Chapter 5 - THE MAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPHCelia took the ledger from Vincent.
No one tried to stop her.
She stared at the photograph until the edges blurred. Her father was younger than she remembered, wearing a reflective construction vest and standing beside a concrete support column. He had the same crooked smile that appeared in the few family pictures her mother kept hidden in a kitchen drawer.
But the man beside him was not a coworker.
It was Anthony Romano.
Vincent’s father.
The handwritten entry beneath the photograph included a date two weeks before Daniel Jace’s death.
Celia read it twice.
“What does ‘silenced’ mean?”
Vincent did not answer.
She looked up.
“What does it mean?”
“You know what it means.”
“No. I know what it sounds like. I want you to say it.”
Vincent remained silent.
Celia slapped him.
The sound cracked through the van.
Every guard reached instinctively toward a weapon, but Vincent raised one hand. No one moved.
“You paid my mother’s debt with money built on her husband’s grave,” Celia said.
“I didn’t know who you were.”
“But your family did.”
“My father’s decisions were hidden from me.”
“How convenient.”
“Anthony hid everything that threatened his authority.”
Celia pointed toward Leo.
“And now you’re doing the same thing. Secret rooms. Secret tunnels. Secret books. You drag people into vans and call it protection.”
Vincent accepted the accusation without defending himself.
That made her angrier.
“Turn the van around.”
“We can’t.”
“I’m not asking.”
“Simon has Sterling and the antitoxin.”
“Then go to Chicago without me.”
“He specifically demanded you.”
“I don’t care.”
“He knows why your father died.”
Celia’s breath caught.
Vincent leaned forward.
“You may hate me. You may hate my name. But if we separate now, Simon will kill you, your mother and Leo before sunrise.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes,” Vincent said. “I do.”
The vans stopped inside a private aircraft hangar.
A jet waited beneath bright industrial lights.
Several men approached, but Vincent’s guards surrounded the medical van before the doors opened. Celia recognized none of them.
“Who owns the plane?” she asked.
“A friend.”
“Do your friends know you’re wanted for kidnapping?”
“They expect complications.”
Leo was transferred onto the aircraft.
Celia followed, not because Vincent had convinced her, but because the small movement returning to Leo’s fingers had begun to fade. The toxin was winning again.
Inside the jet, the rear cabin had been converted into a medical bay. Oxygen tanks, monitors and emergency equipment lined the walls.
Vincent sat alone near the front.
Celia remained beside Leo.
As the plane accelerated down the runway, she held the boy’s hand and tried not to imagine the ground disappearing beneath her.
“You don’t like flying,” Leo whispered.
“How can you tell?”
“You’re squeezing me.”
Celia loosened her grip.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
He studied her face.
“Are you mad at Papa?”
“Yes.”
“Lots of people are.”
Despite everything, Celia almost smiled.
Leo’s expression turned serious.
“Papa isn’t bad all the time.”
“That’s a complicated recommendation.”
“What’s recommendation?”
“It means you’re trying to convince me he’s good.”
Leo thought about it.
“He reads to me.”
“What does he read?”
“Books about kings who make mistakes.”
Celia glanced toward Vincent.
He was staring at the memory card recovered from the ledger.
“Did your mother sing to you often?” Celia asked.
Leo nodded.
“Every night. She said storms were the sky moving furniture.”
“What was the song?”
Leo hummed a simple melody.
Celia’s skin prickled.
She knew it.
Her mother used to sing the same song.
“Where did your mother learn that?”
“I don’t know.”
Celia stood and walked toward Vincent.
“What was Elena’s maiden name?”
He looked up.
“Marchetti.”
“Did she know Daniel Jace?”
“I don’t know.”
“She sang the same song my mother sang to me.”
Vincent’s attention sharpened.
“What song?”
Celia hummed the melody.
Vincent went completely still.
“Elena said her college roommate taught it to her.”
“Who was the roommate?”
“She never told me.”
Celia pulled out her phone and called her mother.
Evelyn Park answered.
“Your mother is safe.”
“I need to speak to her.”
“She was given a sedative.”
