Chapter 2 - The Man Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Mave could not move.
For twelve years, she had remembered her father through fragments.
His work boots beside the front door.
Coffee that was always too strong.
A cheap silver watch he wore even when it stopped keeping accurate time.
The last morning she saw him, he had kissed her forehead and said he would be home for dinner.
He never returned.
Police later found his car beside the river.
Blood inside.
No body.
After months of searching, he was legally presumed dead.
Her mother stopped talking about him.
Mave stopped asking.
Now the man walking toward them had the same shoulders.
The same slight limp.
The same habit of rubbing his thumb against his index finger when nervous.
But he looked older.
Harder.
And terrified.
“Mave.”
His voice broke.
She took a step forward.
Adrian’s arm stopped her.
“Wait.”
“That’s my father.”
“Maybe.”
She looked at Adrian sharply.
“What does that mean?”
“It means nobody approaches you tonight until I know why they’re here.”
Her father stopped ten feet away.
His eyes went to Adrian.
“Vale.”
“You know me?”
“I know enough.”
Adrian glanced toward the dark sedan.
“Who’s inside?”
“No one you want to meet.”
“Then we have something in common.”
Mave pulled free of Adrian’s arm.
“Dad?”
The man looked at her.
Real emotion cracked his face.
“I’m sorry.”
Her eyes filled.
“Twelve years.”
“I know.”
“You were alive.”
“Yes.”
“My mother died thinking you abandoned us.”
Pain crossed his face.
“I know.”
Mave slapped him.
The sound echoed through the wet street.
No one interfered.
Her father accepted it without moving.
“You don’t get to say you know,” she whispered. “You don’t know what she went through.”
“I watched.”
Mave stopped.
“What?”
“From a distance.”
Her second slap came harder.
“You watched?”
“I had to.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He looked at Adrian.
“Because of men like him.”
Adrian showed no reaction.
Mave’s father continued.
“My name is Thomas Carter. I worked financial security for Bellmont before you were old enough to understand what that meant.”
Mave shook her head.
“You sold insurance.”
“That’s what your mother told you.”
Her stomach turned.
Thomas looked toward Curtis.
“He knows.”
Curtis lowered his eyes.
Adrian noticed.
“Keep talking.”
Thomas inhaled.
“Bellmont wasn’t simply an office-services company. It was a financial pipeline. Shell corporations. Political bribes. Illegal collections. Money laundering.”
Mave looked at Curtis.
“You work for them.”
Curtis gave a bitter laugh.
“Everyone works for someone.”
Thomas said, “Twelve years ago I found the ledger.”
Adrian’s posture changed slightly.
“What ledger?”
“The original one.”
Silence fell.
Even Adrian’s men seemed to understand the significance.
Thomas continued.
“A complete record of every payment Bellmont handled. Judges. Officers. Contractors. Organized crews.”
His eyes returned to Adrian.
“Your family included.”
Mave looked up at Adrian.
He did not deny it.
Her heart sank.
“You’re really mafia.”
His gaze met hers.
“Yes.”
She had known.
Of course she had known.
Three black SUVs.
Armed men.
The way Curtis had nearly stopped breathing at the sight of him.
But hearing Adrian say it made the insanity real.
Mave stepped away.
“Why did you answer my call?”
“That question matters less than why your call reached me.”
Thomas nodded.
“Exactly.”
Adrian looked at him.
“You arranged it?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
Thomas pointed toward Mave.
“But someone wanted the two of you connected.”
Mave hugged Adrian’s coat around herself.
“What does the flash drive have to do with this?”
Her father looked sick.
“Everything.”
Years earlier, Thomas explained, he had made a copy of Bellmont’s ledger.
He planned to turn it over to federal investigators.
Before he could, Bellmont discovered him.
Someone tried to kill him.
Thomas survived but understood that returning home would place his wife and daughter in immediate danger.
So he disappeared.
He allowed the world to believe he had died.
The copy of the ledger vanished.
Until now.
Three weeks earlier, a hidden automated system inside Bellmont recognized Mave’s surname when she plugged her personal flash drive into an office computer.
The system copied an encrypted archive onto it.
Thomas had designed that failsafe twelve years ago.
“If anything happened to me,” he said, “the archive was supposed to eventually reach you.”
Mave stared.
