Chapter 3 - THE MAN INSIDE
They escaped through a maintenance tunnel beneath the warehouse.
Evelyn ran in borrowed heels until one broke.
She kicked both shoes off and kept moving barefoot.
Behind them, gunfire echoed through concrete.
Dante held the rear.
“Two coming!”
Lorenzo fired twice.
Someone dropped.
Evelyn flinched.
He noticed.
“Keep moving.”
“I’m trying.”
They burst into an abandoned parking garage.
A sedan waited.
Lorenzo stopped.
“Wrong car.”
Dante looked confused.
“It’s ours.”
“I ordered a black Tahoe.”
“This is what dispatch sent.”
Lorenzo’s face hardened.
“Don’t touch it.”
Dante stepped back.
Three seconds later, the sedan exploded.
Heat slammed Evelyn against a pillar.
Her ears screamed.
Lorenzo pulled her up.
“That answer your question?”
“What question?”
“Whether we have a traitor.”
They stole an old delivery van from a nearby loading dock.
Dante drove.
Evelyn sat in the back beside Lorenzo.
“You owe me an answer.”
“I owe you several.”
“My father.”
Lorenzo stared at the floor.
“My father, Antonio Moretti, used Daniel Carter.”
“Used him how?”
“Accounts. Bribes. Offshore transfers.”
“My dad couldn’t balance his own checking account.”
“That was part of the act.”
Evelyn laughed bitterly.
“So my entire childhood was fake?”
“Not necessarily.”
“He gambled away everything.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re defending him?”
“No.”
“Then stop talking like you knew him.”
Lorenzo finally looked at her.
“I met him once.”
She went silent.
“When?”
“I was nineteen.”
“What happened?”
“He was terrified.”
“Of your father?”
“Yes.”
Evelyn swallowed.
“What did Daniel do?”
“He stole something.”
“What?”
“I never found out.”
Dante’s phone rang.
He answered.
“Yeah?”
Lorenzo watched him.
Dante listened.
Then said, “Got it.”
He hung up.
“Victor says the south crew is clean. He wants us at Saint Agnes.”
Lorenzo frowned.
Evelyn noticed something.
“What?”
“Saint Agnes closed six years ago.”
Dante looked back.
“What?”
Evelyn pointed toward his phone.
“Whoever called you didn’t say Saint Agnes, did they?”
Dante’s face tightened.
Lorenzo drew his weapon.
“Dante.”
“Boss, I swear—”
“Put the phone down.”
Dante slowly did.
“Victor texted me.”
Lorenzo grabbed the phone.
There was no recent message from Victor.
Dante looked stunned.
“I saw it.”
Evelyn picked up the device.
Then noticed a tiny icon at the top.
“Remote access.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“What?”
“My ex used to install spyware on phones for a security company. Someone can fake notifications if they have access.”
Dante exhaled.
“So Victor might not be dirty.”
“Or he might be very dirty,” Lorenzo said.
The van stopped at a red light.
Evelyn looked through the windshield.
A motorcycle pulled beside them.
The rider turned.
Black helmet.
Gun.
“DOWN!”
Bullets ripped through the van.
Dante accelerated.
The motorcycle followed.
Lorenzo fired through the broken rear window.
The bike swerved away.
Something fell from the rider’s jacket and bounced inside the van.
A silver medallion.
Evelyn picked it up.
Her heart stopped.
A black spade engraved inside a circle.
She had seen that symbol before.
Hundreds of times.
On the old poker chips her father kept locked in a box beneath his bed.
She looked at Lorenzo.
“This wasn’t yours.”
“No.”
“My father had this symbol.”
Lorenzo stared at it.
May you like
Then he said the words Evelyn least wanted to hear.
“So did Celeste’s family.”
