Chapter 2 - THE MAN OUTSIDE HER DOOR
Dorian Shaw did not move.
Neither did Gabriel.
The narrow fourth-floor hallway smelled of rain, old plaster, fried onions from another apartment, and the faint metallic scent of the gun Gabriel had left inside Clara’s room.
Three of Gabriel’s men stood on the stairs below.
All of them were watching.
They had seen Gabriel order men executed for less than hesitation.
They had watched him dismantle crews because somebody looked at him wrong during negotiations.
They had spent eight months hearing Clara Hayes described as a traitor.
Now Gabriel was standing between them and her door like a wall.
Dorian smiled again.
Small.
Careful.
“Everyone downstairs?”
Gabriel said nothing.
Dorian’s smile faded.
“You brought us here to find her.”
“I found her.”
“And now?”
“Now I said downstairs.”
One of the men behind Dorian shifted.
Gabriel’s eyes snapped toward him.
The man immediately stepped back.
Dorian watched Gabriel for several seconds.
Then gave a slow nod.
“Fine.”
He turned.
Gabriel said his name.
“Dorian.”
His lieutenant stopped.
“Your phone.”
Dorian looked over his shoulder.
“What?”
“Give it to me.”
The hallway changed.
Not visibly.
But every man there felt it.
Dorian slid one hand into his coat.
Gabriel’s body tensed.
Then Dorian removed his phone.
He held it up.
“Since when do you need my phone?”
“Since now.”
“You think I tipped somebody?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Gabriel extended his hand.
Dorian stared at it.
Then at his face.
Ten years.
Ten years of wars, deals, funerals, arrests, beatings, funerals again.
Dorian had been beside him when Gabriel’s father died.
Beside him when Gabriel took control of the Russo organization at thirty-two.
Beside him when half of Chicago expected the younger Russo to collapse under the weight of a name built by harder men.
Dorian had been the first person Gabriel trusted with the security codes to his home.
That thought landed differently now.
They knew the security code.
Clara’s voice echoed in Gabriel’s head.
Dorian placed the phone in Gabriel’s palm.
“Happy?”
“No.”
Gabriel slipped it into his coat.
“Go downstairs.”
Dorian’s jaw moved.
But he obeyed.
The others followed.
Gabriel waited until their footsteps faded.
Then he opened Clara’s door.
She had not moved from the mattress.
Her back was against the wall.
One hand covered her stomach.
The other was wrapped around a kitchen knife.
Gabriel stopped.
He did not comment on it.
She looked at him.
“Are they gone?”
“Downstairs.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Gabriel understood.
“No. They’re not gone.”
Clara closed her eyes.
“Of course.”
“I need to move you.”
Her eyes opened immediately.
“No.”
“Bell knows where you are.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“You brought your people.”
“Yes.”
“You told them.”
“No.”
She laughed bitterly.
“Why should I believe that?”
“You shouldn’t.”
He said it without hesitation.
That silenced her.
Gabriel walked toward the wall opposite her.
Not closer.
He sat on the floor.
The most feared man in Chicago lowered himself to dirty hardwood so the pregnant woman holding a knife would not have to look up at him.
“I’m going to tell you exactly what I know.”
Clara watched him.
“Dorian received the location.”
“From who?”
“He hasn’t said.”
“Then make him.”
Eight months earlier, Gabriel would have smiled at those words.
Make him.
That had been his answer to everything.
Fear.
Pain.
Force.
Now he looked toward Clara’s scar.
“I will find out.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
The honesty unsettled her again.
Gabriel continued.
“You said six people knew the code.”
“Five besides us.”
“Yes.”
“Dorian?”
“Yes.”
“The two security men?”
“Marcus Trent and Owen Vale.”
“And Matteo.”
Gabriel nodded.
His cousin Matteo Russo had grown up inside the family.
Gabriel had trusted him almost as much as Dorian.
Almost.
Clara’s eyes narrowed.
“Who changed the cameras at your apartment that night?”
