Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
Eleni stared at Nikos across the mahogany desk.
“Someone you loved?”
For the first time since she had met him, the man everyone in Olympus feared looked somewhere else.
Not at the door.
Not at the black sedan across the street.
At an old photograph sitting facedown beside the humidor.
“My sister.”
His voice had changed.
Only slightly.
But Eleni heard it.
“What happened to her?”
Nikos picked up the photograph and turned it over.
The woman in it looked about twenty-four.
Dark hair.
Dark eyes.
A bright laugh caught forever beneath summer sunlight.
She had one arm around a younger Nikos, who looked almost unrecognizable without the scar, the expensive suit, or the exhaustion behind his eyes.
“My sister's name was Callista.”
Eleni looked at the picture.
“She was beautiful.”
“She was terrified.”
That answer chilled her.
Nikos set the picture down.
“I didn't understand that until after she died.”
Outside, tires hissed through the rain.
Eleni tightened the bloodstained handkerchief around her palm.
“Was someone hurting her?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know who?”
“No.”
Something about his answer made her hesitate.
Nikos noticed.
“What?”
Eleni shook her head.
“Nothing.”
“Eleni.”
She almost laughed.
“You say my name like people are supposed to immediately confess things.”
“Usually they do.”
“Well, that's unsettling.”
His mouth shifted.
Not quite a smile.
Then her eyes dropped to Callista's photograph again.
A small gold necklace rested against the woman's throat.
An owl.
Its wings were spread around a tiny green stone.
Eleni stopped breathing.
Nikos saw it.
“What is it?”
She stood too quickly.
The chair scraped backward.
“I need my phone.”
He pointed toward the corner where she had left her purse.
Eleni grabbed it.
Her fingers were shaking so badly that she entered the passcode wrong twice.
Nikos didn't rush her.
That somehow made it worse.
Finally she found the picture.
“Marcus had this.”
She placed the phone on the desk.
Nikos looked down.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
The photograph had been taken inside Marcus Delano's apartment three months earlier.
A half-open drawer.
Cash.
An NYPD evidence envelope.
And lying across it—
A gold owl necklace with a small green stone.
Nikos did not move.
“My sister wore that every day.”
Eleni's throat tightened.
“I thought it belonged to an ex-girlfriend.”
Nikos enlarged the image.
The evidence envelope beneath the necklace carried a faded case number.
And one handwritten name.
STAVROS, CALLISTA.
Eleni whispered, “I'm sorry.”
Nikos's face became completely still.
That frightened her more than rage would have.
“Why did you photograph it?”
“Because Marcus never let me near that drawer.”
“You lived with him?”
“For seven months.”
Nikos looked at the bruises around her wrist.
Something murderous passed through his eyes.
Eleni saw it.
“No.”
He looked up.
“You don't even know what I'm going to say.”
“Yes, I do.”
Her voice strengthened.
“You're going to tell Andreas to find Marcus.”
Silence.
“You're going to make him disappear.”
Nikos leaned back.
“And that bothers you?”
“Yes.”
“After what he did to you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because then he'll become a decorated cop murdered by organized crime.”
She pointed toward herself.
“And I'll become the unstable ex-girlfriend who ran to a mafia boss.”
Nikos's eyes narrowed.
Eleni continued.
“Marcus has spent years making sure everybody believes him first.”
That landed.
“What happened when you found the necklace?”
Eleni looked down at her bandaged hand.
“I asked him who Callista Stavros was.”
“And?”
“He hit me.”
Nikos's jaw tightened.
“It was the first time.”
She swallowed.
“Not the last.”
She told him.
Not everything.
Not yet.
But enough.
Marcus had been charming at first.
Flowers at the bakery.
Coffee outside her nursing classes before she dropped out to help her parents.
A man who remembered birthdays.
A man who helped strangers carry strollers down subway stairs.
Then came questions.
Who texted her?
Why was she late?
Why did she need friends he didn't know?
Then came apologies.
Then grabbing.
Then the first slap.
Then the first time he stood outside her workplace for six straight hours because she had not answered his messages.
“He always said he was protecting me.”
Eleni laughed bitterly.
“That's his favorite word.”
Nikos looked toward Callista's photograph.
“So was his.”
Eleni froze.
“What?”
“My sister said the man she was seeing was protective.”
His hand closed around the gold signet ring.
“She never gave us his real name.”
“Why?”
“Our father would have had him investigated.”
“And she didn't want that?”
“She thought she was protecting him.”
A long silence followed.
Then Nikos picked up his phone.
“Andreas.”
His underboss appeared thirty seconds later.
Nikos slid Eleni's phone across the desk.
“Find me Callista's original police file.”
Andreas looked at the photograph.
His expression changed.
“Jesus.”
“Quietly.”
“You think Delano—”
“I think nothing yet.”
That surprised Eleni.
Nikos looked at her.
“I learned a long time ago what happens when powerful men decide what the truth is before a woman finishes speaking.”
The words hit deeper than he probably intended.
Andreas left.
Nikos crossed to the cabinet and poured water instead of whiskey.
He handed the glass to her.
“No alcohol after blood loss.”
She blinked.
“You own a restaurant full of whiskey.”
“I also own water.”
She took it.
“What happens now?”
“My men move your parents somewhere safe.”
“They won't go.”
“They will.”
“You clearly haven't met my mother.”
“I've met Greek mothers.”
“They're Italian.”
Nikos paused.
“That may actually be worse.”
Despite everything, a laugh escaped her.
Small.
Broken.
But real.
Nikos stared at her as if the sound surprised him.
Then Andreas returned.
Too quickly.
He carried no file.
Only a photograph.
“Nikos.”
Something in his voice erased the moment.
“This was in an archived newspaper database.”
He placed the image on the desk.
It showed police outside a Manhattan parking structure twelve years earlier.
Callista's body was not visible.
But officers were.
One young uniformed cop stood near an ambulance.
Eleni recognized him immediately.
Marcus.
Younger.
Thinner.
Still Marcus.
Nikos looked at the caption.
FIRST RESPONDERS AT FATAL FALL OF CALLISTA STAVROS.
His finger moved lower.
May you like
Officer Marcus Delano had been the first policeman to reach his sister.
And according to the timestamp, he arrived four minutes before anyone ever called 911.
