Chapter 2 - THE FIRST RULE
At eight the following morning, a black Cadillac waited outside Sera's apartment.
She stopped halfway down the front steps.
The driver opened the rear door.
"No."
He blinked. "Excuse me?"
"I don't sit in the back of cars I haven't checked."
The driver stared at her.
Sera opened the passenger door instead.
Ten minutes later, Marco received a phone call.
"She won't get in the car."
Marco stood at the windows of his office overlooking the Chicago River.
"Why?"
"She checked underneath it, opened the trunk, made me pop the hood, and asked whether the GPS was factory-installed."
Marco's mouth twitched.
"Answer her questions."
"Boss—"
"All of them."
Sera arrived at Cavallo Tower twenty-seven minutes later.
She had expected gold, marble, and men compensating for something.
Instead, Marco's headquarters was quiet.
Dark wood. Steel. Glass. Security that looked invisible until you knew where to look.
Sera knew.
She counted six cameras before reaching the elevator.
Two guards at reception.
One behind frosted glass.
A fourth man pretending to read an email near the elevators.
When the doors opened on the forty-first floor, Marco was waiting.
"You searched my car."
"Your driver's car."
"I own it."
"Then maintain it better. Rear left tire is low."
Marco looked past her toward the driver.
The driver gave an almost imperceptible nod.
Marco looked amused.
"Come."
His conference room contained eight men.
Every one of them stopped talking when Sera entered.
She recognized the expression immediately.
Not surprise.
Insult.
Marco had brought a waitress into their room.
A broad man with silver at his temples leaned back.
"This is her?"
Sera looked at him.
He looked back.
Marco removed his coat.
"Sera Voss. Vincent Rizzo, operations. Daniel Pike, legal. Owen Mercer, logistics. The gentleman glaring at you is Carlo Bellini."
Carlo smiled without warmth.
"Security."
"Apparently not anymore," Sera said.
Silence.
Marco sat.
Carlo's smile vanished.
Sera remained standing.
Marco gestured to the empty chair beside him.
She ignored it.
"What's wrong with this room?" he asked.
Carlo exhaled.
"Marco."
Marco didn't look at him.
"Sera?"
She scanned the room again.
Two exits.
Large windows.
A decorative mirror.
Water pitcher.
Eight phones on the table.
One phone upside down.
One man sweating despite the cold room.
"Your lawyer's carrying two phones," she said.
Daniel Pike looked down.
"That's not unusual."
"The second one isn't yours."
Pike froze.
Sera pointed.
"Wrong case. Cheap plastic. You're wearing a fifteen-thousand-dollar watch and carrying a phone with a cracked screen."
Pike slowly reached toward it.
"Don't."
Her voice changed.
Marco heard it.
So did everyone else.
Pike stopped.
Sera walked around the table.
She didn't touch the phone.
"Where did you get it?"
"It was in my briefcase."
"When?"
"I don't know."
Carlo stood.
"Everyone out."
Marco remained seated.
Sera crouched.
A tiny green light blinked once beneath the cracked edge.
"Recording device?"
Marco asked.
"Maybe more."
Carlo swore.
Within seconds the room emptied.
Security swept the device.
Twenty minutes later, they confirmed it contained a microphone and transmitter.
Someone had placed it inside Cavallo Tower.
Someone close enough to reach the legal counsel's locked briefcase.
Marco found Sera standing beside the window afterward.
"You've been here forty minutes."
"Thirty-seven."
"And you've already found something my security team missed."
"Your security team looks for weapons."
"What do you look for?"
"Things that don't belong."
Marco studied her reflection in the glass.
"That's why I hired you."
"No."
She turned.
"You hired me because you're worried."
Something changed behind his eyes.
"You don't know me well enough to say that."
"I don't need to."
She stepped closer to the conference table.
"Someone is inside your organization. You know it. That's why you went looking for an outsider."
Marco's expression became unreadable.
"Careful."
"Was that a warning?"
"Advice."
"I don't take advice from employers who hide the job description."
For several seconds neither moved.
Then Marco smiled.
A genuine one this time.
It changed his face enough to annoy her.
"Fine," he said. "Someone has been leaking information for six months."
"How many people know?"
"Four."
"Now five."
"Now five."
"And if I find them?"
Marco's smile disappeared.
"You tell me."
That answer bothered her more than a threat would have.
Over the next three weeks, Sera became a shadow inside the Cavallo organization.
She watched.
Listened.
Remembered.
Marco discovered she had an almost frightening memory for movement. She could enter a restaurant once and tell him which waiter favored his left knee, which door had opened during dinner, and which customer had left without finishing his drink.
But she refused almost every privilege he offered.
Company apartment?
No.
New wardrobe?
No.
Driver?
Absolutely not.
Then came the charity dinner at the Laurent.
Three hundred people.
Politicians.
Developers.
Judges.
Men who shook Marco's hand in public and pretended not to recognize him elsewhere.
Sera wore the uniform of the catering staff.
Marco had objected.
She had insisted.
"Nobody watches the waitress," she told him.
Marco watched her anyway.
For ninety minutes, nothing happened.
Then Sera saw the man near the kitchen.
Black suit.
White shirt.
No tie.
He had been holding the same untouched champagne glass for twenty-three minutes.
More importantly, every time Marco moved, the man shifted.
Sera crossed the ballroom.
The stranger saw her coming.
His hand disappeared beneath his jacket.
Sera accelerated.
He pulled something.
She hit him before anyone understood what was happening.
The room erupted.
The object skidded beneath a table.
Not a gun.
A camera.
Carlo grabbed the man.
Marco reached Sera.
"What the hell was that?"
"He's been photographing your security rotations."
The stranger laughed.
"She's good."
Marco's face hardened.
"Who sent you?"
The man looked directly at Sera.
Then he said something that made her blood go cold.
"Ask her."
Marco slowly turned.
Sera stopped breathing.
May you like
The stranger smiled through a split lip.
"You really don't know who she is, Cavallo?"