Gabriel frowned.
“What?”
“The cameras.”
“What about them?”
“The men who took me knew where the blind spot was.”
Gabriel felt cold.
“There wasn’t one.”
“There was.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Clara leaned forward slightly.
“They took me through the service elevator.”
Gabriel stared.
“The camera outside the service elevator was replaced three days before the attack.”
He remembered.
A maintenance fault.
At least that was what he had been told.
Dorian had handled it.
Gabriel’s stomach tightened.
Clara saw the answer in his face.
“You didn’t know.”
“No.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
She sounded exhausted more than angry.
Gabriel stood.
Clara tightened her grip on the knife.
He stopped instantly.
“I’m calling a doctor.”
“No hospitals.”
“Not a hospital.”
“I said no.”
“The scar is infected.”
“It’s not.”
“You’re thirty-three weeks pregnant and you’re living on canned soup.”
Her eyes flashed.
“I have survived three months without you.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t walk in here and act like survival suddenly requires Gabriel Russo.”
He absorbed that.
“Okay.”
She looked suspicious.
“Okay?”
“You choose the doctor.”
“I told you I don’t have one.”
“Then choose the kind.”
“What?”
“Woman. Man. Older. Younger. Hospital doctor. Private practice. Somebody with no connection to me.”
She stared.
He continued.
“I’ll have three names brought to you. You pick one.”
“And if I say none?”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened instinctively.
Then loosened.
“Then none.”
Clara looked almost more frightened by his restraint than she had been by his anger.
Gabriel picked up his phone from the floor.
Not Dorian’s.
His own.
He called a number.
“Vince.”
His chief driver answered immediately.
“Boss?”
“Find me three obstetricians who have never treated me, my family, or anyone connected to our businesses.”
A pause.
“Obstetricians?”
“Women preferred.”
Clara’s eyebrows rose.
Gabriel added, “No one from St. Catherine’s.”
That mattered.
Bell had watched the hospital.
“Private practices. No organized-crime connections. Clean reputations.”
Vince was silent.
Then:
“How fast?”
“Now.”
Gabriel ended the call.
Clara stared.
“You really think you can call one person and produce three doctors?”
“Yes.”
“That’s insane.”
“It’s one of the less insane parts of my life.”
For one second, her mouth almost moved.
Almost.
Not a smile.
Memory of one.
Then pain crossed her face.
Her hand pressed beneath her ribs.
Gabriel rose halfway.
She glared.
He froze.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not touching you.”
The pain intensified.
She breathed through it.
Gabriel watched helplessly.
He hated helplessness.
It had always made him dangerous.
Now it made him listen.
“How often?”
“What?”
“That pain.”
“It’s the scar.”
“How often?”
“Whenever the baby pushes against that side.”
“Any bleeding?”
Her expression hardened.
“Don’t interrogate me.”
“I’m asking because—”
“You are not my doctor.”
“No.”
“Then stop.”
He did.
A minute later, the pain eased.
Clara leaned back.
Gabriel looked toward the window.
Rain slid down the glass.
“What did Bell tell you about me?”
Clara said nothing.
“You said he showed you things.”
Still nothing.
Gabriel’s voice lowered.
“I need to know what you were told.”
“Why?”
“Because some of it may have come from whoever betrayed me.”
That caught her attention.
She stared at him.
“Bell knew things.”
“What?”
“Personal things.”
“How personal?”
“He knew you were thinking about leaving Chicago.”
Gabriel went still.
Nobody knew that.
Nobody except—
Clara.
And Dorian.
Gabriel had told Dorian one night after too much whiskey.
Not a plan.
A possibility.
A life after this.
Somewhere warm.
Somewhere Clara could work in a hospital without seeing his enemies in every hallway.
Dorian had laughed.
“You? Retired?”
Gabriel had said, “Maybe.”
Dorian had answered:
“Men like us don’t retire.”
Now Gabriel’s mouth went dry.
“What else?”
