Chapter 2 - THE NEW MAID DISCOVERED HER FATHER HAD DIED INVESTIGATING THE DRISCOLL EMPIRE—THEN THE MAFIA BOSS FOUND PROOF HIS OWN FATHER HAD BEEN TRYING TO SAVE HIM
Callum hit the floor beside Ren as the second bullet punched through the apartment door.
Glass exploded.
Ren covered her head.
Callum drew a handgun from beneath his jacket.
“Bedroom.”
Ren stared.
“Move!”
She crawled.
Callum fired once toward the hallway.
A shout followed.
Then running footsteps.
Ren reached the bedroom.
Callum entered seconds later.
“Fire escape?”
“Window.”
He checked it.
“Third floor.”
“Yes.”
“Can you climb?”
Ren stared at him.
“I clean mansions for a living, not skyscrapers.”
“Tonight you're expanding your résumé.”
Despite terror, she almost laughed.
Callum climbed first.
Ren followed.
They descended two floors before another shot struck the metal railing.
Ren screamed.
Callum caught her.
“Keep moving.”
They reached the alley.
A black SUV skidded around the corner.
Ren pulled away.
“No.”
“Mine.”
“How do I know?”
Marcus Hale jumped from the driver's seat.
“Because if I wanted you dead, Miss Carter, I would not have driven through Manhattan traffic at this hour.”
Fair.
They got inside.
The SUV accelerated.
Ren looked at Callum.
“You knew they were coming.”
“I knew someone might.”
“You used me.”
“No.”
“You came to my apartment knowing I might be followed.”
“I realized I was followed after I arrived.”
“Convenient.”
Callum didn't argue.
Marcus drove.
“Where?”
Callum answered:
“Safe house.”
Ren shook her head.
“No.”
Callum looked at her.
“No?”
“I am not going somewhere you control.”
Marcus glanced in the mirror.
Callum said:
“Where do you want to go?”
Ren hesitated.
“My mother's apartment.”
“Is it secure?”
“No.”
“Then that's not safe.”
“I'm not asking your permission.”
Callum's jaw tightened.
Ren watched him fight instinct.
Then:
“Fine.”
Marcus nearly crashed.
“Callum.”
“She chooses.”
Ren noticed that.
Her mother's apartment had been empty for eleven months.
Ren couldn't afford to terminate the lease immediately after Elena died, and part of her hadn't been ready.
Boxes remained.
Callum stood in the tiny living room looking profoundly out of place.
Marcus checked windows.
Ren held the USB.
“You said your father was murdered.”
Callum nodded.
“Richard Driscoll.”
“I know the name.”
“Everyone does.”
Richard had built Driscoll Holdings from trucking routes into an empire.
Legitimate on paper.
Less legitimate beneath it.
Callum didn't pretend otherwise.
“My father inherited relationships with men who believed contracts were suggestions.”
“That's a poetic way to say organized crime.”
Callum looked at her.
“Yes.”
Ren appreciated the honesty.
“He tried to get out?”
“Eventually.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
Callum looked toward the boxes.
“He changed during the last year of his life.”
“Started moving money.”
“Selling assets.”
“Meeting federal attorneys.”
“Then your father died.”
“Three weeks later, mine was shot outside a restaurant.”
“How old were you?”
“Twenty.”
Ren stared.
“You took over at twenty?”
“Not officially.”
“But eventually.”
“Yes.”
“And became exactly what he was trying to escape?”
Callum's expression hardened.
“You don't know what I became.”
“Everyone knows.”
“No.”
“Everyone knows rumors.”
Ren crossed her arms.
“Do you kill people?”
Marcus looked away.
Callum held her gaze.
“I have.”
Ren swallowed.
“Recently?”
“No.”
“Does that make it better?”
“No.”
Good answer.
She sat.
“Why was my father involved?”
Callum pointed toward the USB.
“Let's find out.”
Daniel Carter had been a forensic accountant.
Ren knew he was an accountant.
Not forensic.
He discovered Driscoll Logistics was being used to hide payments through subcontractors controlled by the Vale family.
Vivienne's grandfather, Sebastian Vale, handled political connections.
Richard Driscoll handled transportation.
