Chapter 2 - CAMILLE’S BRACELET
“How did my wife know your brother?”
Daniel’s question sat between us.
Leo remained asleep against my chest.
His tiny cheek rested over my heart as if the most dangerous man in Chicago had not just asked me to explain a secret I had spent six months pretending did not matter.
I looked at Daniel.
“I don’t know.”
His eyes hardened.
“That isn’t what your face says.”
I hated that he was right.
“Six months ago, Michael showed up at my apartment with a bullet wound.”
The guard near the door straightened.
Daniel did not move.
“Where?”
“Left side. Through-and-through.”
“Did you report it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because he begged me not to.”
Daniel’s jaw flexed.
“You treated a gunshot wound in your apartment.”
“I cleaned it, checked that nothing major had been hit, and spent two hours threatening to drag him to an emergency room.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That he was caught in the wrong place.”
Daniel’s expression said exactly what mine probably should have said that night.
“And you believed him?”
“I believed he was scared.”
That was different.
I knew that now.
“There was a call before he left.”
Daniel became perfectly still.
“Camille.”
“Yes.”
“Did you hear her voice?”
“No. I saw her name on his screen.”
“Michael answered?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“He looked terrified.”
Daniel glanced at Leo.
Then back at me.
“Camille had a private number.”
My stomach tightened.
“How private?”
“My security staff didn’t have it.”
That changed something.
Michael had not accidentally met Daniel Russo’s wife.
Camille had wanted him reachable.
Daniel turned to his guard.
“Marco.”
Finally, the guard had a name.
Marco DeSantis.
“Bring Michael in.”
I immediately said, “Alive.”
Marco looked insulted.
Daniel looked exhausted.
“I wasn’t going to have him shot in the hospital parking garage, Rachel.”
“I don’t know your normal procedures.”
“Neither do half the newspapers.”
“Comforting.”
Leo shifted.
Both of us stopped.
I hummed once.
His body relaxed again.
Daniel watched.
Then he said quietly, “Marco. No force unless he forces it.”
Marco nodded.
That mattered.
Not enough for trust.
Enough to notice.
Michael was found two hours later.
Not at a casino.
Not running for Mexico.
At a twenty-four-hour laundromat on Belmont Avenue.
His phone had been off.
His beard had grown in unevenly.
He wore the same brown coat he had owned since college, and one sleeve was stained with motor oil.
When Marco brought him into a private consultation room near the NICU, Michael saw me first.
His face collapsed.
“Rach.”
I crossed the room and slapped him.
Not hard enough to injure.
Hard enough to satisfy eighteen months of gambling debts, lies, disappearing acts, and one secret bullet wound.
Marco looked toward Daniel.
Daniel said, “I’m staying out of that.”
Smart man.
Michael rubbed his cheek.
“I deserved that.”
“Probably several more.”
“Fair.”
Then he saw Daniel.
Every bit of color drained from his face.
“Mr. Russo.”
Daniel closed the door.
“Tell me why my wife called you the night before she died.”
Michael looked at me.
I shook my head.
“Don’t.”
His eyes filled.
“Rachel—”
“No more protecting me with lies.”
His shoulders lowered.
“Camille found me first.”
Daniel’s voice sharpened.
“How?”
“Through one of your betting rooms.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Michael continued.
“I owed money. Not fifty thousand then. Maybe twelve.”
Daniel folded his arms.
“One of my managers was using debtors for errands.”
Marco cursed softly.
“What errands?”
“Delivering envelopes. Picking up phones. Nothing violent.”
“That you knew of,” Daniel said.
Michael nodded.
“One night I delivered something to Camille.”
Daniel froze.
“What?”
“A ledger copy.”
The room changed.
“From whom?”
“I never knew.”
Daniel’s face became colder.
“She asked you questions.”
“Yes.”
“About my organization.”
“Yes.”
“What questions?”
“Who controlled trucking manifests. Which captains used cash accounts. Who had access to route changes.”
Marco moved away from the wall.
“Why would she ask you?”
“Because nobody watched me.”
Michael laughed bitterly.
“I was just some idiot gambler trying to pay twelve thousand dollars.”
