Chapter 2 - The Photograph King Hid From Me
The first gunshot came from outside.
The second shattered a warehouse light.
Darkness slammed down over us.
Someone shouted.
A chair scraped violently across concrete.
Jason yelled my name, but I was already moving.
I dropped behind a stack of rotting wooden pallets as three more shots cracked through the building. The sound was so loud inside the metal shell of the warehouse that my ears rang instantly.
I couldn't see King.
I couldn't see Jason.
I couldn't see anything except the occasional white burst of muzzle flash tearing holes in the dark.
Then a hand closed around my ankle.
I screamed and kicked.
“Harper.”
King.
I dropped to my knees.
He was on his side, still tied to the chair, somehow having thrown himself behind the pallets when the lights went out.
“Can you move?” I whispered.
“Better if you untie me.”
His voice was dry enough that under different circumstances I might have laughed.
I crawled behind him and found the plastic restraint around his wrists.
“I need something sharp.”
“Left boot.”
“What?”
“Knife.”
Of course the kidnapped mafia boss had a knife hidden in his boot.
I reached down, found the sheath, and pulled out a narrow blade.
“Your kidnappers missed this?”
“They were distracted.”
“By what?”
“You.”
I cut through the restraint.
The second his hands were free, King became a different person.
He took the knife, cut his ankles loose, and rose despite the blood on his shirt.
“Stay behind me.”
“I'm starting to hate that sentence.”
“Harper.”
“Fine.”
A figure rushed around the pallets.
King moved before I even understood what was happening. He drove the man's wrist against a steel beam. A gun clattered to the floor. King caught it before it landed.
The man groaned.
King shoved him away.
“Luca!” he shouted.
“East side clear!” Luca's voice answered from somewhere in the darkness.
Emergency lights flickered on.
Red.
Dim.
Enough to see the warehouse erupting into controlled chaos.
King's men were entering from two directions.
The kidnappers were retreating through a rear loading bay.
And Jason was running with them.
I saw him reach the door.
“Jason!”
He turned.
For a second, we looked at each other across twenty yards of concrete.
There was no apology in his face.
No shame.
Only calculation.
Then he lifted the old photograph of my father as though he were making sure I saw it.
“You want the truth?” he shouted. “Ask Moretti what his father paid to bury it!”
Then he disappeared through the loading bay.
I started after him.
King caught my arm.
“No.”
“He has the picture.”
“He wants you to chase him.”
“And you want me to stand here and pretend I didn't hear what he said?”
His grip loosened.
“Not here.”
I yanked my arm away.
“Convenient.”
Luca reached us.
“Two vehicles got out. Paolo's tracking one. We have three men alive.”
King nodded.
“Jason?”
“Gone.”
“Salvatore?”
“No sign.”
The name landed between us.
I stared at King.
“Your uncle was behind this?”
“We don't know yet.”
“Do you know anything yet?”
His eyes met mine.
Pain moved through his expression, but I couldn't tell whether it came from the wound in his shoulder or the question.
I looked down.
Blood was running along his sleeve.
“You've been shot.”
“Grazed.”
“That's still shot.”
Luca stepped closer. “Car's outside.”
King ignored him.
“Harper, I can explain.”
“No. You can answer.”
His jaw tightened.
“What did you know about my father?”
Silence.
That silence hurt more than I expected.
“King.”
“I knew Daniel Bennett had worked in Chicago.”
I stared at him.
“My mother told me he was a newspaper photographer.”
“He was.”
“And?”
“He also documented meetings for a federal corruption task force.”
The warehouse disappeared around me.
“What?”
“Not as an agent. As a source. He had access to places reporters didn't. He photographed people who believed nobody was watching.”
Exactly what I did.
The thought made my skin prickle.
“How long have you known?”
“Since the night after your apartment was searched.”
“You looked me up.”
“Yes.”
“And you found him.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn't tell me.”
“I didn't know enough to tell you without putting you at greater risk.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Everyone keeps saying that right before I end up in more danger.”
King's face tightened.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“By deciding what I was allowed to know about my own father?”
He had no answer that would satisfy me.
Maybe he knew it.
Maybe that was why he looked away first.
I turned and walked toward the loading bay.
Luca moved to stop me.
King shook his head.
“Let her go.”
I kept walking until the cold night air hit my face.
Then I bent over with my hands on my knees and tried not to be sick.
My father had been dead nineteen years.
My mother had spent those years refusing to discuss Chicago.
Any time I asked about his work, she told me he had photographed weddings, sports, city council meetings, and neighborhood stories.
Ordinary things.
She had never once mentioned federal corruption.
She had never once mentioned the Moretti family.
Behind me, I heard King approach.
“Don't.”
He stopped.
“I just need five minutes where nobody lies to me.”
“I haven't lied to you.”
I spun around.
“No? You knew my father's name. You knew he had a connection to your family. You knew someone was hunting photographs tied to me. And you let me keep thinking this was about one random picture.”
“I knew pieces.”
“Pieces you kept.”
He flinched.
Good.
I wanted him to understand that being protected without consent could feel a lot like being controlled.
“I brought you to the club because I wanted you there,” he said quietly.
I blinked.
“What?”
“You're wondering if that was part of some strategy. It wasn't.”
I hated that he knew exactly where my thoughts had gone.
