Chapter 6 - THE MAN BEHIND THE BOMB
Michael Harrow did not look like a dead man.
That was Nora’s first thought.
Her second was that death had apparently treated him well.
He stood on the old choir balcony in a dark wool coat, one hand resting against the railing, the other holding a pistol.
Silver hair.
Trim beard.
Calm posture.
Nothing about him suggested a man who had spent five years hiding.
Rachel lay near the altar clutching her bleeding shoulder.
Marcus fired again.
Harrow vanished behind the balcony wall.
Gabriel pulled Nora lower behind the stone column.
“Stay down.”
Thomas leaned against the floor, pale.
“Back sacristy.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“What?”
“Tunnel.”
Nora stared at her father.
“You know this church?”
Thomas coughed.
“Harrow used it.”
Of course he did.
Marcus shouted from the aisle.
“Move!”
Another shot cracked into the column.
Stone dust hit Nora’s cheek.
Gabriel wrapped one arm around her head and fired toward the balcony with the other.
“Thomas, can you walk?”
“Yes.”
He could not.
Nora knew immediately.
Six years had changed his body.
His left leg dragged.
One hand trembled.
Gabriel saw it too.
Without discussion, he got beneath Thomas’s arm.
Nora supported the other side.
They moved toward the sacristy.
Rachel called after them.
“Nora!”
Nora looked back.
Her aunt was trying to stand.
For one terrible second, every betrayal disappeared.
Rachel had packed her lunches when Nora’s mother worked nights.
Taught Maya to drive.
Held Nora at Thomas’s funeral without a body.
Family did not stop feeling like family simply because it hurt you.
Nora turned.
Gabriel caught her arm.
“No.”
“She’s bleeding.”
“She also brought Harrow here.”
Rachel shouted, “I didn’t!”
Harrow fired again from above.
The bullet struck the altar rail.
Rachel screamed.
That decided it.
Nora ran back.
Gabriel swore and followed.
Marcus covered them.
Nora reached Rachel.
“Can you stand?”
“Yes.”
“No, you can’t.”
“I’m fine.”
“Apparently that disease runs in families.”
Despite blood loss, Rachel almost laughed.
Gabriel lifted her.
“Sacristy.”
They reached the rear door.
Thomas pushed against an old cabinet.
Behind it, a narrow stone staircase descended.
Marcus entered last.
He shoved the cabinet back into place.
Darkness swallowed them.
Gabriel turned on a small flashlight.
The tunnel smelled of damp earth.
“How far?” he asked.
Thomas breathed hard.
“Half block. Comes up in rectory garage.”
Nora looked at him.
“How long did Harrow keep you here?”
“Not here.”
“Where?”
“Different places.”
“Dad.”
“Later.”
“No. Six years is already later.”
He looked at her.
Shame filled his face.
“I stayed hidden the first year by choice.”
Nora stopped walking.
“What?”
Gabriel looked back.
Thomas continued.
“Harrow thought I was dead after Bridgeport. I had evidence. I thought if I surfaced, he would take you.”
“So you abandoned us.”
“Nora.”
“You let us believe you were dead.”
“Yes.”
The answer cut deeper because it was honest.
“Why didn’t you contact me?”
“I tried once.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
She stared.
“The week you started working for Gabriel.”
Her skin went cold.
“You knew.”
“I knew Rachel had placed you there.”
“You let her.”
“I believed Gabriel’s house was the safest place in Chicago.”
Gabriel said nothing.
Nora laughed bitterly.
“Everyone decided my life for me.”
Thomas’s eyes filled.
“I was wrong.”
“Yes.”
“I know.”
They kept moving because bullets above them made family therapy impractical.
At the end of the tunnel, Marcus opened the rectory garage.
Gabriel’s security team met them.
Rachel was rushed into a vehicle.
Thomas into another.
Nora tried to climb in with him.
Gabriel stopped her.
“Different car.”
“Why?”
“If Harrow follows, he cannot take all of us.”
She hated the logic.
“Fine.”
She rode with Gabriel.
For the first five minutes, neither spoke.
Then he said, “You were right.”
“About?”
“People deciding for you.”
Nora looked at him.
“I have been doing it since yesterday.”
“You’ve also listened when I said no.”
“Not always.”
“No.”
He watched rainless winter streets pass outside.
“I am not good at this.”
“At what?”
“Caring about someone who does not work for me in a way I can manage.”
Her pulse shifted.
“I still work for you.”
“No.”
She frowned.
“You fired me?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“For security reasons.”
“You cannot fire me while I’m concussed.”
“I just did.”
“I need that job.”
“You will be paid through the year.”
“That is not the point.”
“Then what is?”
Nora stared.
The answer surprised her.
“The house.”
Gabriel went quiet.
She looked away.
“I like working there.”
“Because you were searching it?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
“Later it became…”
She stopped.
“What?”
“Familiar.”