Exactly.
Invisible people heard everything.
I understood that better than most.
“What happened six months ago?” I asked.
Michael looked at me.
“Camille asked me to check a warehouse near Cicero.”
“What warehouse?”
Marco answered before Michael could.
“Russo Logistics overflow storage.”
Daniel looked toward him.
“You knew?”
“No.”
Michael continued.
“I followed one of the trucks.”
“And got shot.”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
“I never saw his face.”
“Camille?”
“She paid for information afterward.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed.
“With what money?”
“She didn’t.”
Michael looked ashamed.
“I stole it.”
“Fifty thousand.”
“Yes.”
Daniel stepped closer.
Michael did not retreat.
“I took it from a cash pickup at the club.”
“Why?”
“Because the man with the traffic-camera footage wouldn’t move without cash, and Camille said if she withdrew that much, somebody inside your family would know.”
Daniel absorbed that.
“She believed one of my people was watching her finances.”
“Yes.”
“And she still met you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Michael’s voice became quieter.
“Because she thought you were surrounded.”
That hurt Daniel.
I saw it.
Not because Camille distrusted him.
Because she believed getting truth to him required going around him.
“What did the fifty thousand buy?” Marco asked.
“A traffic-camera still.”
“The photograph Daniel got tonight?”
Michael nodded.
“And more.”
Daniel’s head lifted.
“What more?”
“A sequence from the overpass.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t have it.”
Daniel’s patience thinned.
“Then who does?”
“The man I paid.”
“Name.”
“Elias Grant. Former city traffic technician.”
Marco immediately began typing into his phone.
Daniel stayed focused on Michael.
“Why did Camille contact you the night before the attack?”
Michael looked toward the floor.
“She had decided to tell you everything.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
“She said she was done hiding things from you.”
“Then why call you?”
“She wanted one last piece.”
“What?”
“The name of the person who changed your route.”
Daniel’s expression hardened.
“What route?”
“The drive to her prenatal appointment.”
The ambush route.
My skin went cold.
Michael continued.
“Camille said only four people knew you were taking the expressway instead of Lake Shore Drive.”
Daniel looked toward Marco.
Marco’s face had changed too.
“Who?”
Daniel asked.
Michael swallowed.
“You.”
“Camille.”
“Marco.”
A pause.
“And your uncle Salvatore.”
Silence.
I had heard the name.
Salvatore Russo.
Daniel’s father’s younger brother.
The man newspapers described as president of Russo Holdings.
The man who supposedly ran the legitimate side.
Daniel stared at Michael.
“You’re accusing my uncle.”
“No.”
Michael shook his head.
“I’m telling you what Camille was investigating.”
That distinction mattered.
Daniel asked, “What did she give you?”
Michael looked at me.
Then reached beneath his shirt.
A thin gold chain appeared.
Hanging from it was a bracelet.
Delicate.
Gold.
Small emerald charm.
Daniel stopped moving.
His face changed so completely I almost looked away.
“I bought that for her.”
Michael carefully removed it.
“She gave it to me the night before she died.”
“Why?”
“She said if anything happened, I had to give it to Rachel.”
I stared.
“Me?”
Michael nodded.
“I asked why.”
“What did she say?”
His eyes moved toward Leo asleep against my chest.
“She said you were the only person in my life I still listened to when I was scared.”
My throat closed.
“And she needed somebody who wouldn’t be afraid to tell Daniel no.”
Daniel looked at me.
Neither of us spoke.
Michael handed me the bracelet.
It was warm from his skin.
He pointed toward the emerald charm.
“It opens.”
My fingernail found a seam.
Click.
The stone lifted.
Inside was a tiny brass key.
Stamped:
C-31.
Daniel looked at it.
I saw recognition.
“What?”
He swallowed.
“Camille’s private locker at the Bellweather Club.”
“The one your family owns?”
“Yes.”
Michael whispered, “She told me whatever was inside would explain why she contacted me.”
Daniel looked toward the NICU.
Toward his son.
May you like
Then back to the key in my palm.
“And why she believed someone in my own family wanted her stopped.”