“You left evidence with your daughter?”
“I never expected you to work for Bellmont.”
“You never expected anything because you weren’t there!”
Thomas flinched.
Adrian watched Mave carefully.
She looked cold.
Furious.
Devastated.
And still somehow stronger than when he had first opened her car door.
Curtis interrupted.
“You can have your reunion later. Kessler wants that drive.”
Adrian turned slowly.
Curtis instantly regretted speaking.
“Kessler sent you?”
Curtis hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Then tell him he failed.”
“He’s already at her apartment.”
Mave’s heart stopped.
“My things…”
Thomas said, “The drive is what matters.”
She spun toward him.
“My mother’s things are in those boxes.”
Thomas fell silent.
Mave looked at Adrian.
“I need to go back.”
“No.”
“Adrian—”
“No.”
“I have nowhere else.”
“You do tonight.”
“That doesn’t solve anything.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
She stepped closer.
“That apartment contains everything I have left of my mother.”
Adrian looked at his security chief.
“Marco.”
Marco nodded.
“We can secure the building.”
Thomas said, “Kessler will expect that.”
Adrian replied, “Good.”
Within minutes, Curtis and his men were disarmed and placed under guard.
Thomas was brought with them.
Mave rode inside Adrian’s SUV.
She sat on one side.
Adrian on the other.
Neither spoke for several blocks.
Finally, Mave asked, “Are you going to kill Curtis?”
Adrian looked at her.
“No.”
“You answered too quickly.”
“You asked what I was going to do. Not what I wanted to do.”
Despite everything, the corner of her mouth twitched.
He noticed.
“You almost smiled.”
“I absolutely did not.”
“You did.”
“My life is collapsing.”
“I’m aware.”
“My dead father came back.”
“Also aware.”
“I accidentally called a mafia boss.”
“That part could have gone worse.”
She stared at him.
“You’re unbelievable.”
“I hear that often.”
Her expression softened for half a second.
Then she looked away.
“Why are you helping me?”
Adrian did not immediately answer.
Because once he had seen her shaking inside that car, walking away had become impossible.
Because her voice reminded him of his younger sister Elena on the night she begged him to leave his father’s organization.
Because he had spent a decade becoming powerful enough that nobody could make him helpless again.
He chose a safer answer.
“Kessler is my enemy.”
“So I’m useful.”
“Yes.”
Mave nodded.
Something about her disappointment bothered him.
Adrian added, “That isn’t the only reason.”
She looked back.
“What’s the other reason?”
The SUV stopped.
Marco’s voice came through Adrian’s earpiece.
“We’re here.”
Adrian exited first.
Mave followed.
Her apartment building stood in darkness.
Every window on her floor was black.
The landlord was nowhere in sight.
The front entrance hung open.
Mave whispered, “That door should be locked.”
Adrian’s men moved ahead.
Marco returned moments later.
“Building’s clear downstairs.”
“What about her apartment?”
“Door is open.”
Mave’s pulse accelerated.
They climbed three flights.
Her door stood slightly ajar.
Adrian placed himself in front of her.
“Stay behind me.”
“My boxes—”
“Mave.”
Something in his tone stopped her.
They entered.
The apartment was destroyed.
Boxes overturned.
Clothes ripped apart.
Cabinets emptied.
Her mother’s photographs lay scattered across the floor.
Mave bent down and picked one up.
Her mother was smiling beside a lake.
The picture had been torn directly through her face.
Mave’s expression hardened.
“They did this on purpose.”
Adrian crouched beside her.
“Yes.”
She looked toward the bedroom.
“The drive might still be here.”
Marco began searching with two men.
Mave walked to a small closet.
She pulled out a shoebox.
Empty.
“No.”
Adrian approached.
“What?”
“This is where I kept my electronics.”
Someone had taken everything.
Laptop.
Chargers.
USB drives.
Old phones.
Thomas appeared in the doorway under guard.
“It’s gone.”
Mave looked at him.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
He pointed toward the wall.
A small symbol had been scratched into the plaster.
Three vertical lines crossed by one horizontal slash.
Adrian recognized it.
“Kessler.”
Thomas nodded.
“He marks recovered packages.”
Mave’s face fell.
“So he has the ledger.”
“Maybe.”
Adrian turned.
“What does that mean?”
