Chapter 4 - CICERO
Twenty-eight minutes later, Lorenzo Moretti stood inside Evelyn Carter’s studio apartment and stared at a radiator that sounded like it was trying to kill itself.
The absurdity was almost enough to make Evelyn forget the armed men stationed in her hallway.
Almost.
She yanked the front door upward and turned the deadbolt.
Lorenzo looked at the mechanism.
“That is your lock?”
“It builds character.”
“It builds burglary statistics.”
“Rent control.”
Celeste entered behind them.
Her eyes swept across the narrow studio.
The sagging couch.
The tiny kitchen.
The thrift-store table.
The faded photograph of Evelyn’s mother.
The cracked ceiling.
Celeste slowly smiled.
“This is where you live?”
Evelyn dropped her borrowed jacket onto a chair.
“Try not to breathe too deeply.”
Celeste looked offended.
Lorenzo ignored both of them.
He walked to the window and checked the alley.
His surviving security team spread through the building.
Four men.
That was all he had left with him.
Evelyn leaned against the kitchen counter.
“What happens now?”
Lorenzo turned.
“Now I find out who tried to kill me.”
“Great.”
She pointed toward Celeste.
“Start with obvious.”
Celeste laughed.
“You saw one notification.”
“I saw enough.”
“No, you saw what someone wanted you to see.”
Evelyn frowned.
Celeste noticed.
Finally, something other than arrogance entered her expression.
“You think I leave operational messages sitting on an unlocked phone at a dinner full of Moretti security?”
Lorenzo studied her.
Celeste turned toward him.
“If I wanted you dead, you would be dead.”
One of Lorenzo’s guards shifted.
Celeste did not care.
She stepped closer to her fiancé.
“Think.”
Lorenzo’s expression remained cold.
“I am.”
“No.”
She jabbed one finger against his chest.
“You’re angry.”
His guard moved.
Lorenzo lifted one hand.
The guard stopped.
Celeste continued.
“You saw a message designed to make me look guilty.”
“You were watching the exits.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Celeste looked toward Evelyn.
Then back at Lorenzo.
“Because my father told me someone was planning to move against us tonight.”
The room went quiet.
Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed.
“When?”
“This afternoon.”
“And you told me nothing.”
“My father told me not to.”
Lorenzo laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Your father outranks your future husband now?”
“He said he had a source inside your organization.”
Lorenzo’s face changed.
Evelyn noticed immediately.
That landed.
Celeste saw it too.
“He said if I warned you openly, the source would disappear.”
“Name.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Convenient.”
“I was supposed to get proof tonight.”
“What proof?”
Celeste looked away.
Lorenzo stepped closer.
“What proof?”
“The phone.”
Evelyn straightened.
Celeste pointed toward her.
“The phone she saw.”
Lorenzo stared.
Celeste continued.
“It wasn’t mine.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“It was in your clutch.”
“Because it was delivered to me.”
“By who?”
“A hostess.”
Evelyn’s mind raced.
“Which hostess?”
“Dark hair.”
“That describes four people.”
“She had a gold pin.”
Evelyn froze.
Only one hostess wore a gold pin.
Marissa.
She had worked at The Obsidian longer than Gilbert.
She was the one who had lent Evelyn the lipstick-smeared pen.
Evelyn looked toward the table.
The pen was still in her apron pocket.
She pulled it out.
Lorenzo noticed.
“What?”
“This.”
She stared at the cheap black pen.
“Marissa gave it to me.”
Celeste frowned.
“So?”
“So she normally guards her pens like they’re diamonds.”
Evelyn turned it between her fingers.
“She handed me this one without asking for it back.”
Lorenzo held out his hand.
Evelyn gave it to him.
He examined the barrel.
Nothing.
Then he pulled off the cap.
A tiny black object fell onto his palm.
Barely larger than a grain of rice.
One of the guards stepped closer.
“Tracker.”
Evelyn stopped breathing.
Celeste looked at her.
Lorenzo’s expression went flat.
The apartment suddenly felt much smaller.
Evelyn whispered, “I brought them here.”
Lorenzo looked toward the window.
“How long have we been inside?”
“Six minutes,” a guard answered.
Lorenzo crushed the tracker beneath his shoe.
“Too long.”
Headlights flashed across the alley wall.
A car door shut outside.
Then another.
Lorenzo moved instantly.
“Lights off.”
The apartment went dark.
Evelyn’s pulse exploded.
One of the guards looked through the blinds.
“Two vehicles.”
“How many?”
“Can’t see.”
Celeste whispered, “They followed the tracker.”
Lorenzo pulled Evelyn away from the window.
“Back exit?”
“Fire escape.”
“Where?”
“Bathroom window.”
Lorenzo stared at her.
“You have a fire escape through your bathroom?”
“It’s a luxury building.”
Someone knocked on the front door.
Three calm taps.
Everyone froze.
Then a voice came from the hallway.
“Evelyn?”
She recognized it.
Her downstairs neighbor.
Mrs. Kowalski.
Evelyn stepped forward.
Lorenzo stopped her.
The voice came again.
“Evelyn, honey?”
A man whispered something outside.
Then Mrs. Kowalski cried out.
Evelyn’s blood went cold.
The next voice belonged to Gilbert.
“I know you’re in there, Evie.”
Lorenzo raised his weapon.
Gilbert continued through the door.
“Open up.”
Evelyn said nothing.
“I don’t want the old woman hurt.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
Lorenzo leaned close.
“If you open that door, we all die.”
“She’s seventy-three.”
“I know.”
“She has nothing to do with this.”
“I know.”
Gilbert knocked again.
“You have thirty seconds.”
Evelyn looked around her tiny apartment.
At the photo of her mother.
At the peeling wallpaper.
At everything she had worked to keep.
Then she noticed something.
The old vent beside the refrigerator.
Her father used to hide gambling money behind vents when she was a child.
She had copied the habit without realizing it.
Only this vent did not hide money.
It covered an old dumbwaiter shaft from when the building had been a hotel.
Evelyn pointed.
“That shaft reaches the basement.”
Lorenzo followed her finger.
“Can everyone fit?”
“Barely.”
Gilbert began counting from the hallway.
“Twenty-nine.”
Lorenzo’s guards moved.
Evelyn looked toward the front door.
Mrs. Kowalski whimpered outside.
Gilbert reached twenty-three.
Evelyn looked at Lorenzo.
“You save her.”
He held her gaze.
“That isn’t a request.”
For the first time, Evelyn saw exactly why Chicago feared him.
Lorenzo turned to one of his men.
“Take the others down.”
Then he looked at Evelyn.
“You’re staying with me.”
Celeste stared.
“What are you doing?”
Lorenzo checked his weapon.
“Buying twenty seconds.”
Gilbert reached fifteen.
Evelyn whispered, “That’s not enough.”
May you like
Lorenzo looked toward the door.
“It only has to be enough once.”
