Chapter 2 - Three Missing Minutes
"Don't touch it," Leo said.
Damian's hand stopped inches above the black case.
The ticking continued.
Steady.
Mechanical.
Too slow for a timer.
The stranger backed toward the elevator.
Leo's men intercepted him.
Damian never looked away from the case.
"Open it."
Leo frowned.
"You just heard me tell you not to touch it."
"I heard you."
"Then why—"
"Because whoever sent it expects fear."
Damian looked at him.
"I'm not giving him any."
Leo carefully released the latches.
Inside was no explosive.
There was an antique pocket watch.
The ticking came from its mechanism.
Beside it sat a flash drive.
And a photograph.
Damian picked up the photograph.
His father stood outside an old warehouse beside Adrian Vale.
Between them was a third man.
The man's face had been scratched away.
On the back were four words.
ASK WHO OPENED THE DOOR.
Leo studied the picture.
"What door?"
Damian turned toward the stranger.
"Who gave you this?"
"I don't know."
Leo stepped closer.
"Wrong answer."
"I'm a courier. Somebody paid cash."
"Description."
"Man. Maybe fifty. Baseball cap. Never gave a name."
Damian watched him carefully.
The courier looked frightened.
Genuinely frightened.
"Let him go."
Leo stared at Damian.
"You're serious?"
"He doesn't know anything."
The courier disappeared into the elevator.
Leo pointed at the flash drive.
"That could be compromised."
"Use an isolated machine."
Ten minutes later, they opened it.
One video file.
Timestamp: three years earlier.
Khloe appeared on-screen.
Damian leaned forward.
She was sitting in her apartment.
Her hair was shorter.
She looked nervous.
"My name is Khloe Hayes," she said. "If someone is watching this, something probably happened to me."
Damian's blood went cold.
Khloe continued.
"Three years ago, I accepted a job at Russo Holdings for a reason I didn't put on my résumé."
Leo looked at Damian.
Damian didn't move.
"My father was Thomas Hayes."
Damian knew the name.
Everybody who had worked with his father knew it.
Thomas Hayes had been a forensic accountant.
He disappeared shortly before Damian's father died.
Khloe's voice continued.
"My father believed someone inside Crown Meridian was stealing money and using Russo companies to hide it. He tried to tell Dominic Russo."
Dominic.
Damian's father.
"But before they could expose it, my father disappeared."
Khloe looked directly into the camera.
"I took the job because I wanted to know what happened to him."
The recording ended.
Silence filled the room.
Leo spoke first.
"She investigated you."
"No."
Damian replayed her final sentence.
"I wanted to know what happened to him."
"She investigated my father."
"And never told you."
Damian looked toward her empty desk.
"No."
That hurt.
More than it should have.
But beneath the hurt was something else.
Understanding.
Khloe hadn't accidentally stumbled into danger.
She had spent three years walking toward it.
And Damian had never seen it.
"Get me everything on Thomas Hayes."
Leo started searching.
Thomas had vanished nineteen years earlier.
No body.
No arrest.
No confirmed sighting.
His wife died six years later.
Khloe had been raised by her aunt.
Then Leo found the connection.
"Thomas worked on Crown Meridian's accounts."
Damian nodded.
"And Crown Meridian belonged to Vale."
"Mostly."
"Mostly?"
Leo turned the screen.
"Twenty percent belonged to a silent partner."
"Who?"
"Records sealed."
"Unseal them."
Leo gave him a look.
"You say that like I'm opening a jar."
"You have fifteen minutes."
It took eleven.
The ownership record appeared.
Damian read the name twice.
Victor Mercer.
He looked up.
Leo had gone completely still.
"Your father?"
Leo stared at the screen.
"My father was a security consultant."
"He was Vale's partner."
"No."
"The document says otherwise."
Leo stepped away.
"My father died when I was twelve."
"How?"
"Car accident."
Damian remembered.
Victor Mercer had worked security for the Russo family.
He'd been loyal.
Or everyone believed he had.
Now Damian understood why Khloe had written:
Don't trust the cameras.
Security systems had once been Victor Mercer's responsibility.
Maybe his son wasn't the only person who had inherited that knowledge.
"Leo."
Leo turned.
"Tell me right now if there's anything you haven't told me."
"Nothing."
Damian held his gaze.
Then nodded.
"I believe you."
That mattered.
Leo exhaled.
"So what now?"
"We find Khloe."
The vehicle from the reflection gave them their next lead.
A toll camera had captured the SUV crossing into Queens.
Another caught it near an industrial district.
Then it disappeared.
Damian spread a map across the conference table.
"Properties?"
"Sixteen warehouses."
"Owned by Vale?"
"None."
"Former Crown Meridian holdings?"
Leo searched.
One result.
An industrial laundry facility closed fourteen years earlier.
It had been sold through four shell companies.
The final owner was listed as Meridian Restoration LLC.
Leo looked at Damian.
"Subtle."
"Get the car."
They left with two trusted men.
No police.
Not because Damian considered himself above them, but because whoever had taken Khloe clearly had access to private systems and old corporate networks.
Until Damian knew who was compromised, he trusted only four people.
The warehouse looked abandoned.
Broken windows.
Rusting loading docks.
No visible guards.
Too easy.
Damian entered through a side door.
Inside, dust covered the floor.
Leo crouched.
"Tracks."
Recent.
They followed them.
The trail ended at an office.
Nothing inside.
Damian scanned the walls.
One framed fire-escape diagram hung crooked.
He pulled it away.
Behind it was a keypad.
Leo muttered, "That's not suspicious at all."
Damian entered 314.
The lock clicked.
A section of wall opened.
Stairs descended underground.
Cold air rose from below.
Damian went first.
Concrete walls narrowed around him.
Industrial lights hummed overhead.
At the bottom stood a steel door.
He opened it.
The basement matched the photograph.
Pipes.
Chains from old industrial equipment.
Metal shelving.
Concrete floor.
And Khloe.
"Khloe."
Damian crossed the room faster than Leo had ever seen him move.
He dropped beside her.
Her ivory blouse was wrinkled and marked with a small dark stain near the shoulder. A superficial cut crossed her forehead.
But she was breathing.
Damian slid one arm behind her.
"Khloe. Look at me."
Nothing.
His hand trembled.
Damian Russo's hands never trembled.
"Khloe."
Her eyelids moved.
Then opened.
She focused slowly.
"Damian?"
"I'm here."
Her fingers caught his shirt.
"You shouldn't have come."
His voice dropped.
"You've worked for me three years and somehow still think I follow instructions."
Something almost like a smile touched her face.
Then disappeared.
"They knew you'd come."
Damian looked at her.
"Who?"
Khloe's eyes shifted toward the doorway.
Leo stood there.
Her grip tightened.
"Damian..."
"What?"
She struggled to speak.
"Someone inside your company helped them."
Damian went still.
Then something metallic caught the light beside her hand.
He reached down.
A brass object.
Not a cartridge this time.
A small medallion.
Broken crown.
Leo stepped closer.
"You know it?"
Damian closed his hand around it.
Khloe whispered, "Damian... it was someone you know."
"Tell me who."
Her lips parted.
A sound came from behind the steel wall.
Click.
Damian turned.
A hidden door opened.
Footsteps approached from the darkness.
Khloe looked toward them.
Her face drained of color.
Then a familiar voice said:
May you like
"Hello, Damian."
And the man who stepped through the doorway was supposed to have been dead for nineteen years...
