Chapter 2 - THE GIRL BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR
Chloe woke at 4:07 in the morning to someone pounding on her apartment door.
Not knocking.
Pounding.
She sat upright on the couch where she had fallen asleep after checking on Tommy.
Her fever made the room feel underwater.
“Chloe?”
Tommy appeared in the hallway.
His face was pale.
“Stay there.”
She grabbed the baseball bat they kept behind the couch.
The pounding stopped.
Then came a voice.
“Miss Bennett?”
Male.
Calm.
“Who is it?”
“Russo security.”
Chloe froze.
Of course.
Because apparently getting sick in a mafia boss’s bed was not enough humiliation for one evening.
She approached the door without opening it.
“Why are you here?”
A different voice answered.
One she recognized immediately.
“Open the door, Chloe.”
Victor.
Her stomach dropped.
Tommy mouthed, “Is that him?”
Chloe ignored him.
“What are you doing here?”
“Open the door.”
“You can’t show up at four in the morning.”
“I just did.”
“That doesn’t make it normal.”
“No one has accused me of normality.”
She opened the door three inches with the security chain still attached.
Victor stood in the hallway wearing the same clothes from earlier beneath a dark overcoat.
Two men stood behind him.
One was Marco.
The other looked large enough to carry the refrigerator downstairs without help.
Victor’s eyes went directly to the baseball bat.
“You were going to hit me with that?”
“If necessary.”
“You can barely stand.”
“I’d aim carefully.”
Marco turned his face away, clearly hiding a smile.
Victor did not appear amused.
“Someone followed you home.”
Chloe stopped breathing for a second.
“What?”
Victor held up his phone.
The photograph.
Her entering the building.
Chloe stared at it.
Tommy stepped closer behind her.
“Who took that?”
Victor’s gaze moved to him.
Tommy looked younger than fifteen.
Thin wrists.
Gray skin.
Dark circles beneath his eyes.
Victor’s expression became unreadable.
“Someone who shouldn’t know where you live.”
Chloe unhooked the chain.
“Come in.”
The apartment suddenly felt even smaller with Victor Russo inside it.
He looked out of place among the thrift-store furniture, medicine bottles, schoolbooks, and old radiator that clanged whenever it felt like it.
Victor noticed everything without commenting.
Tommy stared openly.
“You’re Victor Russo.”
“Yes.”
“The Victor Russo?”
Victor looked at Chloe.
“Apparently there are several.”
Tommy almost smiled.
Chloe closed the door.
“Why would anyone follow me?”
“We’re determining that.”
“Is this because I work for you?”
“Probably.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It wasn’t intended to be.”
Victor looked toward Marco.
“Check the alley.”
Marco nodded and stepped outside with the other guard.
Chloe folded her arms.
“What happens now?”
“You and your brother leave.”
“No.”
Victor’s head turned.
“No?”
“This is our home.”
“Someone knows where you live.”
“And?”
“And you cannot stay here.”
“Where exactly do you expect us to go?”
“My estate.”
Chloe stared at him.
Then laughed once.
“No.”
Victor’s face hardened.
“Chloe.”
“Mr. Russo, you cannot walk into my apartment and relocate my life.”
“Someone threatened you because of me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know enough.”
“You know how to give orders.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m not one of your soldiers.”
“I noticed.”
Tommy looked between them like he had accidentally discovered premium cable.
Victor lowered his voice.
“You’re sick. Your brother is medically vulnerable. If whoever took that photograph wanted only to scare me, they succeeded. If they want more, this apartment is indefensible.”
Chloe hated that he was right.
She hated even more that the word scare had come from Victor Russo’s mouth.
“You’re scared?”
His expression closed immediately.
“For your safety.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Victor looked at her for a long moment.
“Yes.”
The honesty disarmed her.
Tommy broke the silence.
“We should go.”
Chloe turned.
“Tommy.”
“He’s right.”
“You don’t even know him.”
Tommy shrugged.
“I know he has gates.”
Victor almost smiled again.
Forty minutes later, Chloe packed two bags.
Tommy packed one.
Victor’s men carried everything downstairs.
Before leaving, Chloe checked the apartment three times.
The stove.
The windows.
Tommy’s medication.
Her parents’ photograph.
When Victor saw her holding the framed picture, he looked away.
He knew what dead parents looked like in family photographs.
Always younger than memory.
Always alive in ways that hurt.
The drive north was silent.
Tommy slept with his head against the window.
Chloe sat beside him.
Victor occupied the seat opposite.
Streetlights passed over his face in intervals.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said quietly.
“I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
Victor looked at Tommy.
“Yes.”
Chloe followed his gaze.
“You knew someone would use employees against you?”
“I know what enemies do.”
“So this happens often?”
“No.”
“Why me?”
The question hung between them.
Victor could have lied.
Because the photograph was random.
Because she happened to be convenient.
Because Salvatore DeLuca was irrational.
Instead, he said, “Because someone thinks you matter to me.”
Chloe’s pulse changed.
“Do I?”
Victor looked at her.
The car seemed suddenly too small.
“You’re my employee.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting at five in the morning.”
She turned toward the window.
Victor hated himself for feeling relieved.
At the estate, Mrs. Gable was waiting.
She took one look at Tommy and immediately transformed from terrifying housekeeper into something unexpectedly maternal.
