Chapter 2 - The Name on the Photograph
“You have no idea what meeting you just interrupted.”
There were approximately seventeen intelligent responses Maya Bennett could have made.
She chose none of them.
“Was it about plumbing?”
Adrian Voss stared at her.
His hand was still around her waist.
Maya became suddenly, painfully aware of three things.
First, Adrian was much taller up close than he looked from across a hallway.
Second, the expensive charcoal suit beneath her palms was now wet because of her.
Third, there was something profoundly unfair about a dangerous man smelling that good while she smelled like burst pipes and panic.
“No,” he said.
“Excellent. Because my expertise ends at turning valves until the screaming stops.”
His gaze dropped briefly to the hand she still had pressed against his chest.
Maya removed it.
Immediately.
“Sorry.”
Then she tried to step backward.
Her stockinged foot slid.
Adrian caught her again.
Maya closed her eyes.
“I would like to formally request that we erase the last thirty seconds.”
“That would require forgetting you fell on me twice.”
“Then erase forty-five.”
Something changed at the corner of his mouth.
Not a smile.
Adrian Voss probably charged people for smiles.
But something close.
Then his expression hardened.
“Why were you in the west corridor?”
“Looking for the supply closet.”
“The staff supply rooms are in the east wing.”
“Yes. I learned that emotionally.”
“Maya.”
She froze.
It was the first time he had used her name.
She had not even known he knew it.
His dark eyes sharpened.
“Who told you to come this way?”
“Nobody.”
“You wandered into this corridor accidentally?”
“That sounds significantly worse when you say it.”
“It should.”
The humor disappeared from his voice.
For the first time, Maya looked properly around the room.
The table was covered with maps of Chicago’s industrial districts. Port routes. Warehouse photographs. Vehicle registrations. Names.
Several images showed men she had never seen.
One photograph showed a burned-out black SUV.
Another showed a warehouse with police tape across the entrance.
This was not a corporate budget meeting.
Her stomach tightened.
Adrian noticed.
“Look at me.”
She did.
“You didn’t see anything in this room.”
Maya swallowed.
“Pretty sure I saw eight men who dress like undertakers.”
His eyes remained on hers.
“Nothing else.”
“Nothing else.”
“If anyone asks why you were here—”
“I got lost.”
“You did.”
“That part doesn’t even require lying.”
He released her.
The loss of his hand at her waist was strangely noticeable.
Maya bent down for her fallen towel.
That was when she saw it.
A photograph near the edge of the table.
A woman.
Thirty, maybe thirty-five.
Dark hair.
Sharp cheekbones.
Standing beside a man outside a restaurant.
Maya stopped moving.
The air inside the room seemed to vanish.
Adrian saw her expression.
“What?”
She stared at the photograph.
“No.”
“Maya.”
She reached for it.
His hand caught her wrist before she touched it.
“Don’t.”
She barely heard him.
“Where did you get that?”
Every trace of amusement disappeared from Adrian’s face.
“You recognize her?”
Maya’s mouth went dry.
The woman in the photograph was older than Maya remembered.
Thinner.
Her hair shorter.
But there was no possibility of mistake.
“That’s Elena Bennett.”
Adrian did not move.
“Who is Elena Bennett?”
Maya looked at him.
“My sister.”
Silence.
Not ordinary silence.
The kind that changed the temperature of a room.
Adrian slowly released her wrist.
“How long since you’ve seen her?”
Maya hesitated.
“Three years.”
“Why?”
“Because she disappeared.”
Adrian’s stare became almost frighteningly still.
“What do you mean disappeared?”
“I mean one morning she called me, told me she was going away for a little while, asked me not to look for her, and changed her number before dinner.”
“That was three years ago?”
“Yes.”
“You never heard from her again?”
“No.”
Adrian picked up the photograph.
“Are you certain this is her?”
Maya gave him a look.
“She raised me.”
That answer landed differently.
Adrian glanced again at the image.
Maya wrapped both arms around herself.
The wet blouse suddenly felt freezing.
“Our mother died when I was thirteen,” she said. “Elena was twenty-one. She dropped out of Northwestern for a year so I wouldn’t go into foster care. She came to every parent conference. Taught me how to drive. Threatened my first boyfriend with a tire iron.”
Adrian looked up.
“A tire iron?”
“He cheated.”
“Reasonable.”
Maya blinked.
“Did the mafia boss just approve of my sister threatening a teenager?”
“I didn’t hear a threat.”
Despite everything, a disbelieving laugh escaped her.
Then she looked at the photograph again.
“When was this taken?”
“Eleven days ago.”
Maya stopped breathing.
“What?”
“Eleven days ago.”
“No.”
“It was taken in Milwaukee.”
“No.”
“Maya—”
“That’s impossible.”
Adrian placed the photograph flat on the table.
“Why?”
“Because I searched for her.”
Her voice cracked despite her effort to keep it steady.
“I hired someone two years ago. Not a great investigator because I couldn’t afford a great investigator, but he checked bank records, addresses, employment, hospitals, everything he legally could. Nothing. Elena had vanished.”
Adrian’s attention shifted.
“When did you apply for this job?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“When were you hired?”
“Eleven days ago.”
Both looked at the photograph.
Eleven days.
Maya felt something cold move down her spine.
“No.”
Adrian reached for his phone.
She caught his sleeve.
“Wait.”
He looked at her hand.
She let go.
“What does she have to do with you?”
His jaw tightened.
“That meeting you interrupted was about a man named Viktor Soren.”
“Who is he?”
“Someone who has spent the last six months trying to dismantle parts of my organization.”
Maya stared.
