Chapter 3 - THE GIRL WHO KNEW HIS NAME
Dr. Helen Mercer had once removed a bullet from Marcus Cole's chest while simultaneously yelling at him for bleeding on her kitchen floor.
That had been thirteen years ago.
Tonight she opened the basement door of her private clinic, took one look at him, and said, “You look worse.”
Marcus leaned against the frame.
“Good to see you too.”
Then Helen saw Sadie.
And the dog.
Her expression changed.
“What did you do?”
Marcus frowned.
“Why does everyone assume I did something?”
“Because I know you.”
Sadie stepped around him.
“He got shot.”
Helen looked down.
“Which one?”
“Both.”
Twenty minutes later Marcus lay shirtless on a steel examination table while Helen cleaned the bullet wound along his ribs.
The round had passed through without hitting an organ.
Another inch inward and Marcus Cole would have died in an alley without ever learning who betrayed him.
Saint lay on a folded blanket across the room.
Sadie sat beside him while Helen's veterinary technician friend, woken by an emergency phone call, stitched the dog's shoulder.
Marcus watched the girl the entire time.
She never cried.
Not even when Saint whimpered.
She simply held his head in her lap and whispered things Marcus couldn't hear.
Helen noticed.
“She's not yours.”
Marcus gave her a flat look.
“That obvious?”
“You barely knew what to do around your own daughter when she was nine.”
The sentence hit harder than the needle.
Marcus looked away.
“Elena was different.”
“No. You were.”
Marcus didn't answer.
Helen had been his wife's closest friend.
That gave her privileges nobody else in the city possessed.
Including the ability to insult Marcus and remain alive afterward.
His phone had been destroyed in the alley.
Helen placed an old burner beside him.
“One call.”
Marcus reached for it.
“Why one?”
“Because if Victor is running what I think he's running, every tower, camera, hospital registration, and credit card tied to you is radioactive.”
Marcus looked at her.
“You already know?”
“Your death is on every station.”
“I'm touched.”
“Victor cried.”
“That must have hurt him.”
Helen tied the last stitch.
“Who are you calling?”
Marcus thought about it.
Twenty years of power had filled his phone with names.
Men who swore loyalty.
Men who called him brother.
Men who had kissed his ring at weddings and toasted him at Christmas dinners.
Tonight he trusted almost none of them.
His own cousin had arranged his execution.
Which meant trust had become a luxury.
Marcus dialed from memory.
The phone rang four times.
A voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Jonah.”
Silence.
Then a sharp inhale.
“Boss?”
Marcus closed his eyes.
Jonah Price had served him for eleven years.
Former Marine.
No gambling.
No drugs.
No habit of mistaking noise for strength.
“You alone?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
Another silence.
Then movement.
A door closed.
“I am now.”
“Where's Victor?”
“At your house.”
Marcus opened his eyes.
Helen watched him.
“My house?”
“He called the captains thirty minutes ago.”
“And?”
Jonah sounded sick.
“He told them you're dead.”
“I saw.”
“He says Ray found you after another crew hit you. Says Ray tried to save you.”
Marcus laughed once.
Helen pressed gauze harder into his side.
He stopped.
Jonah continued.
“Victor says we need stability. He's calling a council at noon.”
“So he takes the chair before the body's cold.”
“There is no body.”
“There will be. He'll find someone.”
Marcus sat up slowly.
“Elena?”
Jonah hesitated.
That was enough.
“Where is my daughter?”
“Victor sent two men to her apartment.”
Marcus swung his feet from the table.
Helen shoved him backward.
“You're not going anywhere.”
Marcus ignored her.
“Why?”
“He says protection.”
“From who?”
“You.”
Marcus went still.
Jonah's voice dropped.
“He's telling people you weren't yourself. That pressure made you unpredictable. He's suggesting you killed one of the accountants and disappeared with money.”
Sadie looked up from Saint.
Marcus noticed.
“Which accountant?”
“I don't know.”
“Find out.”
“I can get Elena out.”
“No.”
“Boss—”
“If you're seen helping her, Victor knows you're mine.”
“He already knows I'm yours.”
“Then tonight you stop being mine.”
Jonah fell silent.
Marcus continued.
“You swear to Victor.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I won't.”
“That wasn't a request.”
“Marcus.”
Rarely did Jonah use his first name.
It meant he was angry.
Or afraid.
“You want me to kneel to the man who tried to kill you?”
“I want you close enough to hear what he whispers.”
“And Elena?”
Marcus looked toward the floor.
His daughter was twenty-six.
A civil engineer.
Brilliant.
Independent.
And barely speaking to him.
She had spent most of her adult life trying to build a name that didn't come with armed men at restaurants.
Marcus had told himself staying away protected her.
In reality it had protected him from hearing what she thought of the man he'd become.
“Watch her,” he said.
“From a distance.”
Jonah exhaled.
“Victor has more men than I expected.”
“How many?”
“Most of them.”
Marcus's jaw tightened.
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long have they been his?”
“I don't know.”
A king who did not know when his own soldiers changed allegiance was already a dead king.
Marcus understood that now.
“Go to the council.”
“Then what?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“You listen.”
“And if he orders me to find you?”
“Find me badly.”
Jonah almost laughed.
Almost.
“Glad you're alive, boss.”
Marcus's voice softened.
“So am I.”
He ended the call.
Sadie was watching him.
“You have a daughter?”
Marcus looked at her.
“Unfortunately.”
“Why unfortunately?”
“Because she got my personality.”
Helen snorted.
“God help us all.”
Sadie's mouth twitched.
It was the first hint of a smile Marcus had seen from her.
Then she looked down again.
