Chapter 7 - The Woman Who Wanted Vincent Dead Had Been Living Beside Me All Along
Vincent survived.
The bullet missed his heart by inches.
While he recovered, the Crow disappeared.
That frightened us.
Silence was never good.
Then a package arrived.
Inside was my mother's wedding ring.
And a note.
COME ALONE.
I refused.
Vincent tried to stop me.
But my mother recognized the handwriting.
“It's Margaret.”
We found Margaret in an abandoned hotel.
She wasn't alone.
The Crow leader stood beside her.
I recognized him.
Mr. Hawthorne.
A respected businessman.
The man who had sponsored community charities across Chicago.
The same man everyone trusted.
“You,” Vincent said.
Hawthorne smiled.
“You finally understand.”
He admitted everything.
My father had discovered the network.
Vincent's father had tried to destroy it.
Both families had lost people.
Hawthorne had manipulated criminal organizations, politicians, and businesses for decades.
He wanted the encrypted account.
The evidence.
And me.
“What do you want from me?”
“Your memory.”
He revealed the truth.
The code wasn't simply numbers.
It was encoded in the rhythm of the bakery recipes.
I was the key.
He needed me alive.
I smiled.
“Then you'll never get it.”
Hawthorne laughed.
“We already have.”
Margaret stepped forward.
I stared at her.
“You work for him?”
She looked ashamed.
“I did.”
Vincent appeared behind me.
He had ignored his doctor's orders.
His face was pale.
His gun raised.
“Hawthorne.”
The room erupted into chaos.
Margaret attacked Hawthorne's guards.
Vincent and I ran through the hotel corridors.
We reached the rooftop.
Hawthorne cornered us.
He held a gun to my mother's head.
Vincent lowered his weapon.
“Let her go.”
Hawthorne laughed.
“You've always had one weakness.”
He looked at me.
“She is your weakness now too.”
Then the rooftop door burst open.
Detective Monroe and federal agents stormed in.
Hawthorne tried to fire.
Vincent tackled him.
The two men crashed to the ground.
After a brutal struggle, Hawthorne was arrested.
But before he was taken away, he looked at me.
“You think this ends here?”
Vincent stood beside me.
“Yes.”
Hawthorne smiled.
“You don't know what your mother did.”
I turned.
My mother was crying.
“What did you do?”
She whispered:
“I gave Hawthorne your name.”
I felt betrayed.
She immediately explained.
Years ago, she had done it to save me.
She had convinced the Crow that I had died.
Then spent decades hiding.
I finally understood.
The secrets had always been acts of love.
Terrible acts.
May you like
Painful acts.
But love nonetheless.
