Chapter 3 - THE GIRL BENEATH THE HOUSE
Callum had not dreamed about the fire in years.
That night, he dreamed about it again.
He was seventeen.
Smoke crawled across the ceiling of the Russo estate like a living thing.
His father was shouting downstairs.
Someone fired twice.
Then came the scream.
A girl’s scream.
Callum ran toward it.
He remembered reaching the basement door before Vittorio appeared through the smoke.
His father’s white shirt was covered in blood.
“Outside.”
“There’s someone downstairs.”
“OUTSIDE, CALLUM.”
“The girl—”
Vittorio grabbed his son by the face.
Even seventeen years later, Callum remembered his father’s eyes.
Not angry.
Terrified.
“Forget her.”
Then the ceiling collapsed.
Callum woke at 4:17 a.m.
He was sitting in a chair beside Sadie’s bed.
Not his bed.
One of the Continental’s secured apartments.
A doctor had removed fragments of glass from Sadie’s foot and stitched a four-inch cut along her ankle.
The injury had not come from slipping.
She had finally admitted that.
Someone had pushed her down a subway stairwell.
She had escaped because a train arrived and frightened the attackers away.
Callum watched her sleeping.
She looked different unconscious.
Younger.
Less defended.
On the bedside table lay the damaged black shoe.
Callum hated that shoe.
It was irrational.
He understood that.
Still, he hated it.
Sadie stirred.
Her eyes opened.
She saw him.
“You watch people sleep?”
“Only suspicious art historians.”
“Appraiser.”
“Even worse.”
She pushed herself upright.
Pain crossed her face.
Callum immediately stood.
“I can sit up by myself.”
“I know.”
“Then stop hovering.”
“I’m not hovering.”
“You’re approximately twelve inches from my face.”
He stepped backward.
“Better?”
“Marginally.”
Callum poured water into a glass.
She accepted it.
“Did you find the shooter?”
“No.”
“Then I’m leaving.”
“No.”
Sadie closed her eyes.
“You’re incredibly irritating.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Frequently?”
“Usually once.”
That earned the smallest smile.
It vanished quickly.
Callum placed the Caravaggio photographs on the bed.
“Tell me everything.”
Sadie stared at them.
Then she began.
Three weeks earlier, a museum restoration technician had discovered unusual fibers beneath the sketch’s backing board.
Sadie had ordered infrared imaging.
A hidden drawing emerged.
Not artistic.
Architectural.
A floor plan.
“It’s a building,” she explained.
Callum studied it.
“Whose?”
“I thought it was a monastery.”
“Thought?”
Sadie pointed to a staircase.
“Then I recognized this.”
Callum did too.
The Russo estate.
The house that had burned.
The drawing showed a lower level beneath the basement.
A level Callum had never known existed.
At its center was a room marked with the three-line symbol.
“What was down there?” Sadie asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You heard a girl.”
Callum stared at her.
“How do you know that?”
Sadie froze.
A mistake.
Callum saw it immediately.
He stood slowly.
“You never told me how much you knew about the fire.”
“Callum—”
“How do you know about the girl?”
Sadie looked toward the door.
There was nowhere to go.
Finally, she reached toward her neck.
Beneath her blouse was a thin chain.
She pulled it free.
A small brass key hung from it.
Callum stared.
Stamped into the metal was the same symbol.
Three lines.
One circle.
“My mother gave me this when I was nine,” Sadie said.
Callum felt the room contract around him.
“Who was your mother?”
“Her name was Evelyn Miller.”
Nothing.
Then Sadie added:
“Before that, Evelyn Bellandi.”
Callum stopped breathing.
Bellandi.
His father had forbidden that name.
The Bellandi family had supposedly disappeared from Chicago after a mafia war thirty years earlier.
“You’re Bellandi?”
“Half.”
“And you’ve been working for me for four years without mentioning that?”
“I didn’t know it mattered until three weeks ago.”
Callum laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Everything matters.”
“My mother never talked about her family.”
“Convenient.”
“She was terrified.”
“Of whom?”
Sadie looked at him.
“Your father.”
The words landed cleanly.
Callum turned away.
Sadie continued quietly.
“My mother died when I was sixteen. Before she died, she gave me this key and told me that if I ever saw that symbol, I should run.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Sadie’s mouth tightened.
“Because running was what she did her entire life.”
Callum looked at her again.
There was something unexpectedly familiar in that answer.
He had spent his life doing the opposite.
Building power so nothing could make him run.
Perhaps they had both been shaped by the same fear.
A knock sounded.
Marco entered.
His usual sarcasm was absent.
“We found something.”
Callum followed him into the hall.
Marco handed him a photograph.
Security footage.
A man entering the subway station behind Sadie.
Callum knew him.
“Impossible.”
Marco nodded.
“Thought you’d say that.”
The man was older now.
Gray hair.
Heavier.
But unmistakable.
Thomas Russo.
Callum’s uncle.
The man who had supposedly died in the same fire as Vittorio.
Callum stared at the image.
“He’s alive.”
“Looks that way.”
Sadie appeared behind them, leaning against the doorframe.
Callum turned sharply.
“You should be in bed.”
She ignored him.
“Who is he?”
Callum showed her.
Sadie’s face changed.
Not recognition.
Terror.
“That’s him.”
“Who?”
“The man who pushed me.”
Marco swore softly.
Callum stared at his uncle’s photograph.
Seventeen years.
Thomas had been alive for seventeen years.
Then Sadie said something neither man expected.
“He didn’t try to kill me.”
Callum looked at her.
“He pushed you down concrete stairs.”
“He could have killed me there.”
“What did he want?”
Sadie touched the brass key.
“He wanted this.”
Callum looked toward it.
“And?”
“I lied. I told him I didn’t have it.”
Marco frowned.
“Why would he believe you?”
“He didn’t.”
Sadie swallowed.
“He told me he’d find the other Bellandi girl instead.”
Callum’s eyes narrowed.
“Other?”
Sadie nodded slowly.
“My mother only had one daughter.”
A long silence.
Then Marco’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His face drained.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We found your uncle.”
Callum waited.
Marco looked toward Sadie.
“He’s downstairs.”
“Alive?”
“For now.”
“What happened?”
Marco’s next words changed everything.
“He walked into the lobby twenty minutes ago with a bullet in his stomach.”
Callum was already moving.
Marco followed.
Sadie called after them.
“What did he say?”
Marco stopped.
He looked back at her.
“He said he needed to see Callum before they found the second Bellandi daughter.”
Sadie gripped the doorframe.
“And who is she?”
May you like
Marco hesitated.
“He says Callum already knows her.”
