Chapter 2 - The Woman in the PhotographThe backup generators activated twelve seconds after the first explosion.
To Mave, it felt like twelve minutes.
Red emergency lights flooded the study.
Leo remained between her and the door.
He did not ask whether she was frightened.
He knew.
What surprised Mave was the realization that he was frightened too.
Not for himself.
For her.
“Leo.”
“Stay behind me.”
“You don't know what's outside.”
“Exactly.”
Gunfire erupted somewhere near the driveway.
Mave flinched.
Leo didn't.
The difference between them had never been clearer.
For three years, she had told herself that Leo's world existed on the other side of a thick pane of glass.
She cleaned his home.
Prepared his meals.
Organized the books he never finished.
Collected his dry cleaning.
She heard conversations she pretended not to understand.
She had seen blood twice.
Maybe three times, depending on what had stained the rug in the downstairs office last winter.
But she had never belonged to that world.
Now someone had blown up a gate because of her.
The study door opened abruptly.
Leo raised the pistol.
“Boss!”
Giani entered with blood running from his forehead.
“West gate was a distraction.”
Leo's voice hardened.
“What happened?”
“Car bomb outside the guardhouse. No fatalities. Russo's men chased another vehicle south.”
“Description?”
“Black sedan.”
Mave's stomach dropped.
“The same one?”
Giani looked at her.
Leo answered.
“Probably.”
Giani's expression changed.
He knew.
Everyone would know now.
Mave was important to Leo.
That realization frightened her more than the explosion.
“Sweep the property,” Leo ordered. “No assumptions. Check the roof, basement, service tunnels, garage.”
“Already happening.”
“Then double it.”
Giani nodded and left.
Mave rose.
Leo turned sharply.
“I said stay down.”
“And the shooting stopped.”
“For now.”
“You can't put me behind a desk every time someone fires a gun.”
“I can try.”
“Leo.”
He looked at her.
The expression in his eyes made her anger falter.
“You don't understand,” he said quietly.
“Then explain it.”
He looked toward the photograph.
Mave followed his gaze.
Her mother.
Evelyn Quinn.
Standing beside Salvatore Castiglion.
The questions felt heavier now.
“Tell me everything.”
Leo hesitated.
Then he unloaded the weapon, set it on the desk, and sat down.
That small action mattered.
He wasn't treating her like an employee anymore.
He was inviting her into information he had spent his life protecting.
“My father ran the Castiglion organization before me.”
“I assumed that.”
“He was smarter than people believed. Less violent than his reputation. More violent than he admitted.”
“Comforting.”
Leo ignored the comment.
“Toward the end, he became convinced someone inside the organization was stealing from him.”
“How much?”
“Millions.”
Mave blinked.
“People steal millions from mafia bosses?”
“Usually once.”
“Right.”
“He suspected one of his partners. Maybe family.”
Mave's eyes narrowed.
“Family?”
“My uncle Dominic handled finances.”
“I've never met him.”
“You wouldn't have.”
“Why?”
“He disappeared after my father died.”
Mave went still.
“You're telling me your father's accountant vanished after your father was murdered?”
Leo looked at her.
“I didn't say my father was murdered.”
“You didn't have to.”
For the first time that night, Leo almost smiled.
“Too observant.”
“You hired me.”
“My father was killed when I was twenty-three.”
“How?”
“Car explosion.”
Mave glanced toward the windows.
“That seems disturbingly relevant.”
“Yes.”
Leo leaned back.
“I inherited everything.”
“At twenty-three?”
“Everything except trust.”
The bitterness in his voice surprised her.
“Dominic disappeared within forty-eight hours. We assumed he had either run or been killed.”
“Did you search?”
“For years.”
“And never found him?”
“No.”
Mave picked up the photograph.
“My mother was a bookkeeper.”
Leo looked sharply at her.
“She worked for hospitals?”
“No. Before that.”
Mave traced the edge of the photograph.
“She never talked about it. She always said she had worked for a shipping company when she was young.”
Leo's face changed.
“Which company?”
“I don't know.”
“Mave.”
“I was twelve when she told me. I cared more about whether she would let me pierce my ears.”
Leo stood and moved toward a cabinet.
He unlocked it.
Inside were old ledgers, folders, photographs.
Mave stared.
“You keep physical files?”
“My father didn't trust computers.”
“Smart.”
“He also didn't trust people.”
“Smarter.”
Leo pulled out a personnel file from decades earlier.
He flipped through pages.
Stopped.
His expression became unreadable.
“What?”
He handed it to her.
CASTIGLION MARITIME.
ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT.
EVELYN QUINN.
Mave sank into the chair.
“My mother worked for your family.”
“Yes.”
The room felt suddenly too small.
“How long?”
“Four years.”
“When?”
“Before I was born.”
Mave studied the employment record.
Her mother's signature appeared at the bottom.
Real.
Familiar.
The same slanted handwriting that had labeled Mave's lunch bags as a child.
“She never told me.”
“Maybe she wanted distance from this world.”
“Then why would someone come looking for me now?”
Leo had no answer.
A knock sounded.
Carmine entered.
His suit was wet.
Blood spotted one cuff.
Mave looked at it.
Carmine noticed.
“Not mine.”
“Wonderful,” Mave murmured.
Leo stood.
“What did you find?”
“Sedan abandoned under the viaduct. Burned.”
“Driver?”
“Gone.”
“Plates?”
“Stolen.”
“Anything inside?”
Carmine looked toward Mave.
Leo caught it.
“Speak.”
Carmine placed a plastic evidence bag on the desk.
Inside was an old brass key.
A paper tag was tied around it.
