Chapter 3 - The Dead Man Who Walked Into My Wife's Apartment
Patrick Keane had been dead for eight years.
I had seen the burned vehicle.
I had seen the medical examiner's report.
I had attended his funeral.
And I had personally handed his widow a check for two million dollars.
Now he was walking into my pregnant ex-wife's apartment as though death had been a minor inconvenience.
I wanted answers.
But first, I wanted Elena safe.
"Gabriel, put two trusted men outside her hospital room," I ordered.
"Already done."
"Nobody enters without medical authorization and your approval. Not even family."
My eyes moved toward Ava.
She flinched.
I hated that.
I hated what we had become in less than an hour.
Gabriel nodded.
"What about Keane?"
"Find him. Don't confront him until we know who he's working for."
Ava stepped forward.
"Nico, please listen."
I turned.
"You have thirty seconds."
She wiped her face.
"The explosion wasn't an accident."
"I know that."
"No. You don't."
My father's death had been one of the defining moments of my life.
A car bomb outside a private restaurant in Cicero.
Three men killed.
Two vehicles destroyed.
Patrick Keane supposedly among the dead.
My father had survived the initial explosion but died during surgery.
I inherited his empire at thirty-one.
And spent the next eight years believing the attack had been ordered by a rival organization.
Ava shook her head.
"Dad planned the explosion."
I stared at her.
"That's not funny."
"I'm not joking."
"He died."
"I know."
"Then explain how a man plans his own death."
"He wasn't supposed to be in the car."
Silence.
Ava pressed a trembling hand against her mouth.
"He was supposed to leave before the device went off. Patrick arranged everything. Dad wanted to disappear."
"Why?"
"Because someone had evidence against him."
"What evidence?"
Ava looked toward the hospital corridor.
"Something connected to Catherine Brooks."
Elena's mother.
Again.
I remembered the first time Elena told me about Catherine.
We had been married only three months.
She was sitting on our bedroom floor sorting old photographs.
She showed me a picture of a woman with dark hair, a wide smile, and the same brown eyes Elena had inherited.
"That's my mom," she said.
"She's beautiful."
"She was."
I sat beside her.
"What happened?"
"Car accident. I was fourteen."
She tried to smile.
"She was driving to pick me up from a friend's house."
I remembered the way Elena stared at that photograph.
"I waited three hours before anyone told me."
I had held her that night.
Promised she would never face another tragedy alone.
Now I wondered whether my own family had caused the first one.
"What did Catherine know?" I asked Ava.
"I don't know all of it."
"Stop saying that."
"It's the truth."
I stepped away before my anger became something uglier.
Ava continued.
"Dad used to meet with a woman who worked as a forensic accountant. I heard them arguing once. She said she had copies of everything."
"Catherine?"
Ava nodded.
"She told him innocent people would go to prison if she stayed silent."
I felt sick.
"How old were you?"
"Twelve."
Twenty years ago.
Exactly when Catherine died.
"Why didn't you tell anyone?"
"Because Dad caught me listening."
Her voice broke.
"He told me if I repeated what I heard, someone would hurt Mom."
Our mother had died of cancer four years later.
I remembered Ava becoming quieter during those years.
I had assumed she was grieving.
Maybe she had been terrified.
"Did Dad order Catherine's death?"
Ava looked at the floor.
"I never heard him say that."
"Did you suspect?"
"Yes."
The word hollowed something inside me.
I had built my life on loyalty to a man whose crimes I had inherited without ever fully understanding them.
And the woman I loved had been investigating his connection to her mother's death.
"Why did Elena go to the Ashford Building?"
"She believed Catherine left a copy of the records there."
"Where?"
"In a storage room behind the old executive offices."
I remembered the building's layout.
My father had kept a private suite on the eleventh floor.
There was a secure records room accessible from a service corridor.
"Who told Elena?"
Ava hesitated.
"Someone using the name Daniel Reed."
"Do you know him?"
"No."
"Did you meet him?"
"Never."
"Then how did he contact her?"
"Email."
Gabriel appeared again.
"Boss, our team reached Elena's apartment."
I turned.
"Keane?"
"Gone."
"What did he take?"
"We're still checking."
"Was anyone hurt?"
"No."
He lowered his voice.
"But there's something you need to see."
He handed me his phone.
The screen displayed Elena's small living room.
Bookshelves.
A cream-colored couch.
A blue ceramic vase.
A half-finished painting resting near the window.
She had rebuilt a life without me.
A smaller one.
A quieter one.
And she had done it while carrying our child.
On the coffee table sat a stack of prenatal books.
Beside them was a pair of tiny yellow socks.
I stared at those socks longer than I should have.
Then Gabriel enlarged the photograph.
Someone had written a message across Elena's living room wall.
Not in blood.
Not in paint.
In thick black marker.
YOUR MOTHER SHOULD HAVE STAYED QUIET.
My vision narrowed.
"Get me the building's surveillance footage."
"We're working on it."
"And contact Detective Sarah Bennett."
Gabriel raised an eyebrow.
"Chicago Police?"
"Yes."
Bennett had investigated organized crime for fifteen years.
She disliked me.
I disliked her.
But she was one of the few officers I believed couldn't be purchased.
"You're bringing the police into this?"
"They're already involved. Elena was assaulted."
Ava looked stunned.
"Nico, the organization—"
"Can survive an investigation."
"But—"
"My wife might not survive the night."
Nobody argued.
I returned to Elena's room.
She was still unconscious.
The doctor explained that the imaging showed bleeding that required close observation, but the team had not identified an immediate need for surgery.
They were monitoring her neurological status and would reassess if anything changed.
I sat beside her.
For a long time, I said nothing.
Then I looked at the tiny movement beneath the blanket as she breathed.
"I saw your apartment," I whispered.
"I saw the books."
I swallowed.
"And the socks."
My voice cracked.
"I should have been there when you bought them."
The monitor beeped steadily.
"I should have been there when you heard the heartbeat."
I touched her hand.
"I should have been there when you were scared."
I remembered the divorce hearing.
Elena had worn a pale blue dress.
The same dress she wore on our first anniversary.
I had wondered whether she chose it deliberately.
She had looked at me across the table.
"Are you absolutely sure?"
I had nodded.
She asked whether there was another woman.
I said no.
She asked whether I had stopped loving her.
I said yes.
And when she asked whether any of our marriage had been real, I gave the answer I thought would make her leave forever.
No.
I had convinced myself cruelty was a form of protection.
Now I understood it had only left her isolated when danger came.
My phone vibrated.
A message from Gabriel.
Detective Bennett is on her way. We also found something in Elena's apartment that Keane missed.
A photograph followed.
It showed a small metal box hidden behind the removable backing of a painting.
Inside were several documents.
And a photograph.
My father stood beside Catherine Brooks.
They were younger.
Smiling.
Standing outside a courthouse.
Between them was a little girl.
Maybe six years old.
Dark hair.
Brown eyes.
I enlarged the photograph.
The girl looked exactly like Elena.
But what made my hands go cold was the writing on the back.
LORENZO, CATHERINE, AND OUR DAUGHTER. SUMMER 1993.
I stared at the screen.
Our daughter.
My father.
Elena's mother.
I counted the years.
Then counted them again.
The room seemed to lose all its air.
If that photograph meant what I feared it meant, Elena might not simply have been connected to my father's crimes.
May you like
She might have been connected to my blood.
And the child she carried could be caught in a secret far more devastating than anything I had imagined.
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