“My mom says daughters get the parts of their dads they pretend not to have.”
Marcus stared at her.
“Your mother sounds exhausting.”
“She is.”
The past tense nearly appeared.
Sadie caught it before Marcus did.
“She is,” she repeated firmly.
Marcus nodded.
“She is.”
Helen cleaned her hands.
“Now tell me why Victor is hunting a nine-year-old.”
Marcus looked at Sadie.
“Show her.”
Sadie clutched the brass key.
“No.”
Marcus leaned against the cabinet.
“Helen saved your dog's life.”
“Saint wasn't dying.”
Saint lifted his head weakly, as if agreeing.
Marcus pointed.
“He's dramatic too.”
Sadie glared.
Helen crouched beside her.
“You don't have to tell me anything.”
That worked better.
Sadie slowly pulled out the photograph.
Helen took it.
Her eyes narrowed.
“Anthony.”
Marcus watched her face.
Then she noticed Evan Quinn.
“You remember him?”
Helen looked up sharply.
“I remember his wife.”
Marcus frowned.
“What?”
“Rachel Quinn.”
Sadie's head snapped toward her.
“You know my mom?”
Helen looked at Marcus.
“Yes.”
“How?”
Helen rose.
“Rachel came here six months ago.”
Marcus stared at her.
“What for?”
“She wasn't hurt.”
“Then why?”
“She wanted information.”
“About?”
Helen walked to a locked filing cabinet.
She removed a key from her necklace.
Marcus's patience disappeared.
“Helen.”
“She wanted everything I knew about your brother's death.”
Marcus froze.
Anthony Cole had been dead fifteen years.
Officially, he'd been killed during a robbery outside a restaurant.
Unofficially, Marcus had always suspected a rival family.
He had spent two years destroying them for it.
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth.”
“Which truth?”
Helen opened the cabinet.
“That Anthony wasn't shot once.”
Marcus stopped breathing.
Helen pulled out an old folder.
“He was shot twice.”
Marcus stared.
“The report says one bullet.”
“The public report.”
“You were there.”
“I was.”
“You told me one.”
Helen faced him.
“I lied.”
The room changed.
Sadie sensed it.
Saint raised his head.
Marcus's voice became dangerously quiet.
“Why?”
Helen held the folder against her chest.
“Because Anthony asked me to.”
Marcus took one step toward her.
His stitched side screamed.
He ignored it.
“My brother was dying and asked you to lie to me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the first bullet came from the men who attacked him.”
Marcus waited.
Helen's eyes filled with something he had never seen there before.
Shame.
“The second came ten minutes later.”
Marcus stared.
“From who?”
Helen handed him a photograph from the folder.
Crime scene.
Anthony on the pavement.
Victor kneeling beside him.
Marcus looked closer.
Victor's right hand was hidden beneath Anthony's coat.
Helen spoke softly.
“Anthony was alive when Victor found him.”
Sadie stood beside Marcus now.
“What happened?”
Helen looked at the girl.
Then at Marcus.
“I think Victor finished what someone else started.”
Marcus felt the room tilt.
For fifteen years he had blamed enemies.
For fifteen years Victor had stood beside him at Anthony's memorial every January.
For fifteen years his cousin had helped him wage a war of revenge against the wrong people.
Marcus looked at Sadie.
“Your mother found this?”
“I don't know.”
Helen opened another drawer.
“She found more.”
She removed an envelope.
“I told Rachel I wouldn't help unless she told me why.”
“And?”
“She said Evan Quinn didn't die in a car accident.”
Sadie's fingers tightened around Saint's fur.
Marcus whispered, “What happened to him?”
Helen shook her head.
“She didn't know.”
“But she suspected Victor.”
“Yes.”
“Why come to you?”
“Because Evan left something behind.”
Marcus looked at the brass key.
Locker 317.
Helen nodded.
“Rachel said if she disappeared, the contents of that locker could bring down everyone involved.”
“Everyone?”
Helen looked directly at Marcus.
“Including you.”
Silence filled the clinic.
Sadie stared at him.
Marcus felt an old instinct return.
Destroy evidence.
Control witnesses.
Protect the organization.
The instinct had kept him alive for eighteen years.
Then he looked at Sadie.
Nine years old.
Sleeping in drainage tunnels because grown men with guns were hunting her.
His instinct suddenly disgusted him.
“When does Union Station open?”
Helen checked the clock.
“Five.”
Marcus pulled on a clean shirt.
Helen stared.
“You can't go.”
“I can walk.”
“That's an incredibly low medical standard.”
Marcus looked at Sadie.
“We're opening the locker.”
She hesitated.
“My mom said with you.”
“Then we're following instructions.”
Sadie stood.
Saint tried to follow.
His legs shook.
“No,” Marcus said.
Sadie turned.
“He comes.”
“He was shot.”
“So were you.”
“I'm bigger.”
“Barely.”
Helen covered a laugh with a cough.
Marcus rubbed his forehead.
Saint struggled upright and limped beside Sadie.
Marcus realized he had lost the argument.
At 4:32 in the morning, the three of them left through Helen's rear entrance.
A dead mafia boss.
A missing accountant's daughter.
And a stray dog with fresh stitches.
None of them noticed the dark sedan parked half a block away.
Inside it, a man lifted his phone.
“They're moving.”
A voice answered.
“Where?”
The man watched Marcus help Sadie into Helen's old pickup.
“Union Station, if I had to guess.”
There was a pause.
Then Victor Cole said, “Good.”
The man frowned.
“You want me to stop them?”
“No.”
Victor's voice was calm.
May you like
“Let Marcus open the locker for us.”
And the line went dead.
