Chapter 4 - A FATHER WHO COULD NOT SHOOT
Beatrice saw Lily first.
“Leo!”
She pointed.
The man in the Rossi jacket was thirty yards away, moving fast through the crowd.
Lily’s head rested against his shoulder.
Her arms hung limp.
Leo ran.
This time no one could say men like Leo Rossi did not run.
He shoved through commuters, knocked a suitcase sideways, ignored the shouts behind him.
Mateo followed.
Beatrice ran too.
Every step stabbed her ribs.
She did not care.
The kidnapper reached the west doors.
A black SUV waited outside.
Leo drew a gun.
People screamed.
Beatrice’s heart stopped.
Lily was between him and the man.
“Don’t shoot!”
Leo knew.
His hand shook anyway.
The kidnapper turned.
Beatrice recognized him.
Evan Holt.
The young guard who had hidden with Lily in the closet.
The one who seemed to protect her.
Betrayal landed harder because he had worn the face of safety.
Evan smiled.
“Boss.”
Leo’s gun remained raised.
“Put her down.”
“No.”
“Evan.”
“Adrian sends his regards.”
Mateo moved to the side.
Evan immediately pressed something against Lily’s neck.
A syringe.
“Stop.”
Mateo froze.
Beatrice could barely breathe.
“What did you give her?” Leo asked.
“Enough to make her sleepy.”
“If she dies—”
“She won’t.”
“Put her down.”
Evan laughed.
“You keep saying that like this is still your city.”
A horn blared.
Traffic moved.
People scattered.
Beatrice watched Lily’s chest.
Rising.
Falling.
Good.
The SUV driver opened the rear door.
Evan began backing toward it.
Beatrice noticed something the men did not.
Lily’s right hand.
It moved.
Barely.
Her fingers closed around Evan’s security badge.
The child was not fully unconscious.
Lily looked at Beatrice.
One eye cracked open.
Beatrice understood.
She had no idea how.
But she did.
“Thunder,” Beatrice shouted.
Everyone looked at her.
Evan frowned.
“What?”
Beatrice smiled.
“Heaven’s moving furniture.”
Lily bit Evan’s neck.
Hard.
He screamed.
The syringe dropped.
Leo moved.
So did Mateo.
Evan threw Lily sideways.
Beatrice caught her.
The impact sent both of them to the pavement.
Pain exploded through Beatrice’s ribs.
She wrapped herself around Lily.
Gunshots cracked.
Cars stopped.
Someone screamed.
Then silence.
Beatrice looked up.
Evan was down.
Shot in the leg.
Mateo had the driver against the SUV.
Leo ran to Beatrice.
“Lily.”
“She’s breathing.”
He dropped to his knees.
Lily opened her eyes.
“Bee?”
“I’m here.”
“Furniture.”
Beatrice laughed and cried at the same time.
“Yes, baby.”
Leo lifted Lily carefully.
His hand touched Beatrice’s shoulder.
“Can you stand?”
“Eventually.”
He looked at the pain in her face.
Then he handed Lily to Mateo and picked Beatrice up.
Her eyes widened.
“Put me down.”
“No.”
“I am not a decorative pillow.”
“You have cracked ribs.”
“I also have dignity.”
“You can have it back in the car.”
Mateo looked suspiciously amused.
Beatrice glared at him.
“This family is unbearable.”
Lily, drowsy against Mateo, whispered, “Told you.”
At a private medical clinic, doctors confirmed Lily had been given a sedative but not a lethal dose.
Beatrice’s cracked ribs had shifted slightly.
She needed rest.
She did not get any.
Evan Holt survived surgery.
He also refused to speak.
Then Evelyn called again.
This time she gave an address.
A closed bakery on the South Side.
Leo wanted Beatrice left at the clinic.
She refused.
“My mother knew Evelyn.”
“You can barely walk.”
“I can sit.”
“You keep using that as a qualification.”
“It’s a useful skill.”
He looked at her for several seconds.
“You are impossible.”
“So I’ve been told.”
The bakery had been closed for six years.
Evelyn waited in the basement.
She was forty-eight, tall, dark-haired with gray at the temples.
Victoria had her eyes.
That was the first thing Beatrice noticed.
The second was that Evelyn held a pistol.
She lowered it when she saw Beatrice.
“Marian’s daughter.”
Beatrice’s throat tightened.
“You knew my mother.”
Evelyn stared at her.
“She saved my life.”
“How?”
“Your mother worked one summer at my father’s lake house. She was housekeeping staff.”
Beatrice sat.
