Chapter 2 - The Man Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
The door opened three inches.
Silas fired once into the ceiling beside it.
The door slammed shut.
Eleanor flinched.
“Who is Victor?”
Silas grabbed the ledger and shoved it beneath his jacket.
“My father.”
“You told me your father was dead.”
“I believed he was.”
Another impact struck the door.
Silas pulled Eleanor toward a concealed service exit behind the bookcase.
“Move.”
She resisted.
“My phone says you know who killed my father.”
“Not here.”
“Did you?”
Silas stared at her.
“No.”
“Did your family?”
His silence lasted half a second too long.
Eleanor’s face changed.
Silas opened the hidden door.
“I’ll tell you everything if we survive the next ten minutes.”
They entered a narrow service corridor.
Behind them came the splintering sound of the lounge door giving way.
Silas closed the panel.
They hurried downstairs.
Eleanor followed because survival temporarily mattered more than answers.
But each step sharpened the question burning inside her.
Thomas Harrow.
Her father.
She remembered him as a gentle man who let her sit on his desk while he worked.
He had died when his car went through a guardrail.
Her mother had called it an accident.
Twelve-year-old Eleanor had believed her.
Now her husband was telling her Thomas Harrow had worked for the Blackwells.
At the garage level, Dominic waited beside a black sedan.
Blood darkened his sleeve.
“What happened?” Silas demanded.
“Security turned on us.”
“Carter?”
“Gone.”
Silas swore.
Eleanor remembered Carter’s reaction to the box.
“He knew.”
Both men looked at her.
“Carter recognized 317,” she said.
Dominic’s expression confirmed it.
Silas opened the rear door.
“Get in.”
Eleanor didn’t move.
“No.”
“Eleanor.”
“You keep ordering me around while refusing to tell me anything.”
A distant elevator bell sounded.
Silas looked toward it.
Then at her.
“My father built a private organization inside the Blackwell businesses. Your father kept the records. My mother discovered them. Both tried to expose him.”
“And both died.”
“Yes.”
“Did Victor kill them?”
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“The official story says Victor died six years ago in Sicily.”
“And you believed that?”
“I saw a body.”
The elevator indicator descended.
Five.
Four.
Dominic raised his weapon.
Silas pulled Eleanor into the car.
They sped away before the elevator reached the garage.
For twenty minutes, nobody spoke.
Finally Eleanor said, “Where are we going?”
“A safe house.”
“No.”
Silas looked back.
“No?”
“Take me to my mother.”
His expression tightened.
“Eleanor—”
“If my father was involved, she may know something.”
“She may also be in danger.”
“That’s exactly why we’re going.”
Silas studied her.
Then told Dominic to change direction.
They reached Margaret Harrow’s modest townhouse shortly after midnight.
The front door was open.
Eleanor ran.
Silas caught up behind her.
“Mom?”
No answer.
The living room was empty.
A lamp lay broken.
Drawers had been pulled open.
“Mom!”
Eleanor rushed upstairs.
Her mother’s bedroom had been searched.
The mattress was overturned.
Silas examined the room.
“They were looking for something.”
Eleanor spotted a photograph on the floor.
Her parents.
Thomas and Margaret Harrow, smiling beside a lake.
The glass had shattered.
She picked it up.
Something was taped behind it.
A small key.
And a handwritten note.
Ellie — if they ever come looking, go to St. Agnes. Ask for Sister Catherine. Tell her Thomas sent you.
Eleanor’s throat tightened.
Silas read over her shoulder.
“St. Agnes closed years ago.”
“I know where it is.”
The former church stood forty minutes outside the city.
Dominic insisted on driving.
Halfway there, Silas finally spoke.
“When I met you, I knew Thomas Harrow had a daughter.”
Eleanor stared out the window.
“Keep going.”
“I believed your father had hidden part of Victor’s financial archive before he died.”
“So you approached me.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“You remember the charity auction?”
She did.
Silas had bumped into her near the coatroom.
He had apologized.
Bought her coffee.
Asked her to dinner.
She had thought fate had finally done something kind.
“How romantic.”
“I expected to know you for a few weeks.”
“And instead?”
“I fell in love with you.”
Eleanor laughed once.
“You expect that sentence to fix this?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Silas looked down at his ring.
“I spent years believing attachment made people vulnerable. Then you came into my life and made every rule I had useless.”
“That sounds beautiful when you leave out the surveillance.”
“I know.”
“And the lies.”
“I know.”
“And apparently my dead father.”
His jaw tightened.
“I never found what Thomas hid.”
“So you married me anyway?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Silas looked at her.
“Because by then I didn’t care about the archive.”
Eleanor wanted to believe him.
That was what hurt most.
She still wanted to.
They reached St. Agnes at 1:17 a.m.
The abandoned convent stood behind iron gates.
One window glowed.
Dominic stayed outside.
Silas and Eleanor entered.
An elderly woman waited in the chapel.
“Sister Catherine?”
The woman looked at Eleanor.
Her eyes filled immediately.
“You have Thomas’s eyes.”
Eleanor stopped.
“You knew my father?”
“I knew both your parents.”
“Where is my mother?”
Catherine’s expression changed.
“She finally ran out of time.”
Eleanor stepped forward.
“What does that mean?”
The nun led them into a small office.
From a cabinet she removed an old cassette recorder.
“Your father left this.”
Silas stiffened.
“For Eleanor?”
“For whoever came with Eleanor.”
Catherine looked at Silas.
“Margaret Blackwell said you might.”
Silas stared at her.
“My mother was here?”
“Many times.”
Catherine inserted the tape.
Static filled the room.
Then a man’s voice spoke.
Eleanor stopped breathing.
She had not heard her father’s voice in twenty years.
“If Ellie is hearing this, then Victor found us.”
Tears blurred her vision.
Thomas continued.
“I made copies of everything. Victor’s accounts. Payments. Judges. Police. Politicians. Every life he bought and every life he ordered taken.”
Silas’s face hardened.
Then came the sentence neither expected.
“But Victor Blackwell is not the person you need to fear most.”
Silas looked at Catherine.
The tape continued.
“The person controlling the archive is someone inside his own family.”
Static.
Then Thomas spoke a name.
But the tape suddenly stopped.
Catherine frowned.
Silas stood.
“What happened?”
The lights went out.
Eleanor heard footsteps outside the office.
Catherine whispered, “They found you.”
Silas reached for his weapon.
Then Eleanor’s phone lit up.
A photograph had arrived.
Her mother sat tied to a chair.
Alive.
Behind Margaret Harrow stood Carter Shaw.
May you like
And beneath the photograph were six words:
BRING THE RING OR SHE DIES.
