Chapter 2 - The Woman in the Photograph
Leo slammed Lana to the floor before the second shot struck the wall.
Glass exploded above them.
“Victor!”
“I’m here.”
Victor’s voice came from the darkness.
Emergency lights flickered on.
Klaus was gone.
One bodyguard lay unconscious beside the table.
The second had vanished with him.
Gavin crouched beneath a chair.
Victor stood beside the wall, pistol drawn.
“Door.”
Leo crossed the room.
The service door was open.
Beyond it stretched a narrow corridor.
Lana stared.
“That corridor should be locked.”
“Where does it go?”
“Kitchen storage. Basement. Loading alley.”
Victor looked at her.
“You know another way?”
“Yes.”
“Show me.”
They moved.
Victor kept Lana between himself and Leo, not like a prisoner but like someone they could not afford to lose.
Gavin followed.
“You're taking me with you?”
Victor glanced back.
“Your wife is still alive because they need you.”
“That doesn't answer me.”
“It does.”
They reached the kitchen.
Chefs and servers had scattered after the gunshots.
Lana led them through a pantry and down a narrow staircase.
At the bottom, Victor stopped.
Daniel Cross lay beside the employee exit.
Alive.
Barely.
Blood soaked his shirt.
Lana dropped beside him.
“Daniel.”
His eyelids fluttered.
“I’m sorry.”
“Who did this?”
His hand closed around hers.
“They knew about you.”
“Who?”
Daniel coughed.
“Your grandmother.”
Lana froze.
“My grandmother died nine years ago.”
Daniel shook his head weakly.
“Not what I meant.”
Victor crouched.
“What did you mean?”
Daniel looked at him.
“Hawthorne Seventeen.”
Victor's expression sharpened.
“What is Hawthorne Seventeen?”
Daniel tried to answer.
A shot cracked from the alley.
Daniel’s body jerked.
Victor pulled Lana backward.
Leo fired through the open doorway.
Footsteps retreated.
“Stay down.”
Lana stared at Daniel.
He was dead.
Victor grabbed her shoulder.
“Lana.”
She could not look away.
“He changed my shift.”
“I know.”
“He died because—”
“He died because someone shot him. Not because you understood German.”
His words were hard but oddly precise.
Victor pulled her upright.
“We move now.”
They exited through the opposite side of the basement and entered an armored sedan waiting in the underground garage.
Only after the doors locked did Lana realize she was sitting beside the man she had spent years pretending not to recognize.
Victor Marlow.
Half the city called him a businessman.
The other half lowered their voices before saying his name.
Now he was studying her.
“Tell me about your grandmother.”
“Her name was Ingrid Beckett.”
“German?”
“Yes.”
“Occupation?”
Lana hesitated.
“She worked in freight accounting.”
Victor and Leo exchanged a glance.
“Where?”
“She never told me much. We moved constantly when I was little.”
“Did she ever mention Hawthorne?”
“No.”
“Seventeen?”
Lana almost said no.
Then a memory surfaced.
A brass key.
Her grandmother had worn it around her neck.
Stamped into it had been a number.
“My grandmother had a key.”
Victor leaned forward.
“What key?”
“I don't know.”
“Where is it?”
“She left me a box when she died.”
Leo turned.
“Where?”
“My apartment.”
Victor told the driver to change direction.
Twenty minutes later, Lana stood in her bedroom while armed men searched the building.
She pulled an old wooden box from beneath her bed.
Inside were photographs, letters, and the brass key.
Victor picked it up.
H-17.
Gavin whispered, “Jesus.”
Beneath the key was an envelope Lana had never opened.
Her name was written across it.
Not in her grandmother’s handwriting.
LANA BECKETT.
OPEN ONLY IF THEY COME BACK.
Her hands trembled.
Victor handed it to her.
“It’s yours.”
She opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Ingrid stood beside a much younger man.
Lana recognized him.
Victor.
Twenty years younger.
“What is this?”
Victor stared at the photograph.
“I knew her as Ingrid Bauer.”
Lana’s throat tightened.
“You knew my grandmother?”
“She saved my life.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“When?”
“Twenty-two years ago.”
Victor looked at the key.
“And apparently she expected someone to finish what started then.”
Gavin’s phone rang.
Sarah.
He answered instantly.
“Sarah?”
Static.
Then breathing.
A woman whispered.
“Gavin?”
He nearly collapsed.
“Where are you?”
“They moved me.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Lana leaned toward the phone.
“Sarah, can you describe anything?”
Silence.
“Who is that?”
“Lana.”
Sarah inhaled sharply.
“They found her?”
Victor took the phone.
“Sarah. Who found Lana?”
A sound came through the line.
A door.
Sarah began crying.
“He told me she was dead.”
“Who?”
Footsteps approached Sarah.
Her voice dropped.
“Victor, listen to me. Klaus isn't in charge.”
Victor went still.
“Who is?”
Sarah whispered a name.
But before any of them could hear it clearly, another voice spoke behind her.
A man.
“Enough.”
The call ended.
Gavin stared at his phone.
Then another message arrived.
A live location.
Leo checked it.
“Warehouse Seventeen.”
Victor looked at Lana’s brass key.
“No coincidence.”
They left immediately.
At 2:11 a.m., Victor’s convoy stopped outside an abandoned warehouse beside the river.
H-17 was painted across the door.
Lana inserted the key.
It turned.
Victor looked at her.
“Stay behind me.”
The lock clicked.
May you like
The door opened from the inside.
And a woman who looked exactly like Lana’s dead grandmother was waiting for them...