E.Q.
Mave stopped breathing.
“Where?”
“Passenger seat.”
She reached for it.
Leo grabbed it first.
“No.”
“Those are my mother's initials.”
“Which is why you're not touching something left inside a vehicle used in an attack.”
Carmine cleared his throat.
“We checked it.”
Leo looked at him.
“For explosives?”
“Yes.”
“Chemical residue?”
“Yes.”
“Prints?”
“Nothing useful.”
Leo handed the key to Mave.
She turned it over.
A number had been stamped into the metal.
“What does it open?”
Nobody knew.
They spent the next three hours searching.
Leo's men contacted storage companies, train stations, banks, old apartment buildings.
At four in the morning, Giani found the answer.
Grand Central Station had once maintained private storage lockers in a lower concourse that had been closed to the public more than twenty years earlier.
Some were still used for long-term sealed property awaiting legal claims.
Locker 318.
Registered under the name Evelyn Quinn.
Mave looked at Leo.
“We're going.”
“No.”
“Leo.”
“No.”
“It's my mother's.”
“It may also be a trap.”
“Then come with me.”
“That's not the point.”
“It is exactly the point.”
He stared.
Mave stood.
“You keep saying I'm safer when you're around.”
“You are.”
“Prove it.”
Leo swore under his breath.
They left at dawn.
Not alone.
Leo insisted on two vehicles, six men, and an advance security team.
Mave mocked him until they passed the remains of the destroyed gatehouse.
Then she became quiet.
The explosion had blackened the stone.
A guard stood nearby with his arm in a sling.
Mave looked down at her hands.
“This happened because of me.”
“No.”
Leo's response was immediate.
“Someone chose to do this. That's on them.”
“They were sending you a message.”
“Yes.”
“With me.”
Leo turned toward her.
“And that's on me.”
Mave looked at him.
“Why?”
He looked out the window.
“Because I let people see I care whether you come home.”
The confession was so quiet she almost missed it.
Her heart stumbled.
Leo said nothing else.
At Grand Central, they were escorted through a restricted service corridor.
An elderly property supervisor met them.
He had already been persuaded not to ask questions.
Money, Mave assumed.
Or fear.
Probably both.
Locker 318 was behind a rusted metal door.
Leo checked the corridor.
Mave inserted the key.
It turned.
The locker contained one object.
A rectangular metal box.
Leo removed it carefully.
They opened it in a secure room.
Inside were documents.
Dozens.
Bank statements.
Shipping manifests.
Photographs.
A cassette tape.
And one sealed envelope.
MAVE.
The handwriting belonged to her mother.
Her hands began shaking.
Leo noticed.
“You don't have to open it here.”
“Yes, I do.”
She tore the envelope.
My darling girl,
If you are reading this, then something I spent most of my life running from has finally found you.
I am sorry.
Mave swallowed.
Leo moved closer.
She continued.
Years before you were born, I worked for Salvatore Castiglion.
He was not a good man.
But he once made a good choice.
I discovered money disappearing from his company. Large amounts. Someone was using Castiglion shipping routes to move weapons without Salvatore's permission. When I told him, he believed me.
The person stealing from him was his own brother.
Dominic.
Leo became motionless.
Mave looked at him.
She continued reading.
Dominic learned that I knew.
He threatened me.
Salvatore helped me disappear.
He gave me money and arranged a new apartment.
Two weeks later, someone tried to kill Salvatore's wife and young son.
I warned him because I had overheard Dominic planning it.
That boy survived.
His name was Leo.
Mave stopped.
Her eyes lifted slowly.
Leo looked pale.
“My mother never told me.”
She returned to the letter.
Salvatore promised me Dominic would never find us.
But men like Dominic do not disappear.
They wait.
I kept evidence.
If he ever comes back, it can destroy him.
Trust the son.
Do not trust the brother.
Mave lowered the page.
The room was silent.
Leo stared at the documents.
“My father knew.”
“About Dominic.”
“He knew Dominic tried to kill me.”
Mave touched his arm.
Leo didn't react.
“My father told me Dominic disappeared because he was afraid after the bombing.”
“Maybe he was protecting you.”
Leo gave a bitter laugh.
“My father protected people by lying to them.”
Mave understood the irony.
“So do you.”
His eyes met hers.
Before either could say more, a phone rang.
Carmine answered.
His expression changed.
“Boss.”
“What?”
Carmine held out the phone.
“It's the house.”
Leo took it.
He listened.
His face became stone.
“When?”
A pause.
“How did they get inside?”
Another pause.
Leo looked toward Mave.
“We're coming back.”
He disconnected.
“What happened?” she asked.
Leo didn't answer immediately.
Then he looked at Carmine.
“Someone entered the estate while we were gone.”
Mave's stomach tightened.
“What did they take?”
Leo's voice was quiet.
“Nothing.”
“Then why break in?”
“They left something in your bedroom.”
The drive back felt endless.
When they entered Mave's room, she immediately saw it.
A single red rose lay on her pillow.
Beneath it was another photograph.
Leo picked it up.
It showed Mave leaving the diner the previous night.
Beside her was Nora.
The image had been taken from across the street.
Someone had written on the bottom.
WE KNOW WHAT HE CARES ABOUT NOW.
Mave's skin went cold.
Leo stared at the photograph.
Carmine said quietly, “They got through internal security.”
Leo turned.
Meaning someone had helped them.
Someone inside the Castiglion organization.
Leo looked around the room.
For the first time, Mave realized the thick walls of the mansion were not protecting them.
May you like
The danger was already inside.
And somewhere in the city, Dominic Castiglion might still be alive.
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