“Were you using me to flush out your uncle?”
“No.”
“Did you know someone might move against me after I was seen publicly with you?”
“Yes.”
“And you still brought me.”
“I warned you.”
“After.”
His mouth closed.
There it was.
Not a lie.
But not enough truth either.
A black SUV pulled up.
Luca opened the rear door.
“King, we need to move.”
King looked at me.
“Come with us.”
I shook my head.
“Harper—”
“I need my apartment.”
“It isn't secure.”
“Then I need a hotel.”
“Also not secure.”
I folded my arms.
“Are you planning to chain me to a chair too?”
His eyes flashed.
“No.”
“Then give me a car and one person I can trust.”
King glanced at Luca.
Luca looked offended.
I pointed at him. “Not him. He's yours.”
That earned the smallest twitch at the corner of King's mouth.
“You want someone who isn't loyal to me?”
“I want someone whose first instruction isn't going to be ‘King said.’”
He considered that.
Then he called a woman named Elena Rossi.
Twenty minutes later, Elena arrived in a gray sedan.
She was thirty-four, wore jeans and a leather jacket, and carried herself like someone who had never needed permission to enter a room.
King introduced her as a security consultant who had once worked cybercrime investigations.
“You trust her?” I asked.
“With my life.”
I looked at Elena.
“Do you work for him?”
“No.”
King sighed.
Elena smiled.
“I like her already.”
I got into Elena's car.
King caught the door before I could close it.
“Harper.”
I looked up.
He leaned down, one hand gripping the top of the door, his face pale beneath the streetlight.
“I am sorry.”
It was the first time I had heard him say those words.
Not I'm sorry this happened.
Not I'm sorry you're upset.
Just I am sorry.
That made it harder.
Not easier.
“I believe you,” I said.
His expression shifted.
“But I still don't trust you right now.”
Then I closed the door.
Elena drove me to a small hotel under a name I didn't know.
The room was plain, clean, and on the ninth floor.
She checked the locks, windows, vents, and smoke detector before finally sitting across from me at the little desk.
“Show me the original photo,” she said.
I opened my cloud archive.
The photograph that had started everything appeared on screen.
Rain streaked the glass of a restaurant across Wabash.
In the reflection, a woman in a red coat was laughing beneath her umbrella.
Behind the reflection, inside the restaurant, three men sat at a table.
Victor Sorrento.
Alderman Crowe.
Salvatore Moretti.
I zoomed in.
Salvatore's hand extended across the table.
A small black object rested in his palm.
A flash drive.
Elena whistled softly.
“That's ugly.”
“What would be on it?”
“If King is right? Names. Payments. Police. Judges. Contracts. Maybe routes.”
“Routes for what?”
She looked at me.
“You don't want to know unless we confirm it.”
I stared at the photo.
Then something bothered me.
“Wait.”
“What?”
I zoomed out, then moved to the left side of the image.
The restaurant window reflected more than the street.
It reflected the rear quarter of a black sedan parked behind me.
I enlarged the bumper.
There was a person inside.
Elena leaned closer.
“Can you clean that up?”
“Not enough to identify a face.”
“But maybe something else.”
I adjusted the exposure and contrast.
A hand appeared on the steering wheel.
A signet ring flashed on the person's little finger.
Elena stopped breathing.
“What?” I asked.
She didn't answer.
“Elena.”
“That ring belongs to the Moretti family.”
“So Salvatore's driver?”
“No.”
She pointed.
“King's father had six made. One for each of the men he considered his sons.”
“King wears one?”
“He used to.”
“Who else has one?”
“Luca.”
I stared at her.
“Luca?”
“And Salvatore. Two others are dead. One disappeared ten years ago.”
My mind raced.
“Can you tell whose hand that is?”
“No.”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I froze.
Elena reached for it.
I stopped her and answered on speaker.
For a moment, there was only breathing.
Then a woman's voice said, “Harper?”
My chest tightened.
I knew that voice.
“Tessa?”
Elena's eyes sharpened.
My former roommate began to cry.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I am so sorry.”
I gripped the edge of the desk.
“What do you want?”
“Jason came back.”
My entire body went cold.
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Where are you?”
“Detroit. Harper, listen to me. He was looking for something in your old boxes. He kept asking about your dad's cameras.”
I looked at Elena.
She sat straighter.
“What cameras?” I asked.
“The old one. The silver-and-black one you kept in the closet. The one you said belonged to your father.”
My heart stopped.
My father's Nikon FM2.
The first real camera I had ever held.
The camera sitting in a storage case beneath my bed in Chicago.
Tessa's voice broke.
“Jason said if he couldn't find the film, people were going to die.”
I barely managed to speak.
“What film?”
“I don't know.”
A loud sound came through the phone.
A door slamming.
Then Tessa gasped.
“Harper, someone's here.”
“Tessa?”
“Don't trust—”
The line went dead.
I stared at the phone.
Elena was already standing.
“Who was she going to say?”
“I don't know.”
But as I looked at the old photograph on my laptop and thought about the camera under my bed, a terrifying possibility took shape.
The picture I had accidentally taken on Wabash Avenue wasn't the beginning of this.
It was the reason someone had finally found me.
May you like
Whatever people were willing to kill for had started nineteen years earlier.
And my father had left it to me.
