Chapter 2 - The Escape Route
Roman did not use the elevator.
He took Sophia through a service corridor hidden behind the kitchen wall.
Gabriel began crying as the alarm echoed through the building.
Sophia held him beneath her coat.
“Where does this go?”
“Down.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is the only one I have time to give you.”
Davis followed with a flashlight.
Roman had purchased the building twelve years earlier and renovated it with several private evacuation routes.
Until that night, he had never needed them.
They reached the sixth floor.
A heavy impact shook the stairwell door behind them.
Someone had entered the apartment.
Sophia froze.
Roman took her elbow.
“Keep moving.”
They reached the basement through a maintenance shaft.
Davis unlocked a steel door.
An armored SUV waited beyond it.
Roman opened the rear passenger door.
Sophia hesitated.
“Where are you taking us?”
“To a house nobody connects to me.”
“That sounds impossible.”
Roman looked at her.
“Almost nobody.”
That answer did not comfort her.
They left through an underground service tunnel and emerged two blocks away.
Roman watched the building recede behind them.
Fire trucks were already arriving.
But he saw something more important.
Across the street stood an abandoned office building.
On its sixth floor, one window was open.
That was where the photograph had been taken.
Roman called his head of digital security.
“Mason.”
“I need every camera within four blocks pulled immediately.”
“Someone photographed the ninth floor from the Kessler Building.”
“Find out who entered it tonight.”
Mason answered without hesitation.
“I’m on it.”
Roman ended the call.
Sophia sat beside Gabriel.
The baby had stopped crying.
His tiny fingers were curled around the edge of her sweater.
Sophia stared at Roman.
“Was that really your uncle?”
“Yes.”
“You trusted him?”
Roman looked through the window.
“Yes.”
“That sounded expensive.”
Roman turned.
“What?”
“Regret.”
For the first time that night, Roman nearly smiled.
It disappeared quickly.
Twenty minutes later, they reached an old brownstone on the north side of Chicago.
No Callaway company owned it.
No employee officially knew Roman had access to it.
It had belonged to his mother.
Roman had kept it after her death and never told Silas.
Inside, Sophia refused to put Gabriel down.
Roman did not argue.
He gave her the master bedroom.
Then he entered the study and opened a safe behind a painting.
Inside were documents his mother had left behind.
Roman had read them years earlier.
Most were letters, property records, and photographs.
One folder was different.
His mother had written Vincent’s name across it.
Roman had never opened it.
He had convinced himself grief was reason enough.
Tonight, grief was no longer an excuse.
He broke the seal.
Inside was a handwritten letter dated two days after Vincent’s funeral.
Roman recognized his mother’s handwriting.
My dear Roman.
If you are reading this, then something has happened that I was too frightened to explain while I was alive.
Roman’s chest tightened.
He continued.
Your brother did not die in that car.
Roman stopped.
He read the sentence again.
Then a third time.
Footsteps came behind him.
Sophia stood in the doorway.
“What is it?”
Roman looked at her.
“My mother knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That Vincent was alive.”
Sophia stepped closer.
Roman turned the page.
His mother had written another sentence in darker ink.
Do not trust the death certificate.
Do not trust the man who identified the body.
May you like
Roman already knew who had identified Vincent eleven years earlier.
Silas Callaway.
