Chapter 1 - THE DEAD MAN ON THE PHONE
Waitress Megan Parker thought the worst thing that could happen that rainy Chicago evening was losing her job.
She was wrong.
After finding a badly wounded stranger bleeding in an alley, Megan ignored her shift, pressed an apron against his injury, and helped keep him alive until his men arrived. She returned to Laura Restaurant forty-five minutes late, covered in blood, only for manager David Kesler to fire her and throw her final paycheck at her feet.
Then the wounded stranger walked into the kitchen.
His name was Roman DeLuca.
Megan soon learned Roman was no ordinary businessman. He owned the building, controlled a powerful criminal organization, and inspired fear in nearly everyone around him.
But Roman noticed something more important than Megan's firing.
David was wearing a distinctive silver wolf cuff link identical to one Roman had found beside him in the alley where he was attacked.
David also lied about where he had been that afternoon.
Their suspicions led Roman to search David's office, where he discovered an old green Vale Logistics Consortium bag containing shipping records that should have been destroyed six years earlier.
Among the secret payments was David Kesler's name.
Then Megan saw another.
THOMAS PARKER — CLOSED.
Her husband.
The husband she had buried four years earlier after a supposed car accident.
Roman discovered Thomas had secretly worked for Vale Logistics, despite Megan believing he sold industrial insurance.
Before either of them could understand what that meant, David escaped through the restaurant loading dock.
Then Roman's men found a second phone hidden inside David's desk.
It looked exactly like Megan's phone.
A call appeared from one contact.
TOM.
The voice belonged to Megan's supposedly dead husband.
Then a video arrived showing Thomas alive, restrained inside a room marked with the Vale crown.
David Kesler stood beside him.
And just before the recording ended, another person entered the frame.
Roman recognized that person.
His only response was one quiet word.
May you like
“Impossible.”
Then somewhere beneath the restaurant, a locked door opened.
