The deadbolts slammed into place before Marcus reached the shattered window.
For the first time since he had cornered me in the alley, fear crossed his face.
It disappeared quickly, buried beneath the polished smile he wore for investors, police officers, and employees who knew better than to ask why certain rooms in his club were always locked.
“You’re believing a frightened waitress over me?” he asked Dante.
Dante unfolded the first page from my father’s envelope.
His eyes moved over a column of dates and account numbers, then stopped at a transfer made two days before Elias Vale died.
The room remained silent except for the faint hiss of rain against the broken window.
Marcus adjusted his coat.
“Elias fabricated records when he realized we were going to fire him.”
Dante looked up.
“We?”
Marcus hesitated.
It was a small mistake, but Dante caught it.
“So you remember discussing his employment,” Dante said.
“Interesting.
You told me you had never met him.”
Marcus’s expression hardened.
“I said I barely knew him.”
“No.
You said you had never met him.”
Dante turned the page toward the light.
“And yet Elias recorded a transfer into your private account.”
“That number proves nothing.”
“It was never used publicly.”
Marcus’s hand drifted toward the inside of his coat.
Three of Dante’s men raised their guns at once.
He froze.
I sat in the booth with one arm wrapped around my ribs, watching the man who had controlled nearly every year of my adult life discover that control could vanish in a single room.
Marcus had hired me when I was nineteen.
He had attended my father’s funeral, delivered groceries when I could not afford them, and told me Elias had died after losing control of his car on an icy bridge.
For years, I had mistaken possession for protection.
Now the bruises on my face made the difference impossible to ignore.
Dante placed the page flat on the table.
“What does the key open?”
“Locker 317,” I said.
“My father’s envelope mentioned two storage units.
Marcus found me at the first one.
I don’t think he knew about the second.”
Marcus looked at me with such hatred that my stomach tightened.
“You should have left the past buried,” he said.
Dante did not raise his voice.
“Speak to her again without permission, and you’ll lose the privilege.”
Marcus gave him a disbelieving stare.
“You’re threatening me in front of my own men?”
Dante glanced at the two men who had followed Marcus inside.
One was staring at the floor.
The other had already moved two steps away from him.
“Are they still your men?” Dante asked.
Neither answered.
Dante took out his phone and made one call.
“Nico, go to Halsted Storage.
Locker 317.
Take a camera, two witnesses, and someone from legal.
Do not touch anything until the entire room is recorded.”
He ended the call and looked at the blood on my cheek.
“Doctor first,” he said.
“No.”
His eyebrows lifted slightly.
“I’m not leaving until I know what is in that locker.”
“You may have internal injuries.”
“So did my father.”
The words silenced him.
Dante leaned back, studying me as if trying to find Elias in my face.
“You have his eyes.”
“You knew him?”
“He was my accountant,
