Chapter 3 - The Secret Behind the Bullet
“You’re investigating Vincent Costello.”
Clara made it a statement.
Reeves drove while headlights swept across the Pennsylvania interstate.
“For 4 years.”
“And you’ve accomplished nothing.”
“Good to know you’re still charming.”
“I’m alive because I don’t waste time being charming.”
Reeves glanced at her.
“That sounds like something Arthur taught you.”
“No. Arthur taught me what happens when you trust the wrong person.”
Reeves was silent for a moment.
“Then we finally agree.”
He exited the interstate and drove toward an abandoned service road.
Clara immediately reached for the door handle.
“Where are we going?”
“Safe location.”
“There is no such thing.”
“Fair.”
Reeves handed her a phone.
On the screen was a photograph.
Clara’s stomach tightened.
Vincent Costello stood beside Carlo Moroni outside a private airfield.
Timestamp: 11 months earlier.
Another photograph showed Vincent meeting a man Clara recognized from Arthur’s organization.
Mickey Russo.
The same Mickey Arthur had sent to her apartment that morning.
“Mickey works for Vincent?”
“Has for years.”
Clara’s mind raced.
That meant Vincent knew she was gone almost immediately.
Perhaps before Arthur did.
“What do you want from me?”
“Vincent’s ledger.”
“I don’t have it.”
“You know where it is.”
Clara looked at him.
Reeves smiled without humor.
“You didn’t survive beside Costello for 5 years by keeping your only leverage in your purse.”
He was right.
The ledger was hidden in Manhattan.
Inside Arthur’s estate.
Clara had placed it somewhere nobody would search.
Arthur’s late mother’s music room.
Nobody entered it.
Not even Arthur.
Before Clara could answer, headlights appeared behind them.
Reeves looked in the mirror.
“Hold on.”
The first bullet shattered the rear window.
Clara dropped.
Reeves accelerated.
Another shot struck the trunk.
“Safe location?” Clara shouted.
“I’m revising the terminology.”
The pursuing SUV rammed them.
Their car fishtailed.
Clara grabbed the dashboard.
Then she saw a second pair of headlights racing toward them from the opposite direction.
A black Range Rover.
It swerved across the road and slammed directly into the pursuing SUV.
Metal screamed.
The attackers spun into a ditch.
The Range Rover stopped.
The driver’s door opened.
Arthur Costello stepped out.
Clara forgot how to breathe.
Black coat.
Gun in hand.
Fury carved across his face.
Arthur saw her through the shattered window.
For one second, neither moved.
Then Clara’s expression hardened.
“Keep driving.”
Reeves blinked.
“That’s Arthur Costello.”
“I noticed.”
“Clara!”
Arthur’s voice cut across the road.
Reeves accelerated.
Arthur watched the car disappear.
Gregory limped from the damaged Range Rover.
“We just saved her life.”
Arthur lowered his weapon.
“And she ran from me anyway.”
The realization hurt far more than it should have.
By sunrise, Arthur knew something was wrong.
Clara had not simply left him.
Someone was hunting her.
And when he demanded answers from Vincent, his uncle merely smiled.
“Women leave,” Vincent said over breakfast. “Especially when men say stupid things.”
Arthur studied him.
“I never told you why she left.”
Vincent’s fork stopped.
Only for a second.
But Arthur saw it.
The old Arthur might have missed it.
Clara would not have.
That thought changed everything.
Arthur leaned back.
“No,” Vincent said smoothly. “Gregory mentioned an argument.”
“Gregory doesn’t know what I said.”
Vincent smiled.
“You’re becoming paranoid.”
“Clara used to tell me paranoia was only useless when nobody wanted you dead.”
Vincent laughed.
“Then perhaps losing her has taught you something.”
Arthur smiled back.
But beneath the table, his hand had curled into a fist.
Across town, Clara sat in Reeves’s temporary safe house staring at another photograph.
Arthur.
Three years earlier.
Leaving the hospital after being shot.
Behind him stood Vincent.
Beside Vincent was the doctor who had signed Arthur’s transfer paperwork.
The same doctor found dead 2 days later.
Reeves placed a file on the table.
“Your boss wasn’t shot because of a territory dispute.”
Clara opened it.
“The attack came from inside the Costello organization.”
“I know.”
Reeves stared at her.
“You know?”
“I suspected.”
“For how long?”
“Three years.”
“And you stayed?”
Clara said nothing.
Reeves understood.
“Oh.”
“Don’t.”
“You loved him.”
“Past tense.”
“Doesn’t look very past tense.”
Clara closed the file.
“You didn’t hear what he said.”
“No. But I saw him drive a two-ton SUV into armed men for you.”
“That doesn’t erase anything.”
“No.”
Reeves sat opposite her.
“But maybe it complicates it.”
Clara hated complications.
Especially ones with gray eyes.
That evening, Arthur entered his mother’s music room for the first time in 14 years.
He did not know why.
Only that Clara had once told him the safest hiding place was somewhere a man refused to look.
Dust covered the piano.
Arthur walked toward it.
A single key was cleaner than the others.
Middle C.
He pressed it.
Nothing.
Then he lifted the piano bench.
Beneath the sheet music was an envelope.
ARTHUR.
His pulse changed.
Inside was a flash drive and a handwritten note.
If you are reading this, either I finally found the courage to tell you, or something went wrong.
Do not trust Vincent.
Arthur read the sentence twice.
Then a third time.
His phone rang.
Vincent.
May you like
Arthur looked toward the closed door.
For the first time in his life, he let his uncle’s call go unanswered.