Thomas walked toward the kitchen.
He pulled open a lower cabinet.
Removed the bottom shelf.
Then pressed two fingers against the back panel.
It shifted.
Mave stared.
“What are you doing?”
Thomas reached inside.
His hand emerged holding a tiny brass key.
Mave looked stunned.
“You put that in my apartment?”
“No.”
Thomas stared at the key.
“Your mother did.”
Mave’s breath caught.
Her father turned it over.
A number was engraved into the metal.
Mave knew that number.
Her mother had repeated it in the hospital during her final week.
At the time, Mave assumed medication had confused her.
“Three-seventeen,” Mave whispered.
Thomas looked at her sharply.
“She said it?”
“Over and over.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“She knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That I was alive.”
Mave’s anger surged again.
“You said she thought you abandoned us.”
“I thought she did.”
Adrian took the key.
“Locker number?”
Thomas nodded.
“There was a private storage facility near Union Station.”
Marco checked his phone.
“Still exists.”
Mave asked, “What’s inside?”
Thomas looked at the torn photograph on the floor.
“If Elaine followed my instructions, the original ledger.”
Mave froze.
“So Kessler stole a copy.”
“Yes.”
“And the real evidence is still out there.”
“Maybe.”
Adrian stood.
“Then we move.”
Thomas grabbed his arm.
“No.”
Every gun in the room shifted toward him.
Thomas released Adrian immediately.
“Kessler will be waiting.”
Adrian looked almost amused.
“He usually is.”
Mave picked up her mother’s photograph and slid it into her coat pocket.
“No.”
Adrian turned.
She met his eyes.
“I’m coming.”
“Absolutely not.”
“That key came from my mother.”
“That doesn’t make bullets respect you.”
“And being a mafia boss doesn’t make you my boss.”
Marco glanced away, apparently hiding a smile.
Adrian stared at her.
Mave crossed her arms.
“You said I became your problem.”
“I’m beginning to regret that sentence.”
“Good.”
He exhaled.
“Stay beside me.”
“Deal.”
They reached the storage facility twenty-five minutes later.
Union Station loomed two blocks away.
The facility was nearly empty.
Locker 317 sat at the end of a narrow corridor.
Mave held the brass key.
Her fingers trembled.
Adrian stood beside her.
Thomas remained behind them.
“Open it,” he said.
Mave inserted the key.
It turned.
The metal door rolled upward.
Inside sat one object.
A wooden box.
Mave approached it.
Her mother’s handwriting covered the lid.
FOR MAVE.
She touched the letters.
Tears filled her eyes.
Adrian stayed silent.
Mave opened the box.
Inside was a black ledger.
A photograph.
And a sealed envelope.
She picked up the photograph first.
Her mother stood beside Thomas.
Beside them was another man.
Younger.
Dark hair.
Same eyes as Adrian.
Mave slowly turned the picture toward him.
Adrian’s face changed.
“That’s my father.”
Thomas whispered, “Yes.”
Adrian looked at him.
“You knew him?”
Thomas nodded.
“Your father was the person who helped me disappear.”
Silence.
Adrian’s father had died eleven years ago.
Murdered.
The case had never been solved.
Mave looked at the envelope.
Two names were written across it.
MAVE CARTER.
ADRIAN VALE.
Adrian stared.
“That was written twelve years ago?”
Thomas nodded slowly.
Mave tore the envelope open.
Inside was a single handwritten page.
She read the first sentence aloud.
“If Mave and Adrian are reading this together, then the person we feared has finally made his move.”
Adrian took the page.
His eyes raced downward.
Then stopped.
Mave asked, “What?”
He looked at Thomas.
“You knew.”
Thomas backed away.
“Adrian—”
“You knew who killed my father.”
Mave read the next line over Adrian’s shoulder.
Her stomach dropped.
The letter contained one name.
Martin Kessler.
Then the lights went out.
Complete darkness swallowed the corridor.
Marco shouted from behind them.
“Boss!”
A gunshot cracked somewhere near the entrance.
Mave felt Adrian grab her and pull her behind him.
Another shot.
Then a voice came through the darkness.
A voice Thomas recognized immediately.
“Give me the ledger.”
Mave heard her father whisper:
May you like
“Kessler.”
And footsteps began coming toward them.