But the accounts suggested something worse.
Weapons.
Not drugs.
Not gambling.
Illegal weapons moved through construction shipments.
Richard discovered it after taking control from his older brother.
He wanted out.
Daniel helped him document transactions.
Then somebody discovered Daniel was copying records.
The warehouse fire happened.
Officially electrical.
Unofficially murder.
Ren stared at photographs.
Her father had been thirty-two.
Same smile she remembered.
“Who ordered it?”
Callum searched.
“No direct proof.”
Then Marcus found a scanned handwritten note.
R.D. WILL NOT SIGN. REMOVE CARTER FIRST. SON WILL BE EASIER AFTER.
Callum went still.
“Son?”
Ren whispered.
“You.”
Callum read it again.
Someone planned to kill Daniel first.
Then Richard.
Then manipulate twenty-year-old Callum.
It had worked.
After Richard's murder, Callum inherited chaos.
Sebastian Vale offered help.
Introductions.
Protection.
Money.
Vivienne had been fourteen.
Years later, their families pushed them together.
A marriage would consolidate holdings.
Callum had accepted.
Not for love.
Strategy.
Vivienne knew that.
So did he.
Ren stared.
“You're marrying the granddaughter of the man who may have killed both our fathers.”
“Yes.”
“You didn't know?”
“No.”
“You never investigated?”
“For twenty-two years.”
“And?”
“People disappeared.”
“Records burned.”
“Witnesses changed stories.”
Callum looked at the drive.
“This is the first surviving ledger I've seen.”
Ren shook her head.
“No.”
“What?”
“This isn't everything.”
“How do you know?”
“My mother.”
She moved toward a closet.
Opened boxes.
Letters.
Photographs.
Medical paperwork.
Then found an old sewing tin.
Inside was a key.
No label.
Ren stared.
She remembered Elena's final lucid week.
A sentence.
If the house with glass walls ever finds you, remember your father hated banks but trusted trains.
At the time it made no sense.
Now—
“Grand Central.”
Callum looked at her.
“What?”
“My father commuted.”
“He used lockers.”
Marcus said:
“Those lockers haven't existed in the same form for decades.”
“Maybe storage.”
Ren searched the sewing tin.
Beneath thread was a receipt.
Hudson Storage Cooperative.
Unit 214.
Paid twenty-three years in advance.
Ren looked at Callum.
“My mother knew.”
They reached the storage facility before dawn.
Unit 214 contained one metal box.
Inside:
Ledgers.
Photographs.
Cassette tapes.
A letter addressed to Elena.
And another:
FOR REN, IF SHE EVER HAS TO KNOW.
Ren sat on the concrete floor.
Hands shaking.
Callum stayed several feet away.
“Open it.”
She did.
My little Ren,
If you are reading this, I failed to come home.
I need you to know first that I loved you more than truth, more than work, more than being right.
That is why I hope you never need this.
Richard Driscoll is helping me.
Do not blame his son for the name he inherits.
A child does not choose the house he is born into.
But one day he will choose whether to stay inside it.
Ren stopped.
Looked at Callum.
He was staring at the floor.
She continued.
Sebastian Vale is moving weapons through Driscoll shipments.
Richard discovered it.
He intends to cooperate with federal authorities.
If something happens to us, the evidence in this box must survive.
Do not seek revenge.
Revenge is another inheritance.
I want better for you.
Dad.
Ren cried.
Not delicately.
Twenty-two years collapsed.
Callum knelt.
Not touching her.
Just near.
Ren looked at him.
“My father trusted yours.”
“Yes.”
“Did your father know he was going to die?”
“Probably.”
Callum's voice broke slightly.
Ren noticed.
The frightening man from the black SUVs suddenly looked like a twenty-year-old who had lost his father.
“Why did you become this?”
Callum looked at her.
“Because Sebastian told me whoever killed my father would come for me.”
“So you needed power.”
“Yes.”
“He made you dependent on him.”
“Yes.”
“And now you're marrying Vivienne.”
“Yes.”
Ren laughed bitterly.
“He didn't just kill your father.”
“He raised the man who replaced him.”
Callum absorbed that.
It hurt because it was true.
The tapes changed everything.
