Chapter 8 - THE HOUSE OUTSIDE MILWAUKEE
Carlo’s Wisconsin house stood beside a frozen lake.
No neighboring homes for half a mile.
No obvious guards.
Too quiet.
Damian hated it immediately.
Grant’s team stopped two hundred yards away.
Federal agents were en route.
Hazel checked her vest.
Damian watched.
“You look too comfortable.”
“With body armor?”
“With all of this.”
She tightened a strap.
“I was more comfortable when you thought I was boring.”
“You were never boring.”
“You didn’t know my eye color.”
Damian stared.
“Hazel.”
She looked up.
“Gray-green.”
Her expression changed.
“Too late.”
He almost smiled.
Grant interrupted.
“Could everybody postpone whatever terrible romance this is?”
Hazel and Damian answered simultaneously.
“It isn’t.”
Grant looked unconvinced.
Thermal imaging showed three people inside.
Carlo.
One guard.
Unknown third.
No sign of heavy weapons.
Hazel studied exits.
“Back door leads toward lake.”
Grant nodded.
“Carlo likes escape routes.”
Damian looked at her.
“You studied him.”
“For three years.”
“You studied all of us.”
“Yes.”
“What did you learn about Grant?”
Grant said, “Absolutely not.”
Hazel almost smiled.
Then the radio crackled.
Federal team fifteen minutes away.
Damian said, “We wait.”
Grant looked at him.
Hazel did too.
“What?”
“You said wait.”
“Yes.”
Grant placed a hand over his chest.
“Growth.”
“Keep talking and I rescind it.”
Seven minutes later, the unknown person exited the house.
Serena Cole.
The accountant.
She stumbled into the snow wearing no coat.
Hazel moved.
Grant caught her.
“Wait.”
A gunshot shattered a tree near Serena.
Now waiting ended.
Grant’s men returned fire toward the window.
Hazel ran toward Serena using the vehicle as cover.
Damian followed halfway before Grant shouted.
“Boss!”
Damian stopped.
Another old habit.
He did not need to personally enter every danger.
Hazel reached Serena.
Dragged her behind a stone wall.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“Carlo found me.”
“How?”
“I called Father Michael from the hospital.”
Hazel closed her eyes.
The priest’s phone had been monitored.
“Guard?”
“One.”
“Carlo?”
“Inside.”
“Why let you out?”
“He thought I’d bring you closer.”
Carlo understood them.
Damian realized.
Hazel would move to protect an unarmed witness.
He had used that.
Then an engine roared behind the house.
Snowmobile.
Carlo shot across the frozen property toward the lake.
Grant swore.
Vehicles could not follow safely.
Hazel saw an old trail cutting along the shoreline.
She ran toward one snowmobile parked beside the maintenance shed.
Damian grabbed her arm.
“No.”
She turned sharply.
He released immediately.
“Sorry.”
Good.
“Carlo wants pursuit.”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t give it.”
Hazel stared at him.
She wanted to go.
Every part of her.
Her father’s murderer disappearing across ice.
Damian understood vengeance better than most people alive.
“Hazel.”
Her eyes met his.
“Dead men can’t answer questions.”
Her own words.
She closed her eyes.
Then stepped back from the snowmobile.
Thirty seconds later, police units north of the property intercepted Carlo near a county road where the ice trail ended.
No dramatic shootout.
No execution.
He was arrested sitting in snow beside an overturned machine after trying to climb an embankment.
Damian almost laughed when Grant reported it.
“Carlo Russo destroyed by geography.”
Hazel did not.
She looked toward the lake.
“Good.”
They searched the house with law enforcement.
Records.
Cash.
Passports.
More ledgers.
A hard drive containing surveillance of Apex Tower.
Hazel’s apartment.
Grant’s house.
Damian’s mother’s grave.
Then one folder labeled H.B.
Hazel froze.
Inside were photographs from six years.
Before Apex.
Army records.
Kestrel assignments.
Her mother.
Old addresses.
Carlo had tracked her long before she joined Damian.
“He knew,” Hazel whispered.
Damian looked at a photograph of twenty-six-year-old Hazel leaving an airport.
“Before Apex.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t he kill you?”
They found the answer deeper in the folder.
