Chapter 2 - The Five Year Ghost
Marin Holloway did not exist anymore.
The woman who nervously wiped down the counters at the small diner in rural Ohio was officially named Sarah.
Five years had passed since she barely escaped that terrifying midnight bus raid by slipping out the emergency roof hatch.
She had learned how to become a complete ghost, leaving absolutely no digital footprints behind.
She lived in a tiny, rundown apartment located just three blocks away from the diner.
Her entire world now revolved entirely around a beautiful four-year-old boy named Leo.
Leo possessed a head of thick dark curls and a pair of piercing, intelligent gray eyes.
Those eyes were a haunting, daily reminder of the powerful man who had ruthlessly banished her from Boston.
Marin finished pouring hot coffee for an elderly truck driver sitting in the corner booth.
The diner bell chimed loudly as the heavy glass front door swung open against the harsh winter wind.
A tall man wearing a completely out-of-place, incredibly expensive charcoal suit stepped into the building.
Marin instantly felt her blood turn to ice inside her veins.
Men who wore tailored Italian silk did not accidentally wander into cheap roadside diners in the middle of Ohio.
She quickly turned her back and pretended to enthusiastically scrub the stainless steel coffee machine.
The stranger did not order any food or attempt to speak to the waitresses.
He simply ordered a black coffee, left a massive one-hundred-dollar bill on the counter, and walked right back out into the snow.
Marin waited until the man’s dark luxury sedan drove completely out of sight before approaching his empty seat.
She picked up the crisp hundred-dollar bill with severely shaking fingers.
Underneath the money, the stranger had deliberately left a plain white paper napkin.
A very specific, highly intricate symbol was drawn on the napkin with a blue ink pen.
It was the exact same symbol she used to use in her encrypted financial ledgers when she worked for Raphael.
Someone from her dangerous past had finally found her hiding place.
Marin ripped off her apron and sprinted desperately out the back door of the diner.
She ran through the freezing snow toward her apartment, praying that her son was still safe with the babysitter.
She burst through her front door and completely stopped breathing.
The teenage babysitter was lying unconscious on the living room floor.
The front window was shattered, and a tall, heavily scarred man was holding her crying son.
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The intruder slowly turned around, revealing a face completely disfigured by years of brutal torture.
It was her brother, Beckett.