“You said that very casually.”
“I’m not casual.”
“Fair.”
Adrian turned the photograph toward her.
“The man beside your sister is Daniel Rusk. He works for Soren.”
Maya stared at the stranger standing beside Elena.
“What kind of work?”
Adrian didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
She backed away.
“My sister isn’t involved in organized crime.”
“You haven’t seen her in three years.”
“She is not involved in organized crime.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know Elena.”
“You knew her.”
The words cut.
Maya’s eyes hardened.
“You don’t get to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Turn three missing years into permission to rewrite everything she was.”
Adrian held her stare.
Then, unexpectedly, his tone softened.
“You’re right.”
That stopped her.
Men like Adrian Voss probably apologized even less often than they smiled.
He picked up the photograph again.
“There’s another possibility.”
“What?”
“That she’s not working with Rusk willingly.”
Maya’s anger vanished.
Adrian walked to the door and opened it.
The man who had almost laughed earlier was standing thirty feet away pretending not to guard the hallway.
He straightened.
“Marco.”
“Yeah?”
“Get Dante.”
Marco’s expression shifted.
“Problem?”
“Now.”
Marco left.
Maya watched Adrian lock the doors again.
“You have someone named Dante?”
“Yes.”
“Of course you do.”
Adrian removed his jacket.
Maya tensed.
He held it toward her.
She stared.
“You’re soaked.”
“Oh.”
She took it.
The jacket was warm from his body.
Far too expensive to be wrapped around a woman who had spent the previous hour fighting plumbing.
“Thank you.”
Adrian’s eyes lingered on her for one heartbeat too long.
Then his phone vibrated.
He looked down.
Everything in him changed.
Maya saw it happen.
His shoulders became rigid.
His eyes turned cold.
“What?”
He read the message again.
Then looked toward the locked door.
“Stay here.”
The command was immediate.
“What happened?”
“Stay. Here.”
Adrian pulled a pistol from beneath the back of his suit jacket.
Maya stared.
“Well, that is aggressively not reassuring.”
A loud crash echoed somewhere down the hallway.
Then the mansion lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Maya heard Adrian move toward her.
His hand found her arm.
“Behind me.”
Emergency lights should have activated.
They didn’t.
That scared him more than the crash.
She could hear it in his breathing.
A second later, footsteps ran outside the door.
Someone shouted.
Then came three muffled pops.
Gunshots.
Maya’s blood went cold.
Adrian pushed her behind the heavy conference table.
“Stay down.”
“Adrian—”
“Do not move.”
He crossed toward the door.
A thin line of hallway light suddenly appeared beneath it.
Backup power.
Maya crouched beside the table, heart pounding.
Something near her foot glowed.
A phone.
Not hers.
Someone from the meeting had left it beneath a chair.
The screen lit with a new message.
Maya should not have looked.
She did.
Three words appeared.
SHE FOUND THE PHOTO.
Then another message arrived.
TAKE HER TONIGHT.
Maya’s breath stopped.
Adrian turned.
“What is it?”
She lifted the phone with a shaking hand.
His eyes dropped to the screen.
For the first time that night, Maya saw genuine fury break through Adrian Voss’s perfect control.
He crossed the room, took the phone, and stared at the sender.
Then he looked at the place where one of the eight men had been sitting minutes earlier.
Adrian’s voice was almost a whisper.
“One of my men brought you here.”
Maya felt the floor disappear beneath her.
“I told you. Nobody told me where to go.”
“I believe you.”
Outside, footsteps stopped directly in front of the door.
The handle slowly turned.
Adrian raised his gun.
Maya barely breathed.
Then a voice from the other side said:
“Boss?”
It was Marco.
Adrian opened the door only enough to see him.
Marco was holding his own weapon.
“We have a breach on the north side. One guard unconscious. Cameras went down for ninety seconds.”
Adrian glanced at Maya.
“Who left a phone in here?”
Marco frowned.
“Whose?”
Adrian showed him.
Marco’s face lost color.
“That’s Luca’s.”
Maya remembered.
Luca.
One of the men at the meeting.
Quiet.
Gray suit.
Wedding ring.
He had been sitting three chairs from Adrian.
“Where is he?” Adrian asked.
Marco looked behind him.
“He was with us ten seconds ago.”
Adrian stepped into the corridor.
Maya followed before thinking.
He spun.
“I said stay.”
“And I’m beginning to notice people around here are bad at it.”
“Maya.”
“What?”
“If someone inside this house is trying to take you, I need you where I can see you.”
She stopped.
The words were frightening enough.
His expression was worse.
Marco’s radio crackled.
A guard’s voice exploded through static.
“Vehicle moving at the south gate!”
Adrian grabbed the radio.
“Stop it.”
“Gate controls are offline!”
Maya heard tires screaming outside.
Marco ran toward the stairs.
Adrian followed.
Maya stood alone for exactly two seconds.
Then she saw something on the floor.
A black wallet.
Dropped near the door.
She picked it up.
Inside was Luca’s identification.
And behind it—
A photograph.
Not Elena.
Maya.
It had been taken outside the little café near her old apartment.
She was carrying groceries.
The date stamped in the corner was six weeks earlier.
Three weeks before she had even applied to work for Adrian Voss.
Maya’s fingers went numb.
Someone had been watching her before she came to the mansion.
She turned the photograph over.
There were five handwritten words on the back.
USE THE SISTER TO GET VOSS.
Then she heard a man’s voice behind her.
“You really should’ve stayed upstairs.”
Maya turned.
May you like
Luca stood ten feet away.
And the gun in his hand was pointed directly at her chest.