A handwritten note:
BROOKS GIRL MAY HAVE ANTONIO FILES. WATCH. DO NOT REMOVE UNTIL MATERIAL LOCATED.
Carlo kept Hazel alive because he thought she possessed evidence.
She had become bait without knowing it.
Then another page.
PRAGUE INCIDENT CONFIRMED. H.B. CAPABLE. USE CAUTION.
Damian looked at her.
“Prague.”
She stiffened.
“Later.”
“You said that.”
“Yes.”
“Later appears to have arrived.”
Grant pretended to become fascinated by another box.
Hazel exhaled.
“After leaving the Army, I worked for Kestrel.”
“I know.”
“One assignment was Prague.”
“Protecting?”
“A corporate witness.”
“What happened?”
“Ambush.”
Damian waited.
“Three attackers.”
“And?”
“Two died.”
Silence.
Damian stared.
Hazel looked away.
“I killed them.”
There it was.
Not assassin.
Not fantasy.
A woman who had taken lives.
“Third?”
“Captured.”
“You were investigated?”
“Yes.”
“Cleared?”
“Yes. Self-defense and protection of client.”
“Why hide it?”
“Because I knew what you would see.”
“What?”
“A weapon.”
Damian’s expression changed.
Hazel continued.
“Men like you admire useful violence.”
He could not deny it.
“You would have moved me from secretary to security.”
“Probably.”
“And then every day I would become the worst eleven seconds of my life.”
Damian remembered the corridor footage.
Hazel calm.
Too calm.
Not because violence did not affect her.
Because she had learned how to function during it.
“What happened afterward?”
“I quit.”
“Kestrel?”
“Yes.”
“Administrative work.”
“Yes.”
“You wanted ordinary.”
“I wanted boring.”
Damian looked at her.
“Then you came to Apex.”
“Bad judgment.”
“Apparently.”
She smiled faintly.
Damian did not ask for details of the deaths.
That mattered to Hazel.
He could see it.
Grant approached holding another drive.
“Found something you both need to see.”
Video.
Carlo.
Bastian Mercer.
Meeting six months earlier.
Damian frowned.
“So Mercer is involved.”
Hazel watched.
On screen Carlo told Bastian:
“Damian will never give you the docks while he thinks you’re unstable.”
Bastian:
“Then convince him I’m useful.”
Carlo:
“I have another plan.”
The rest made things clear.
Carlo wanted conflict between Damian and Bastian.
Enough to weaken both.
Bastian agreed to pressure Damian commercially, not assassinate him.
Then Bastian said:
“I’m not killing Russo for you.”
Carlo smiled.
“I didn’t ask.”
Bastian:
“You’re thinking it.”
Carlo:
“Thinking is still legal.”
Hazel looked at Damian.
“Bastian was telling the truth.”
Damian hated that.
The assassin used Mercer’s name intentionally.
Carlo wanted Damian to retaliate against Bastian.
War.
Chaos.
Then Carlo could position himself as stabilizer after Damian’s death.
Old men and succession.
Always.
Grant’s phone rang.
Federal investigator.
Carlo was in custody.
Demanding an attorney.
Then another detail.
He requested to speak with Damian.
Damian looked toward Hazel.
She shook her head.
“No?”
“No.”
He smiled slightly.
“Why?”
“Because he wants one final chance to control the story.”
Damian nodded.
“Agreed.”
Grant stared.
“You’re not going?”
“No.”
“Who are you?”
“Apparently everyone has opinions today.”
Hazel looked at the folder bearing her initials.
“What happens now?”
Damian answered.
“We give them everything.”
She looked at him.
“The ledgers?”
“Yes.”
“Antonio recordings?”
“Yes.”
“Caldera?”
“Yes.”
“That could expose your organization.”
“Yes.”
Hazel stared.
“Why?”
Damian looked toward the frozen lake.
“Because my father died trying to prevent my family’s legitimate businesses from being destroyed by Carlo’s crimes.”
He paused.
“If I hide Carlo’s crimes now to protect the same name, then Carlo wins anyway.”
Hazel said nothing.
“You taught me that.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“Your father tried.”
“He died before I listened.”
“And I?”
“You were twenty-two minutes late.”
Hazel laughed.
A real laugh.
First time Damian had heard it.
It changed her entire face.
May you like
He realized something inconvenient.
He wanted to hear it again.