That made sense.
Her mother always said hotel work.
Not private service.
Evelyn continued.
“I was sixteen. My father had promised me to a man twice my age whose family controlled shipping contracts. I refused.”
Victoria whispered, “Dad did that?”
Evelyn looked at her.
“He did worse.”
Conrad Kensington discovered Evelyn had copied records of bribes and weapons shipments.
He threatened to have her institutionalized.
Then a boat explosion was arranged.
Marian overheard enough to realize what was coming.
She helped Evelyn escape before the boat left.
Another girl was placed aboard.
A teenager from the household staff.
The explosion killed her.
The body was identified as Evelyn.
Beatrice felt sick.
“My mother knew someone died in her place?”
Evelyn nodded.
“She carried that guilt for years.”
Beatrice remembered her mother’s nightmares.
The locked drawer.
The way she hated fireworks.
“You stayed in contact?”
“For a while. Then Marian begged me to stop. She had a daughter.”
Beatrice.
“She was afraid they’d hurt you.”
The room became very quiet.
Victoria stared at Evelyn.
“Why didn’t you come for me?”
Evelyn’s face hardened.
“You were a child.”
“I grew up.”
“And married into another powerful family.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t ask.”
Victoria absorbed that.
Beatrice recognized the cruelty in the sentence because it resembled something she had said to Leo without saying it aloud.
Not knowing was sometimes innocence.
Sometimes it was convenience.
Evelyn turned to Leo.
“Adrian and Conrad built their operation through both families. Your father tolerated parts of it because he believed the money protected Rossi interests.”
Leo’s jaw tightened.
“Isabella found out.”
“Yes.”
“She confronted Adrian?”
“Yes.”
“And the bombing?”
Evelyn looked at Mateo.
Beatrice saw it.
A fraction of hesitation.
Mateo saw it too.
“What?”
Evelyn said, “You should tell him.”
Mateo went still.
Leo turned.
“Tell me what?”
Mateo looked toward the floor.
Beatrice’s stomach dropped.
“Mateo.”
Leo’s voice was quiet.
“What did you do?”
Mateo rubbed both hands over his face.
“I moved Isabella’s route.”
Leo stared.
“The day of the bombing?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Adrian told me there was a threat on the regular route. He said intelligence came from city police.”
Leo’s face emptied.
“You changed the convoy.”
“Yes.”
“You put her on Lake Shore instead of Michigan.”
“Yes.”
The explosion happened on Lake Shore Drive.
Everyone in Chicago remembered.
Leo stepped forward.
Mateo did not move.
“You sent my wife into that bomb.”
“I thought I was saving her.”
Leo hit him.
One punch.
Mateo fell against the table.
Victoria gasped.
Beatrice stood despite the pain.
Leo grabbed Mateo by the collar.
“I trusted you.”
“I know.”
“I buried her.”
“I know.”
“You stood beside me.”
“I know.”
Leo raised his fist again.
Beatrice caught his wrist.
The room froze.
Her fingers hurt immediately.
She did not let go.
“Stop.”
Leo looked at her.
She had never been more afraid of him.
But she did not move.
“If you hit him because you need to, then hit him,” she said. “But if you kill him before he tells you everything, you become useful to Adrian.”
Leo breathed hard.
For several seconds no one moved.
Then he released Mateo.
Mateo slid into a chair.
Blood ran from his lip.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Leo laughed without humor.
“That word is getting crowded.”
Evelyn placed a file on the table.
“Adrian used Mateo because he knew Leo trusted him.”
Mateo looked at her.
“I should have checked.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t.”
“No.”
He accepted it.
Leo turned away.
Beatrice looked at Evelyn.
“Where is Conrad?”
“My father?”
“Yes.”
Evelyn’s expression changed.
“Coming to Chicago.”
“When?”
“He landed an hour ago.”
Victoria stood.
“Why?”
Evelyn looked toward Lily, asleep in the next room under guard.
“Because Locker 19 was never the only copy.”
She pointed at Beatrice.
“Marian kept one.”
Beatrice felt the room tilt.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“But Conrad thinks I do.”
Evelyn nodded.
“And now Adrian does too.”
Beatrice stared at her bandaged hands.
All her life, she had believed she inherited from her mother a tendency to worry, a love of cheap tea, and a body strangers felt entitled to comment on.
Apparently she had inherited evidence powerful men had killed to erase.
Leo stepped closer.
His anger was gone.
Something more dangerous replaced it.
Concern.
“You are not going home.”
Beatrice looked up.
“Excuse me?”
