Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO DIDN’T STEAL HER PURSE
Sadie did not move.
For several seconds, she simply stared at Callum as if the sentence We’re leaving belonged to a language she had never learned.
Rain streaked the windows of the Continental. Beyond the glass, Chicago had dissolved into wet headlights and red brake lights smeared across black pavement.
“Mr. Russo.”
“Coat.”
“I can get home myself.”
“I didn’t say we were going to your home.”
That finally changed her expression.
Fear.
Not surprise.
Not irritation.
Fear.
Callum noticed the distinction immediately.
He had spent twenty years learning what frightened people looked like. Men frightened of dying usually became louder. Men frightened of prison became cooperative. Men frightened of losing money suddenly remembered childhood friendships.
Sadie became still.
Completely still.
“Where are we going?”
“To a doctor.”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Callum stopped buttoning his jacket.
“No?”
“I don’t need one.”
“There’s blood inside your shoe.”
“It looks worse than it is.”
“Then a doctor will tell me I wasted twenty minutes.”
She glanced toward the entrance.
Callum followed her eyes.
Nothing unusual.
A couple sharing an umbrella.
A valet jogging through the rain.
A black SUV waiting at the curb.
Then Sadie whispered, “Please.”
Callum looked back at her.
“I just want to go home.”
There it was again.
Not I want to be alone.
Not I’m fine.
Home.
She was trying to reach something.
Or someone.
Callum pulled out his phone.
“Marco.”
His security chief answered immediately.
“Boss.”
“Bring the car around.”
Sadie stood abruptly.
The movement sent pain through her injured leg. Her hand caught the table before she fell.
Callum crossed the distance between them.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re becoming repetitive.”
“I said—”
Her knee buckled.
Callum caught her around the waist.
For one strange second, the restaurant disappeared.
Sadie’s forehead landed against his chest. Her fingers closed instinctively around his jacket. He could feel her trying not to breathe too deeply.
She weighed almost nothing.
That irritated him more than it should have.
Then he felt her shaking.
Not from cold.
Callum lowered his voice.
“Who are you afraid is watching?”
Her entire body stiffened.
He had his answer.
Callum turned his head slightly.
Marco was already entering through the restaurant doors, followed by two men.
Callum spoke without looking at him.
“Lock the exits.”
Sadie jerked backward.
“No.”
Every conversation in the Continental stopped.
Marco hesitated.
Callum looked at Sadie.
“Why?”
Her face had lost all color.
“Because whoever attacked me didn’t want my money.”
Callum said nothing.
Sadie reached inside her coat.
Marco’s hand immediately moved toward his weapon.
Callum raised two fingers.
Wait.
Sadie slowly removed a small plastic evidence sleeve.
Inside was a fragment of cream-colored paper.
She placed it on the table.
Callum recognized the texture immediately.
Old paper.
Very old.
On it was a symbol drawn in faded brown ink.
A circle.
Inside the circle, three vertical lines.
Callum’s expression changed.
Sadie saw it.
“You recognize it.”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
Callum looked at her.
It was perhaps the first time anyone had accused him of lying inside his own restaurant without immediately regretting it.
Sadie continued.
“The men who attacked me weren’t interested in my wallet. One of them kept asking where the second panel was.”
“What panel?”
“That’s what I was trying to determine.”
She opened her portfolio again.
This time Callum paid attention.
Sadie removed photographs of the Caravaggio sketch.
Not the front.
The back.
Beneath the centuries-old mounting paper, restoration imaging had revealed another drawing.
A map.
Callum leaned closer.
Sadie pointed toward a handwritten inscription.
“I found this yesterday.”
Italian.
Callum read it silently.
Il peccato dei padri dorme sotto la casa dei figli.
The sins of the fathers sleep beneath the house of the sons.
Marco came closer.
“What does that mean?”
Callum did not answer.
Sadie studied him.
“You know.”
Callum’s jaw tightened.
He knew because he had seen the symbol once before.
He had been eleven years old.
His father, Vittorio Russo, had taken him into the basement of their family home and opened a safe hidden behind a wine rack.
Inside were documents, photographs and a small wooden box.
The same symbol had been burned into its lid.
Three lines inside a circle.
Callum had asked what it meant.
His father had slapped him hard enough to split his lip.
Never ask about things buried before you were born.
Callum had never forgotten.
“Marco.”
“Yes?”
“Take Sadie upstairs.”
She stared at him.
“Upstairs?”
“The Continental has private rooms.”
“I’m not staying here.”
“You are until I know what happened.”
“You don’t own me.”
Something almost resembling amusement crossed Callum’s face.
“Good. I already own too many complicated things.”
Despite herself, Sadie blinked.
Marco coughed into his fist, badly disguising a laugh.
Callum looked at him.
Marco immediately became fascinated by the ceiling.
Sadie gathered her documents.
Then something hit the restaurant window.
A tiny metallic sound.
Tick.
Callum turned.
A circular crack appeared in the glass.
His expression changed instantly.
“DOWN.”
The second shot shattered the window.
Callum threw Sadie behind the booth as glass exploded across the restaurant.
Guests screamed.
Marco drew his weapon.
Callum covered Sadie with his body.
Another shot buried itself in the wall.
Then silence.
Only screaming.
Callum lifted his head.
“Shooter?”
Marco’s men were already moving.
“Across the street!”
Sadie’s breathing was rapid beneath him.
Callum looked down.
She was staring at the shattered window.
Not shocked.
Recognizing.
“They found me.”
Callum’s eyes narrowed.
“They followed you here?”
“No.”
Her answer was barely audible.
“They knew I was coming.”
That was worse.
Much worse.
Because only three people knew about tonight’s meeting.
Sadie.
Callum.
And the person inside Callum’s organization who had arranged it.
Callum slowly stood.
His face became frighteningly calm.
“Marco.”
“Yeah?”
“Find out who knew she was meeting me.”
Marco understood immediately.
“You think we have a leak?”
Callum looked at the bullet embedded in the wall.
“I think we have something older than a leak.”
He helped Sadie stand.
Her hand tightened around his.
“Callum.”
It was the first time she had used his first name.
He noticed.
So did she.
“What?”
Sadie looked toward the Caravaggio photographs scattered across the floor.
“The man who attacked me said something else.”
Callum waited.
“He said Russo.”
Silence.
“He knew your name?”
Sadie shook her head.
“No.”
Her eyes met his.
“He said, ‘Tell Russo his father should have burned the girl with the painting.’”
For the first time in years, Callum Russo felt something colder than anger.
Because his father had died seventeen years ago.
And the night Vittorio Russo died, their family home had burned to the ground.
Officially, nobody survived except Callum.
May you like
But Callum had always remembered something nobody believed.
A girl screaming beneath the house.