“You’re freezing.”
“I’m okay,” Tommy said.
“Nonsense. Kitchen.”
She pointed.
Tommy obeyed instantly.
Chloe watched in amazement.
“I’ve been trying to get him to eat properly for five years.”
Mrs. Gable said, “You lack menace.”
Victor coughed into his fist.
Chloe glared at him.
Mrs. Gable assigned Chloe and Tommy two connected guest rooms in the east wing.
Victor objected.
“Too exposed.”
Mrs. Gable stared at him.
“It is inside a guarded mansion.”
“The east windows face the drive.”
“Then perhaps we should issue the boy a cannon.”
Victor looked irritated.
Mrs. Gable looked unimpressed.
Chloe decided she liked the woman.
By eight that morning, Tommy had eaten pancakes, eggs, fruit, and enough bacon to frighten his cardiologist.
Victor’s private physician arranged for his records to be transferred temporarily.
Chloe immediately objected.
“We have a clinic.”
“The roads are bad,” Victor said.
“That isn’t the point.”
“What is?”
“I don’t want charity.”
Victor set down his coffee.
“This isn’t charity.”
“What is it?”
“Security.”
“My brother’s medical care is security?”
“Yes.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense if you stop being difficult for six consecutive seconds.”
Tommy whispered to Mrs. Gable, “They do this a lot?”
Mrs. Gable whispered back, “Unfortunately, it appears they may.”
Chloe heard them.
“So did I.”
Tommy suddenly laughed.
It turned into a cough.
A deep one.
Then another.
His hand went to his mouth.
When he pulled it away, there was blood.
Chloe went white.
“Tommy?”
The chair scraped backward.
Victor moved faster than anyone.
Tommy collapsed before reaching the floor.
Victor caught him.
“Call Romano!”
Chloe dropped beside them.
“Tommy. Tommy, look at me.”
His eyes fluttered.
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not.”
Victor lifted him as if he weighed nothing.
They rushed upstairs to the medical suite used mostly for treating employees who could not safely visit hospitals.
Dr. Romano arrived twenty minutes later.
Tests followed.
Blood work.
Blood pressure.
A portable ultrasound.
Chloe paced outside.
Victor stood across from her.
“You should sit.”
“If you tell me to sit one more time, I’m going to break something expensive.”
Victor gestured around.
“Choose carefully.”
She glared.
He wanted to touch her.
He didn’t.
Dr. Romano emerged.
“His kidney function has deteriorated significantly.”
Chloe’s face collapsed.
“How significantly?”
“He needs evaluation at Northwestern today.”
“I thought dialysis was working.”
“It has been. But something changed.”
“What?”
“Possibly infection. Possibly medication interruption.”
Chloe closed her eyes.
The saved doses.
The bills.
The choices they made every week.
Food or medicine.
Rent or treatment.
Gas or bloodwork.
Victor saw understanding cross her face.
“How much medication has he missed?” he asked.
Chloe snapped her eyes open.
“That’s none of your business.”
“Chloe.”
“Do not.”
Her voice broke.
“Do not stand there with a bank account bigger than some countries and ask me why we couldn’t afford every pill.”
Victor said nothing.
She covered her mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for.”
“Yes, there is.”
“No.”
He stepped closer.
“You kept him alive from the time you were nineteen.”
Her eyes filled.
Victor continued quietly.
“That sounds like success to me.”
A tear escaped before she could stop it.
Victor resisted the urge to wipe it away.
Dr. Romano cleared his throat gently.
“We need to move.”
Victor nodded.
“Use my helicopter.”
Chloe stared at him.
“No.”
Victor looked at the freezing rain outside.
“Fine. We’ll swim.”
“Victor.”
It was the first time she had used his name.
They both noticed.
She whispered, “I can’t owe you this much.”
He answered just as quietly.
“Then don’t.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m not keeping a ledger.”
The answer seemed to frighten her more than any debt.
Two hours later, Tommy was admitted.
Doctors said he would stabilize.
But he needed placement higher on the transplant evaluation pathway.
Chloe sat beside his hospital bed holding his hand.
Victor waited outside the room.
Marco approached.
“We found the photographer.”
Victor turned.
“Alive?”
“For the moment.”
“Who hired him?”
“He doesn’t know. Payment came through an intermediary.”
“Name.”
“Carlo Mendez.”
Victor knew it.
A DeLuca associate.
His jaw tightened.
Marco continued.
“There’s another problem.”
“What?”
“Someone accessed Tommy Bennett’s medical file yesterday.”
Victor’s gaze sharpened.
“Who?”
“The login belonged to an employee at the hospital.”
“And?”
“That employee died six months ago.”
Victor looked through the glass at Chloe beside her brother.
Someone had not merely followed her.
They were studying her.
Studying Tommy.
Looking for weaknesses.
Victor took out his phone.
“Double the guards.”
Marco nodded.
“On Chloe?”
Victor’s voice went cold.
“On both of them.”
Then he saw Chloe stand suddenly.
A nurse had entered Tommy’s room holding a small envelope.
Chloe opened it.
Her face drained of color.
Victor pushed through the door.
“What is it?”
She slowly handed him the paper.
There were only seven words.
Leave Russo, or your brother loses everything.
Underneath was a photograph.
Tommy.
May you like
Taken inside the hospital.
Less than ten minutes earlier.
