Chapter 2 - The Man Outside Her Door
“Find out who hurt her.”
Tommy Barardi went silent.
Dominic stared at the closed elevator doors.
“Boss, you want a background check?”
“I want facts. Nothing illegal involving her. Nobody follows her into her home. Nobody frightens her. Understand?”
That qualification surprised Tommy more than the order itself.
“Understood.”
Dominic disconnected.
For the rest of the morning, he accomplished almost nothing.
His attorneys called twice. A shipment had been delayed at the Port of Chicago. One of the Costas’ crews had crossed a line on the South Side. Ordinarily, Dominic would have dismantled every problem with cold precision.
Instead, he kept seeing four fingerprints.
At 4:17 that afternoon, Tommy entered the penthouse carrying a thin folder.
“Abigail Weston, twenty-nine. Licensed physical therapist. No criminal record. No debt worth mentioning. Her mother died when she was seventeen. Father died three years later. No siblings.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“And?”
“There’s a man.”
Of course there was.
“Name.”
“Evan Mercer. Thirty-six. Chicago police detective.”
Dominic’s fingers tightened around his cane.
Tommy continued carefully.
“They were engaged. She broke it off eight months ago.”
“Why?”
“She never filed a complaint.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“Neighbors reported arguments. One called patrol officers last October after hearing glass break. Mercer was already gone when they arrived. Abigail told police she dropped a lamp.”
Dominic looked toward the city beyond his windows.
The entire skyline stretched before him, beautiful and unreachable.
“He’s still contacting her?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
Tommy hesitated.
“A lot.”
Dominic turned.
“How much is a lot?”
“Forty-three calls in the past week.”
Something inside Dominic went cold.
Then Tommy placed a photograph on the desk.
Evan Mercer stood outside Abigail’s apartment building two nights earlier.
Waiting.
Dominic rose.
Pain tore through his leg.
He barely noticed.
“Bring the car around.”
Tommy stared at him.
“What?”
“The car.”
“Dominic.”
Only three people alive dared use his first name.
Tommy had earned the privilege twenty years earlier.
“You haven’t been downstairs in five years.”
“I know.”
“You nearly passed out when we opened the balcony doors last winter.”
“I remember.”
Tommy studied him.
“This isn’t something you fix by putting a bullet in a man.”
“I’m not putting a bullet in anyone.”
“That sentence sounded almost convincing.”
Dominic took one step.
Then another.
By the time he reached the elevator, sweat had formed along his temples.
The doors opened.
His body stopped.
Beyond the elevator waited a corridor he knew perfectly well.
Yet his nervous system saw Lower Wacker Drive.
Fire.
Metal.
Leo screaming his name.
Dominic’s chest locked.
He could not breathe.
“Boss.”
Tommy moved closer but did not touch him.
“Look at me.”
Dominic couldn’t.
The elevator suddenly seemed too small.
The hallway seemed endless.
His injured leg trembled.
Then his phone vibrated.
A message.
Abigail.
I’m sorry about this morning. I won’t be returning. Dr. Henderson will arrange another therapist.
Dominic read it twice.
Then another message appeared.
Please don’t contact me.
He should have respected it.
Instead, he noticed something.
The second message was punctuated differently from the way Abigail normally texted appointment notes.
A tiny detail.
But Dominic Russo had survived by noticing tiny details.
“Call her.”
Tommy did.
Straight to voicemail.
Dominic’s fear changed shape.
“Where is she?”
Tommy checked his phone.
“Home.”
“Get someone there now.”
They never made it to the car.
Three minutes later, Tommy’s phone rang.
His expression changed immediately.
“What?”
Dominic watched him.
Tommy lowered the phone.
“Our guy reached her building.”
“And?”
“Apartment door is open. Place is torn apart.”
Dominic felt the floor disappear beneath him.
“Abigail?”
“Gone.”
For five years, fear had imprisoned Dominic behind forty-seven floors of glass.
Now another fear was stronger.
He stepped into the elevator.
Tommy said nothing.
The doors closed.
Floor forty-seven became forty-six.
Dominic gripped his cane until his knuckles whitened.
Forty.
His heartbeat accelerated.
Thirty-two.
The walls seemed to contract.
Twenty-five.
He smelled burning rubber that wasn’t there.
Eighteen.
Leo’s bloody face flashed through his memory.
Dom, get out!
Dominic bent forward, struggling for air.
Tommy reached toward the emergency button.
“Stop the elevator?”
“No.”
“Dominic—”
“No.”
Ten.
Five.
Lobby.
The doors opened.
Dominic stared across polished marble at the revolving entrance.
Beyond it was Chicago.
Real Chicago.
Cars.
Wind.
People.
Sky.
His prison had finally opened.
Every instinct screamed at him to retreat.
Dominic stepped forward.
The first step hurt.
The second terrified him.
The third belonged to him.
People in the lobby stopped.
A security guard actually crossed himself.
Dominic Russo walked toward the doors.
Outside, summer air struck his face.
His lungs seized.
He leaned heavily on the cane.
Tommy stood beside him.
“Five years,” Tommy whispered.
Dominic looked up at the enormous blue sky.
For one brutal second, he thought he might collapse.
Then he pictured Abigail’s wrist.
“Where’s the car?”
Twenty minutes later, the black SUV stopped outside Abigail’s apartment building in Lincoln Park.
Her front door had been forced inward.
A broken coffee mug lay across the kitchen floor.
One chair had overturned.
Dominic entered slowly.
He noticed blood on the edge of the counter.
Not much.
Enough.
Then he saw a photograph beside the sink.
Abigail stood between two smiling older people at her college graduation.
Someone had written across the glass in black marker.
YOU BELONG TO ME.
Dominic stared at it.
Tommy’s phone rang again.
This time, the news was worse.
Mercer’s personal vehicle had been located near an abandoned warehouse district.
Dominic turned toward the door.
Then something buzzed beneath the couch.
One of his men retrieved a cracked phone.
Abigail’s.
The screen illuminated with an incoming message.
Unknown number.
Dominic read it.
You should have stayed inside your tower, Russo.
His blood turned cold.
Because suddenly this wasn’t only about Abigail.
Someone knew he had left.
May you like
Someone had been waiting for him to do exactly that.
And for the first time, Dominic wondered whether Abigail’s bruises, Leo’s death, and the war with the Costa family were pieces of the same trap.