Richard Driscoll's voice.
Daniel Carter's voice.
Meetings.
Account numbers.
Names.
One tape contained Sebastian Vale.
Clear.
Unmistakable.
“If Richard won't cooperate, handle Carter.”
Another man asked:
“And Richard?”
“After.”
Ren stopped the recording.
Marcus whispered:
“Jesus.”
Callum's face became stone.
Ren watched him.
“Don't.”
He looked at her.
“Don't what?”
“Do whatever you're thinking.”
“You don't know what I'm thinking.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Kill Sebastian.”
Callum didn't deny it.
“He murdered our fathers.”
“Yes.”
“He tried to kill us tonight.”
“Probably.”
“He deserves—”
“Consequences.”
Ren stood.
“Not execution.”
Callum stared.
“You think courts fix everything?”
“No.”
“You think men like Sebastian respect law?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because my father asked me not to inherit revenge.”
Callum's jaw tightened.
“That was his request to you.”
Ren stepped closer.
“Your father was trying to get out.”
“Maybe his request to you was dying for it.”
That stopped him.
They contacted federal prosecutors.
Not Callum's people.
Not family attorneys.
Federal prosecutors.
Callum agreed to cooperate.
Marcus looked like he'd been punched.
“This could expose us.”
“Yes.”
“You.”
“Yes.”
“Old cases.”
“Yes.”
“You could go to prison.”
“Yes.”
Ren watched him.
“Why?”
Callum looked at her.
“Because twenty-two years ago our fathers tried to do this.”
“And they didn't get to finish.”
Vivienne called that afternoon.
Callum put her on speaker.
“Darling.”
“Vivienne.”
“You disappeared.”
“Busy.”
“Is the maid with you?”
Ren looked at him.
Callum answered:
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then Vivienne laughed.
“I knew she'd become a problem.”
“You planted the ring.”
“Can you prove that?”
“Yes.”
Another silence.
Bluff.
But Vivienne didn't know.
“Come home,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because we have a wedding in three weeks.”
Callum looked at Ren.
Then:
“There won't be a wedding.”
Vivienne stopped breathing.
“You're angry.”
“No.”
“You'll reconsider.”
“No.”
“Callum.”
“Your grandfather murdered my father.”
Silence.
Complete.
Ren knew immediately.
Vivienne knew.
Callum knew too.
“Who told you?”
Wrong answer.
Not that's insane.
Not what are you talking about.
Who told you.
Callum's face changed.
“You knew.”
Vivienne recovered.
“Callum—”
“You knew.”
“My grandfather did what was necessary.”
Ren closed her eyes.
There it was.
Callum's voice became dangerously quiet.
“And Daniel Carter?”
“Collateral damage.”
Ren flinched.
Callum looked at her.
Something violent entered his eyes.
Ren shook her head.
Once.
Don't.
Callum breathed.
Then said:
“Goodbye, Vivienne.”
He ended the call.
Marcus immediately said:
“She'll run.”
Callum nodded.
Federal agents were already moving.
But Vivienne didn't run.
Instead, twenty minutes later, Mrs. Harmon called.
Crying.
“Mr. Driscoll.”
Callum answered.
“What happened?”
“Miss Vale locked down the estate.”
“What?”
“She has everyone inside.”
Callum stood.
“How many?”
“Seventeen staff.”
“Security?”
“Her grandfather's men replaced the evening team.”
Callum's face drained.
Then Mrs. Harmon whispered:
“She wants Ren.”
Ren froze.
Callum said:
“No.”
Mrs. Harmon cried.
“She says if Ren Carter doesn't come back with the original evidence…”
A man's voice shouted in the background.
The line crackled.
Mrs. Harmon whispered:
“…she'll start killing the staff one by one.”
The call ended.
Callum turned toward Ren.
“No.”
Ren stared at him.
“You don't get to decide.”
“Ren.”
“Seventeen people.”
“She'll kill you.”
“Then we don't give her the chance.”
Callum's eyes narrowed.
“What are you thinking?”
Ren picked up the old metal box.
“The thing nobody in that house expects from a maid.”
“What?”
May you like
She looked at him.
“That I understand exactly how servants move through places rich people never bother to see.”
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