Clara’s eyes filled with old fear.
“He knew about your mother.”
Gabriel’s face changed.
His mother had died when he was sixteen.
Officially, a car accident.
Privately, Gabriel had always believed one of his father’s enemies caused it.
Very few people knew how deeply that death still controlled him.
“What did he say?”
“That betrayal from someone you love always makes you stupid.”
Gabriel stared at the floor.
Bell had used those exact words?
Or had someone fed them to him?
“What else?”
“He knew you kept emergency cash behind the wine wall.”
Gabriel looked up sharply.
“That room was private.”
“I know.”
“Who knew?”
“Me.”
“Dorian.”
Clara said it for him.
Gabriel did not answer.
Her fingers tightened around the knife.
“You brought him here.”
“I did.”
“You trusted him.”
“I did.”
“And you want me to leave this apartment with you.”
Gabriel looked directly at her.
“No.”
Clara blinked.
“No?”
“I want you to leave with someone you choose.”
For the first time, his plan became clear.
“I’ll clear the building. I’ll send my men away. A driver you’ve never met will take you wherever the doctor recommends.”
“And you?”
“I stay away if that’s what you want.”
Clara studied him.
“Why?”
Gabriel looked at her stomach.
Their child.
Then at the scar.
Then her face.
“Because wanting to protect you doesn’t mean I get to own the way you feel safe.”
Silence.
Clara’s eyes filled.
She looked away before he could mistake those tears for forgiveness.
His phone buzzed.
Vince.
Three names.
Dr. Helen Marsh.
Dr. Abigail Reed.
Dr. Sofia Alvarez.
Clara scanned their profiles.
She stopped at the third.
“Sofia Alvarez.”
“You know her?”
“Not personally. She published a paper on pregnancy after abdominal trauma.”
Gabriel nodded.
“I’ll call.”
“No.”
He stopped.
“I’ll call.”
Gabriel handed her the phone.
Clara looked at it.
Then at him.
She dialed.
Gabriel moved to the window.
He listened to only half the conversation.
“Yes, I’m thirty-three weeks.”
Pause.
“Old penetrating injury.”
Pause.
“No, I haven’t had consistent prenatal care.”
Longer pause.
Clara’s voice became embarrassed.
“No insurance information with me.”
Gabriel turned.
Clara glared.
He looked away again.
She gave the address.
Then ended the call.
“She’s coming.”
“How long?”
“Forty minutes.”
Gabriel nodded.
Clara handed the phone back.
He did not take it immediately.
“What?”
She stared at him.
“Tell your men to leave.”
Gabriel picked up Dorian’s phone from his coat.
Then his own.
He called Vince.
“Send every car away except yours.”
“Boss?”
“Do it.”
“What about Dorian?”
Gabriel looked at the second phone.
“Especially Dorian.”
He ended the call.
Downstairs, twenty seconds later, car doors slammed.
Engines started.
One by one, the vehicles pulled away.
Gabriel stood by the cracked window until the final headlights disappeared from the alley.
Clara watched too.
“Dorian left?”
“Yes.”
She seemed relieved.
Gabriel was not.
Because Dorian’s phone had vibrated three times in his pocket.
Three messages.
All from a number stored under no name.
Gabriel should have waited.
Should have given it to someone technical.
Should have preserved everything exactly.
Instead, he looked.
The first message contained only two words.
DID SHE TALK?
The second:
BELL IS NERVOUS.
And the third made Gabriel’s blood go cold.
IF RUSSO BELIEVES HER, WE MOVE TONIGHT.
Gabriel turned toward Clara.
She saw his face.
“What?”
He walked toward her, then remembered himself and stopped several feet away.
“Clara.”
“What?”
“We don’t have forty minutes.”
Her body tensed.
“Why?”
He held up Dorian’s phone.
“Because whoever did this knows I believe you.”
Before she could answer, the apartment lights went out.
May you like
Darkness swallowed the room.
Then someone started climbing the stairs.
