.
And suddenly the dead man I had mourned for nineteen years was waiting somewhere in the darkness.
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