“You stay under protection.”
“You do not own me.”
“I know.”
“Then ask.”
His jaw tightened.
He tried again.
“Will you stay somewhere I can protect you?”
She looked at him.
At the crime boss learning to make requests.
At the father who had almost watched his child die.
At the man whose family had reached into her family before either of them understood.
“Yes,” she said.
“But not because you told me.”
Leo nodded.
“Understood.”
From the next room came Lily’s sleepy voice.
“Bee?”
Beatrice stood.
Leo touched her elbow.
Careful.
Not controlling.
Just there.
She looked at him.
For the first time, neither of them looked away.
Then Evelyn’s phone buzzed.
She checked the message.
Her face drained.
“What?”
She turned the screen.
A photograph had arrived.
Beatrice’s childhood home.
The small brick house her mother had left her.
Front door open.
Lights on.
Under the image, one sentence.
TELL MARIAN’S DAUGHTER WE FOUND THE BASEMENT.
After the clinic, Lily refused to sleep unless both Beatrice and Leo stayed where she could see them.
Leo sat in an armchair.
Beatrice sat on the edge of the second bed.
The room smelled like disinfectant.
Lily held Rabbit under her chin.
“Daddy?”
“Yes.”
“Why did Evan take me?”
Leo chose his words.
“Because someone told him to.”
“Why did he listen?”
“I don’t know.”
“Money?”
“Maybe.”
Lily frowned.
“People do bad things for money?”
“Yes.”
“Do you?”
Leo did not answer immediately.
Beatrice watched him.
“Yes,” he said.
Lily looked shocked.
“Before Mama died?”
“Yes.”
“After?”
“Yes.”
“Now?”
Leo breathed out.
“I am trying not to.”
Lily considered this.
“Bee doesn’t do bad things for money.”
Beatrice raised a hand.
“I once stole office pens.”
Lily smiled.
“That’s not bad.”
“It was a very nice pen.”
Leo looked at her.
“Was it mine?”
“Possibly.”
“I knew staff inventory was off.”
“Focus.”
Lily giggled.
The tension broke.
Then she said something that quieted them.
“Mama said Daddy had to learn how to come home.”
Leo went still.
“When?”
“Before she died.”
“What else did she say?”
Lily’s memory was fragmented, but some phrases survived.
Mama said Daddy thinks home is a place he pays for.
Mama said home is where people can tell you no.
Beatrice looked at Leo.
He closed his eyes.
“Your wife sounds exhausting.”
“She was.”
“You loved her.”
“Yes.”
The answer carried no hesitation.
Beatrice respected that.
There was no jealousy in her.
Not yet.
Maybe never.
Isabella belonged to a part of Leo that should not be erased for anyone else.
After Lily slept, Leo said, “She wanted me out.”
“Out of what?”
“The organization.”
“Did you know?”
“She told me after Lily was born.”
“And you refused.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I thought leaving would make us vulnerable.”
Beatrice looked at the sleeping child.
“Staying did.”
“Yes.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“I keep discovering that every decision I called protection was also fear.”
Beatrice thought of Marian.
“Maybe protection without consent usually is.”
Leo looked at her.
“That sounds personal.”
“It is becoming personal.”
When they reached the bakery the next day, Mateo’s confession shattered whatever fragile calm remained.
After Leo hit him and Beatrice stopped the second blow, she followed Mateo into the alley.
His lip was bleeding.
He leaned against brick.
“You can say it.”
“What?”
“That I deserve worse.”
“I don’t know what you deserve.”
He laughed.
“Everyone else does.”
“Everyone else is convenient.”
Mateo looked at her.
“I changed the route.”
“You thought you were saving Isabella.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It matters. It just doesn’t erase the result.”
He stared at the wet pavement.
“Leo trusted me with his family.”
“You failed.”
He flinched.
Beatrice continued.
“You can spend the rest of your life turning that sentence into an identity. Or you can make it a fact you act responsibly around.”
Mateo looked at her.
“Where did you learn that?”
“I have had a very long week.”
He laughed despite himself.
Then he became serious.
“Watch Leo.”
“From what?”
“Himself.”
“That is not my responsibility.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
Mateo nodded.
“I mean watch what he does next. Grief makes him dangerous.”
Beatrice looked through the bakery window.
Leo stood beside Evelyn, reading Isabella’s letter again.
“He isn’t the only grieving person in the room.”
“No.”
Mateo wiped blood from his mouth.
“That is what he forgets.”
May you like
Beatrice filed the sentence away.
Later, it would matter more than either of them knew.
