Chapter 5 - The Betrayal Inside Ravi's House
Ravi did not speak for almost a full minute.
I had never seen him lose control.
Not at the gala.
Not during the shooting at the church.
Not when he heard Victor admit my father had been killed.
But the photograph of the woman in Geneva did what bullets could not.
It frightened him.
“That is not possible,” he said.
Catherine looked at the image.
“My mother wrote ‘Lantern contact’ on the back.”
Ravi picked up the photograph.
The woman’s face was partly turned away, but the resemblance was clear.
Same dark hair.
Same straight nose.
Same deep-set eyes.
“How did she die?” I asked quietly.
“House fire.”
“How certain are you?”
Ravi looked at me.
“I identified a body.”
My skin chilled.
“At thirteen?”
“Yes.”
“Could it have been someone else?”
His jaw tightened.
“The face was damaged.”
Catherine whispered, “Ravi…”
He stood.
“No.”
Then he walked out.
I followed him.
He stopped in the dark kitchen, both hands gripping the counter.
I stayed several feet away.
“My father lied to me,” I said.
He did not look up.
“Do not compare this.”
“I’m not.”
Silence.
“I’m telling you that whatever you’re feeling, I recognize part of it.”
He laughed once without humor.
“You have known the truth for two days. I have believed my mother was dead for twenty years.”
“I know.”
His head lifted.
I immediately regretted using the phrase he had annoyed me with earlier.
But instead of snapping, he looked tired.
“She used to leave a lamp on in the upstairs window whenever my father came home late,” he said.
I waited.
“He called her his lantern.”
My breath caught.
“So the name—”
“Could be hers.”
Ravi turned away.
“Or it could be bait designed to make me reckless.”
“Which do you believe?”
“I do not believe anything until I can prove it.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It keeps people alive.”
I thought of my father.
“Not always.”
His face tightened.
“I’m sorry.”
He looked at me.
I meant it.
For once, we were not the waitress and the mafia boss.
We were two people standing in a kitchen, wondering which parts of our childhood had been real.
At three in the morning, the house alarm went off.
Red lights flashed along the hallway.
Sadi screamed upstairs.
I ran.
Ravi caught my arm.
“Wait.”
“That’s my sister!”
“Tomas has her.”
I heard heavy footsteps above us.
Then Tomas shouted, “Clear!”
Ravi released me.
We reached Sadi’s room seconds later.
She was standing beside the bed clutching a baseball bat.
Tomas stared at it.
“Where did you get that?”
“Closet.”
I wrapped my arms around her.
“What happened?”
Tomas held up a small black device.
“Someone opened the exterior gate with an authorized code.”
Ravi’s face hardened.
“Whose?”
Tomas hesitated.
“Mine.”
The room went still.
Tomas looked furious.
“I did not open that gate.”
Ravi believed him immediately.
I saw it.
“Then someone copied your credentials,” Ravi said.
“Only three people can do that.”
“Name them.”
Tomas swallowed.
“Me. You. Elias.”
A noise came from downstairs.
Glass breaking.
Ravi reached inside his jacket.
“Stay here.”
I grabbed his sleeve.
“No hero nonsense.”
His eyes met mine.
“Diane.”
“I mean it.”
For the first time, he smiled at me.
A real smile.
Small.
Brief.
Completely wrong for the moment.
Then he left.
The intruder never reached the stairs.
He was caught in the back hallway carrying a medical case and wearing a paramedic jacket.
Inside the case were sedatives, restraints, and a photograph of Sadi leaving school.
I stared at the photograph until my vision blurred.
“They wanted her,” I whispered.
Ravi’s face went cold.
“Yes.”
Sadi stood behind me.
I turned too late.
She had heard.
Her face crumpled.
“I didn’t do anything.”
I dropped to my knees.
“Oh, baby. I know.”
“Why do they want me?”
“They don’t want you. They want to scare me.”
She started crying.
“I don’t want Dad’s secrets.”
My heart broke.
“I know.”
“I just want to go home.”
I held her.
Over her shoulder, I saw Ravi watching us.
His face looked like someone had punched him.
Before anyone could move, Sadi wiped her face with the sleeve of her pajamas.
“Did bad people come to your house when you were little?” she asked Ravi.
The question silenced everyone.
Ravi looked at me, as if asking permission to answer.
I nodded.
“Yes,” he said.
“Were you scared?”
“Yes.”
I had never heard him admit fear so simply.
Sadi tightened her arms around me.
“What did you do?”
Ravi thought for a moment.
“I pretended I wasn’t scared until I got very good at pretending.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“No,” he said. “It didn’t.”
Sadi frowned at him.
“Then why did you tell me?”
“Because I do not want you to think being afraid means you are weak.”
Her expression softened.
“When I was thirteen,” Ravi continued, “I believed strong people never needed anyone. I was wrong for a very long time.”
Sadi looked at me.
