Chapter 3 - THE WOLF AT THE DOOR
The silence that clamped down over the music room was denser than the freezing rain drumming against the skylights.
Vincent did not turn around. He remained standing between the door and the piano bench, his tall frame cutting off Marcus’s view of the child. His hands, usually resting in quiet authority at his sides, had curled into fists so tight that the tendons in his wrists strained against his unbuttoned shirt cuffs.
"She has Julian's key," Marcus said softly, his voice maintaining that calm, measured cadence he had used for nearly two decades to manage the Marlo empire's darkest problems. He took half a step forward into the room. "Vincent... what is she doing in here?"
"Playing music," Vincent said. The voice did not sound human; it sounded scraped out of frozen earth.
I appeared at the doorway then, out of breath, my bare feet cold against the hallway floor. I had awakened to an empty bed and an open bedroom door, panicked by the sudden absence of my daughter. When I saw the open door to the forbidden room, my blood had run cold.
"Sophie!" I gasped, clutching the doorframe, terrified Vincent’s security detail would treat her intrusion as an unforgivable breach.
"Mommy!" Sophie piped up cheerfully, oblivious to the lethal tension vibrating through the air. "The tape played Daddy's song! And Uncle Vincent listened!"
Marcus's gaze snapped from the child directly to me. For seventeen years, Marcus had been Vincent's shadow, but to me, he had been the helpful family executor who arranged my modest stipend after Julian's funeral, the man who gently insisted I keep Sophie far away from the syndicate's headquarters. Now, the mask slipped. His eyes were cold, calculating, and predatory.
"A tape," Marcus murmured, his hand subtly sliding into his overcoat pocket. "I thought we cleared every piece of media out of this house four years ago, Elena. Where did that recorder come from?"
"It was in my storage box," I stammered, stepping between Marcus and the room, sensing the immediate shift in danger. "Julian gave it to me before he died. He told me it had a piano practice track on it. I never had the heart to listen to the whole thing."
"A tragedy," Marcus said, his voice tightening. "A terrible, unresolved tragedy. But Vincent, the jet is fueled. Chicago won't wait. Let the security boys handle the child and Elena. We have business."
Vincent slowly turned his head. His eyes were completely bloodshot, dark rings framing a gaze of terrifying lucidity. "Tell me again, Marcus. Who was it that confirmed Julian was driving the north route toward Montreal?"
Marcus blinked, his jaw muscles twitching beneath his closely trimmed silver beard. "The state troopers, Vincent. We went over this forty times four years ago. The rivals paid someone at the toll booths to spot him."
"Julian didn't have Montreal on his GPS," Vincent said, each word dropping like a lead weight. "He was heading west toward Syracuse. The only person who knew he had an emergency route up north was you. Because you gave him the keys to the sedan."
The hall went dead still.
Downstairs, the heavy oak front door slammed shut. The sound echoed up the three flights of stairs, followed by the distinct sound of tactical boots moving rapidly along the ground floor.
Marcus took a deliberate step backward into the corridor, pulling a compact matte-black pistol from his coat with practiced, terrifying ease.
"You should have gotten on the plane, Vincent," Marcus whispered, the pretense of brotherhood evaporating into cold pragmatism. "You spent four years mourning a ghost instead of expanding our territory. Julian was weak. He wanted to turn all the books over to the Southern District. He was going to put you in ADX Florence to save his own miserable soul."
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"He was protecting me from you," Vincent said, stepping deliberately in front of Sophie and me.
"It doesn't matter now," Marcus said coldly, raising the firearm toward Vincent's chest. "The house is already surrounded. The boys coming up the stairs aren't yours anymore. They work for the board now."