Home was too dangerous a word.
Gabriel seemed to hear it anyway.
His voice softened.
“You can come back.”
“As what?”
He looked at her.
Neither of them answered.
At a secure medical suite owned by one of Gabriel’s companies, Rachel underwent surgery.
The bullet had passed through soft tissue.
Thomas was examined next.
Old nerve damage.
Poorly healed fracture.
Malnutrition.
Evidence of repeated confinement.
Nora listened until she could not.
Then she walked into an empty hallway and cried against the wall.
Gabriel found her.
Of course he did.
He said nothing.
Just stood beside her.
Nora wiped her face.
“I hate him.”
“Thomas?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
“And I love him.”
“Yes.”
“I want to scream at him.”
“Do that.”
“He looks like he’ll break.”
“Then scream gently.”
She laughed through tears.
Gabriel’s shoulder touched hers.
Not quite an embrace.
Enough.
An hour later, Thomas asked to see Gabriel and Nora together.
Marcus joined.
Thomas sat upright in bed.
He looked exhausted.
“Harrow will go after the red book.”
“We moved it,” Gabriel said.
“Where?”
“You don’t need to know.”
Thomas almost smiled.
“Good.”
Nora crossed her arms.
“Tell us everything.”
Thomas looked at her.
“You deserve that.”
Six years ago, he had discovered Harrow was moving money through Kane’s businesses and Vale subcontractors.
Kane knew some of it.
Not all.
“Harrow sold everyone a different story,” Thomas said.
“To Kane, he said Gabriel was preparing to take over the South Side. To Gabriel’s people, he made Kane look unstable enough to justify war.”
Marcus asked, “Bridgeport?”
“Harrow planted the bomb.”
“Why target me?”
Thomas looked at him.
“Your mother left you copies of her compliance notes.”
Marcus went still.
“I never found any.”
“Harrow did not know that.”
“So he assumed I had them.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel leaned forward.
“And my signature?”
“Forged.”
“Proof?”
Thomas nodded.
“The original payment request has Harrow’s biometric approval.”
“Where?”
“In my half of the ledger.”
Nora looked at him.
“Which is?”
He closed his eyes.
“Gone.”
Silence.
“What?”
“Harrow took it two months ago.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“Then why keep you alive?”
“Because he cannot read the account code without Nora.”
Everyone looked at her.
She stared at Thomas.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No more apologies. Explain.”
Thomas looked toward the window.
“When your mother died, I changed the encryption key.”
Nora’s chest tightened.
“What does Mom have to do with it?”
“I used something only our family knew.”
“What?”
“The letters she wrote you.”
Nora felt cold.
Her mother wrote birthday letters every year from the time Nora turned ten until she died.
Nora kept them in a box.
At her apartment.
The apartment Kane’s men destroyed.
“They were searching for the letters.”
“Yes.”
Nora stood.
“Do you know if they found them?”
“No.”
“I moved them.”
Thomas looked up.
“Where?”
Nora swallowed.
“Gabriel’s house.”
He stared.
“What?”
“I didn’t trust my apartment after someone broke in last year.”
Gabriel turned.
“Someone broke in last year?”
“It looked like burglary.”
“And you never told me?”
“You’re doing the voice.”
“What voice?”
“The one where you become terrifying because I failed to submit a report.”
Marcus murmured, “It is a voice.”
Gabriel glared.
Nora almost smiled.
Then she remembered.
“The letters are in the attic. Inside the blue Christmas ornament box.”
Thomas leaned back.
“Harrow will know eventually.”
Gabriel stood.
“We get them now.”
Thomas grabbed his sleeve.
“Wait.”
Gabriel looked down.
Thomas’s face had gone pale.
“There is one more thing.”
“What?”
“Harrow did not take me from Rachel.”
Nora frowned.
“Then who did?”
“Silas Kane.”
The room went silent.
Thomas continued.
“Kane has been keeping me alive because he wants Harrow destroyed.”
Nora stared.
“He kidnapped Maya.”
“Yes.”
“He beat me.”
Thomas’s face tightened.
“I know.”
“And you’re telling me he was protecting you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“He was using me.”
Gabriel asked, “Why did Kane let Harrow reach the church?”
Thomas looked at him.
“He didn’t.”
“What?”
“Kane did not know about Saint Brigid’s.”
Nora’s stomach dropped.
“Then how did Harrow know?”
Thomas looked at Marcus.
Not because Marcus was guilty.
Because they all understood the same thing.
Only four people had heard Rachel name the meeting place on the phone.
Nora.
Gabriel.
Marcus.
And the security system around them.
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“The house is bugged.”
Marcus was already moving.
Then Nora’s phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number.
A photograph.
Gabriel’s attic.
The blue Christmas box open.
Her mother’s letters gone.
May you like
Beneath it:
THANK YOU FOR BRINGING THE KEY HOME.
