Chapter 2 - THE MAN IN THE BASEMENT
Chicago looked different when you followed someone who believed she was alone.
The snow had started again by the time Beatrice Gallagher left my mansion.
Not the pretty kind that settled softly on Christmas cards.
This was Chicago snow.
Hard.
Sharp.
Driven sideways by a lake wind that found every opening in a coat and punished you for leaving home.
Beatrice walked three blocks before taking a bus south.
I followed in a black sedan with the headlights low, keeping enough distance that she wouldn't notice me.
My driver had asked where we were going.
I told him to go home.
Tonight, I wanted no witnesses.
For twelve years, I had survived because I trusted almost no one.
Not drivers.
Not guards.
Not men who had sworn loyalty over blood and whiskey.
And especially not desperate employees carrying stolen food through the night.
Beatrice got off near an old neighborhood where boarded windows stood beside newly renovated townhouses, poverty and wealth separated by a single alley.
She kept walking.
Her shoes were too thin for the snow.
I noticed that before I noticed anything else.
Every few steps, she hugged the plastic container beneath her coat as if protecting a child.
She passed two restaurants, a liquor store, and an apartment building with a working lobby.
Then she turned toward an abandoned Catholic church.
St. Agnes.
The sight of it made me stop.
I knew that church.
My mother used to take my brother and me there when we were boys.
Before our father decided prayer made men weak.
Before the Vale name became something people whispered.
Before blood became our family language.
Beatrice slipped through a side door.
I waited thirty seconds.
Then I followed.
The church had been condemned years ago.
Dust covered the pews.
The stained-glass windows were cracked, and snow had blown through one broken section near the altar.
There were footprints in the dust.
Beatrice's.
And someone else's.
Larger.
A man's.
I reached beneath my coat and rested my hand on the pistol at my waist.
The footprints disappeared behind the altar.
A narrow stairway led underground.
I heard Beatrice's voice before I reached the bottom.
“I brought enough for tomorrow, too.”
A man's voice answered.
Weak.
Rough.
“You shouldn't keep doing this.”
“I’m not letting you starve.”
“If he catches you—”
“He won't.”
I descended one more step.
The basement smelled like candle wax, damp concrete, and old wood.
A single lantern burned near a mattress.
Beatrice was kneeling beside a man wrapped in two blankets.
His back was toward me.
Long dark hair touched his collar.
A beard covered most of his face.
He looked thin enough to break.
But there was something familiar about the slope of his shoulders.
Something that made the skin along my arms tighten.
Beatrice opened the plastic container.
“Prime rib tonight.”
The man gave a humorless laugh.
“Living like a king.”
“You need protein.”
“I need a new body.”
“You need to stop complaining.”
For the first time since I had hired her, Beatrice smiled.
Not the nervous smile she used around my family.
A real one.
The man took the fork.
Then he froze.
His head lifted.
He had heard me.
I stepped from the shadows.
Beatrice turned.
The container hit the floor.
“Mr. Vale.”
Her face drained white.
The man moved immediately.
Weak or not, he put himself between us.
“Stay behind me, Bea.”
My hand tightened around my weapon.
Beatrice lifted both palms.
“Please.”
“You stole food from my house.”
“I can explain.”
“You lied to me.”
“I never lied.”
“You hid this.”
My eyes shifted toward the man.
“Who are you?”
He stared at me.
His face remained partially hidden by the shadows.
“Leave.”
Nobody had ordered me out of a room in twenty years.
I took another step.
He did too.
The lantern light touched his face.
And the world stopped.
There are moments when the human mind protects itself by refusing reality.
I had experienced gunfire at close range.
I had watched men die.
I had buried my mother.
I had stood beside my father as they lowered an empty-looking black casket containing the charred remains of my older brother into frozen ground twelve years earlier.
None of that prepared me for the man standing in front of me.
There was a scar running from his temple to his jaw.
His nose had been broken badly at least once.
His hair was longer.
His eyes were older.
But eyes did not lie.
Not those eyes.
Gray.
Just like my mother's.
Just like mine.
My mouth went dry.
“No.”
The man stared at me.
Something changed in his expression.
Anger disappeared first.
Then fear.
Then something far worse.
Recognition.
His lips parted.
“Roman?”
No one called me Roman anymore.
Not like that.
Not softly.
Not as if the name belonged to a twelve-year-old boy instead of the head of the Vale organization.
I could not breathe.
Beatrice stood perfectly still.
The man took a trembling step toward me.