“Wake her up.”
“That would not be medically advisable.”
Celia lowered her voice.
“A child is dying, and my father may have been murdered by the family protecting us. Wake her up.”
A pause followed.
Then she heard movement.
Her mother came on the line sounding weak.
“Celia?”
“Mom, did you know Elena Marchetti?”
The silence on the other end told her everything.
“Mom?”
“Yes.”
Vincent stood.
“How?”
Margaret exhaled shakily.
“She was my roommate at Northwestern.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because she died.”
“That doesn’t explain anything.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
Celia paced the aisle.
“Was Dad involved with the Romanos?”
Her mother began to cry.
“Your father discovered something at a construction site in Chicago. False foundations, missing materials, payments to inspectors. He thought it was corruption. Then he found bodies.”
Leo watched from the medical bed.
Vincent’s face became unreadable.
“Whose bodies?” Celia asked.
“People Anthony Romano had killed. Daniel wanted to go to the FBI. Elena was helping him collect proof.”
“And Simon?”
“Simon found out.”
Celia closed her eyes.
“The accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident.”
Her mother’s voice broke.
“They dropped a steel beam onto your father’s car.”
Celia gripped the seat to remain standing.
“Why did you stay silent?”
“Because Simon came to the hospital and sat beside your bed while you slept. He told me the next accident would happen to you.”
Celia could not breathe.
Vincent took the phone.
“Mrs. Jace, where did Elena hide the evidence?”
“I don’t know. She said Daniel gave her something before he died. After Elena was killed, I assumed it disappeared with her.”
Vincent looked at the memory card.
“What was on it?”
“I never saw it.”
The aircraft shook slightly as it climbed.
A warning alarm sounded from the rear cabin.
The paramedic leaned over Leo.
“His oxygen saturation is dropping.”
Celia rushed back.
Leo’s eyes rolled upward.
The paramedic began manually assisting his breathing.
“We don’t have enough time,” he said.
Vincent stared at the flight map.
Chicago was more than an hour away.
“Land sooner,” Celia demanded.
“There’s nowhere useful to land,” the pilot replied through the intercom.
Vincent called Simon.
The call connected immediately.
“My son may have minutes,” Vincent said. “Tell me how to stabilize him.”
“Give Celia the phone.”
Vincent did.
Simon’s voice became almost gentle.
“Your father ruined my family, Celia.”
“My father tried to expose murder.”
“He stole something that belonged to us.”
“What?”
“The key to a vault beneath Chicago Union Station.”
Celia looked at Vincent.
Simon continued.
“Your mother has carried the key for twelve years without knowing it.”
“What key?”
“The silver pendant she never removes.”
Celia remembered the small oval necklace her mother wore beneath her clothes.
“Bring Margaret Jace to Chicago,” Simon said. “Bring the ledger, the memory card and Leo.”
“You’re asking us to bring you everyone.”
“I’m offering the only thing that can keep the boy alive.”
A video appeared on Celia’s phone.
Dr. Sterling sat tied to a chair inside a laboratory. Beside him, a clear vial rested in a refrigerated case.
The antitoxin.
Simon returned to the line.
“You land in Chicago in fifty-eight minutes. Leo has approximately forty.”
The call ended.
Celia looked toward the medical monitor.
Leo’s heartbeat was slowing.
Vincent opened an emergency compartment and removed a parachute.
Celia stared at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Changing the schedule.”
He turned toward the pilot.
“Take us lower over Pennsylvania.”
The pilot looked back in disbelief.
“You cannot be serious.”
Vincent secured the parachute around himself.
“Simon expects the plane in Chicago.”
Celia understood.
“You’re jumping.”
“I’m getting the doctor another way.”
“With what army?”
Vincent looked at her.
“The one Simon thinks is waiting in New York.”
He opened the aircraft’s encrypted communication system.
Then Vincent Romano made a single call.
“Wake Chicago,” he said.
“Shut down every road, rail yard, bridge and private runway Simon could use.”
A voice answered.
“How long?”
May you like
Vincent looked at his dying son.
“Until I say the city can breathe again.”
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