“My sister thinks that too.”
I put a hand over my heart.
“Betrayal.”
For the first time since the alarm, Sadi smiled.
Ravi looked at her.
“Would you like Tomas to move a mattress into Diane’s room?”
“Yes.”
“And can the giant man stay outside the door?”
Tomas looked offended.
“I have a name.”
Sadi ignored him.
Ravi nodded solemnly.
“The giant man will stay outside the door.”
That night, Sadi slept on a mattress beside my bed.
Tomas sat in a chair in the hallway pretending not to doze.
Sometime after four, I woke and opened the bedroom door.
Ravi was sitting on the floor at the far end of the hall with his back against the wall. His jacket was folded beside him. His eyes were closed. He had not told me he was staying.
He had simply stayed.
I stepped into the hallway.
Ravi opened one eye.
“Go back to sleep.”
“You are sitting on the floor.”
“I noticed.”
“There are chairs.”
“Tomas took the comfortable one.”
Without opening his eyes, Tomas muttered, “Rank has privileges.”
I almost laughed.
Then I looked at Ravi again.
“Thank you.”
He did not make a joke.
He only nodded.
Another inch of trust.
I started back toward the bedroom, then stopped.
“Ravi?”
“Yes?”
“Were you really thirteen when your mother disappeared?”
His eyes opened fully.
“Yes.”
“And everyone told you she was dead.”
“Yes.”
I leaned against the doorframe.
“No one let you be scared either, did they?”
For a moment he said nothing.
“Armand told me fear was an invitation.”
“That sounds like something a cruel man says to a child.”
“It was.”
The answer came without hesitation.
I thought of Sadi asking for the giant man outside her door. She had been allowed to say she was afraid. She had been allowed to ask for help.
Maybe that was how cycles ended.
Not with dramatic speeches.
With one frightened child being treated differently than the frightened child before her.
“I’m glad you told her the truth,” I said.
Ravi looked down the hallway toward my sister’s room.
“So am I.”
Then he added, “Daniel would have accused me of emotional progress.”
I smiled.
“Terrifying.”
“Humiliating.”
“Get used to it.”
His mouth curved.
For a man feared by half of Chicago, Ravi looked strangely human sitting barefoot on a hallway floor at four in the morning.
And that was more dangerous to me than the gun he carried.
It was much easier to distrust a legend than a person.
Later, after Sadi finally slept deeply enough that I could leave her for a few minutes, I found Ravi downstairs.
He was standing over the captured intruder, who sat handcuffed to a chair with Tomas nearby.
“Who hired you?” Ravi asked.
The man laughed.
Ravi did not touch him.
He simply placed Catherine’s recorder on the table and played Victor’s voice.
The intruder’s smile vanished.
“You are not loyal to Victor,” Ravi said. “You are disposable to him.”
The man stared at the floor.
Ravi continued.
“He sent you into my property using a stolen credential. If you had succeeded, he would have blamed Elias. If you failed, which you did, he would deny knowing you.”
The man said nothing.
Ravi leaned closer.
“Tell me where Victor is moving the Lantern records.”
The man looked up sharply.
That was enough.
Ravi saw it.
So did I.
“Lantern is real,” I said.
The intruder’s eyes moved toward me.
Ravi turned.
I should not have been there.
He knew it.
I knew it.
But I was done being kept outside rooms where my life was being discussed.
The intruder swallowed.
“I don’t know anything about records.”
Ravi straightened.
“You reacted.”
“I reacted because she said a word.”
“Then tell us what it means.”
Silence.
I walked closer.
“My sister is ten.”
The man looked at me.
“She cried tonight because grown men decided she was useful leverage. If you know anything that stops this, tell me.”
He looked away.
I thought I had failed.
Then he said, “Union Freight Terminal. Warehouse seventeen. Tomorrow night.”
Ravi’s face changed.
“What is being moved?”
“Paper files. Old ones.”
“To where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who ordered it?”
The man hesitated.
“Elias.”
Ravi closed his eyes for one second.
Not surprise.
Confirmation.
The traitor had been living inside his house all along.
The next evening, Ravi did not take me to the warehouse.
For once, I did not argue.
Sadi needed me.
Catherine stayed with us.
At 11:06 p.m., Ravi called.
“We found the files.”
My heart jumped.
“And?”
His voice was strange.
“There is something you need to see.”
“What?”
“Your father’s name is on a contract.”
My stomach dropped.
“What contract?”
Ravi was silent too long.
“A payment agreement with Victor Voss.”
I gripped the phone.
“No.”
“Diane—”
“No. My father was investigating him.”
“I know.”
“How much?”
Ravi exhaled.
“Two million dollars.”
The room seemed to disappear around me.
Catherine stared at my face.
I whispered, “Are you telling me my father was working for Victor?”
May you like
Ravi’s answer broke something open inside me.
“I’m telling you we just found proof that Victor paid him.”