I reached for my pistol and pointed it directly at his chest.
Beatrice gasped.
“Don't!”
The man stopped.
He didn't raise his hands.
He only looked at the gun.
Then at me.
A bitter smile touched his face.
“Still draw too fast.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
Only one person had ever said that.
When I was sixteen, my brother Gabriel had taught me how to shoot behind our father's warehouse.
I had nearly fired into the dirt because I was too eager.
Gabriel had grabbed my wrist.
Still draw too fast, little brother.
Think first.
Shoot second.
The memory hit me so hard I almost lowered the weapon.
Almost.
“Say your name.”
The man swallowed.
“You already know it.”
“Say it.”
Beatrice began crying silently.
The man looked straight into my eyes.
“Gabriel Vale.”
My finger tightened against the trigger.
Gabriel Vale had been dead for twelve years.
I had seen the death certificate.
I had seen photographs from the explosion.
I had stood beside my father when they identified what remained of him.
I had watched my mother collapse during the funeral.
“You're lying.”
Gabriel slowly pulled something from beneath his shirt.
A silver medal.
St. Michael.
The edge was damaged.
A tiny letter G had been scratched into the back.
My mother had given him that medal when he turned eighteen.
He had worn it every day.
I had searched his room for it after his death because I wanted something that had belonged to him.
My father told me it had burned with the body.
The gun suddenly felt heavy.
“Where did you get that?”
“Mom.”
My vision blurred.
“Anyone could know that.”
Gabriel nodded.
“You broke the blue lamp in Dad's office when you were nine.”
My stomach tightened.
“You blamed me.”
“Stop.”
“I took the beating because you were too scared.”
“Stop.”
“You slept in my room for three nights afterward.”
“Shut up.”
“And when Mom asked why, we told her you had nightmares.”
“SHUT UP!”
My voice shook the basement.
Beatrice flinched.
Gabriel didn't.
He had always been the only person in our family who didn't.
I lowered the gun without realizing I had done it.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then I asked the question that had been tearing through my mind.
“If you're Gabriel…”
My voice cracked.
I hated myself for it.
“…who did I bury?”
His expression hardened.
“I don't know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I barely remember the first few months.”
“Then start with what you do remember.”
He looked toward Beatrice.
She shook her head.
“Not here.”
I laughed once.
Coldly.
“You don't get to decide that.”
“Roman.”
Hearing my name from his mouth felt like a blade.
I stepped closer.
“Twelve years.”
“I know.”
“Twelve years I thought you were dead.”
“I know.”
“Mother died believing you were dead.”
His face broke.
For the first time, I knew.
Whatever else was true, that pain was real.
Gabriel looked away.
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
He closed his eyes.
I watched his knees weaken.
Beatrice caught his arm.
“She got sick?”
“Cancer.”
He said nothing.
“She asked for you until the morphine made her stop talking.”
A tear moved through the beard on his cheek.
I should have felt satisfied hurting him.
Instead, I felt hollow.
Gabriel sat heavily on the mattress.
“I tried to come back.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“Then why didn't you?”
He looked at me.
“Because someone found me first.”
My body went still.
“Who?”
Gabriel's gaze moved toward the stairway behind me.
Fear returned to his face.
Not fear of me.
Fear for me.
“Roman, did anyone know you were following Beatrice?”
“No.”
“Did anyone see you leave?”
“My security cameras.”
“Who controls them?”
A name formed in my mind before he said it.
Lorenzo.
Gabriel rose too quickly and almost fell.
“We need to move.”
“Why?”
“Because twelve years ago, before the warehouse exploded, I heard the man who was supposed to kill me say something.”
“What?”
Gabriel grabbed my coat.
His voice dropped to a whisper.
“He said when I was gone, you would be easy to control.”
My blood turned cold.
Then a sound came from upstairs.
A floorboard.
Beatrice looked toward the ceiling.
I drew my gun.
Gabriel extinguished the lantern.
Darkness swallowed the basement.
Another creak.
Then another.
Someone was inside the church.
I heard Beatrice breathing beside me.
I raised one finger to my lips.
A flashlight beam appeared at the top of the stairs.
Then a familiar voice called softly into the darkness.
“Boss?”
Lorenzo.
“I know you're down there.”
Gabriel's hand clamped around my wrist.
And when I looked at the brother my empire had buried twelve years ago, I saw terror in his eyes.
May you like
Not because Lorenzo had found us.
Because Gabriel recognized his voice.
