Chapter 3 - The Driver
I stared at the photograph until the edges of my vision blurred.
My brother was alive, breathing, and suffering in some frozen hell while I slept in luxury.
And the man holding the gun was on my own payroll.
I folded the photograph, shoved it into my inner coat pocket, and closed the safe exactly as I had found it.
I walked out of the house, bypassing the dining room entirely to avoid looking at my fiancée.
My driver, Marcus, was waiting by the black sedan with the engine idling.
"Take me to the safehouse in the West Loop," I ordered as I climbed into the back seat.
Marcus nodded and pulled the car onto the snowy road, his eyes flicking to the rearview mirror.
"Is everything alright, sir?"
I looked at the back of Marcus's head, a man who had driven me for ten years.
"Delia told me about Ewan," I said quietly.
The car swerved slightly, the tires losing traction on the ice for a fraction of a second before Marcus corrected the wheel.
It was a microscopic reaction, but to me, it was a screaming siren.
"She must be suffering from the head injury, sir," Marcus said, his voice a little too tight.
I pulled my weapon from my shoulder holster and rested it on the leather seat beside me.
"Stop the car, Marcus."
He pulled over onto the shoulder of the deserted highway.
"Turn around and look at me."
Marcus slowly turned around, his face pale and his hands gripping the steering wheel tight enough to crack it.
"You knew," I said, the betrayal burning in my chest like acid.
"You knew my brother was alive."
Marcus swallowed hard, refusing to look away from the barrel of the gun.
"Ewan made me swear on my life not to tell you, Julian."
"Before the fire, he discovered that Celeste's father was planning to wipe out our entire family."
"Ewan faked his own death at the pier so he could go underground and dismantle their network from the shadows."
"But he was captured a year ago, and the Vandermarks have been using him to blackmail the remaining capos."
I felt the world tilt on its axis as the lies compounded upon each other.
"Why wouldn't you tell me when he was captured?"
"Because if you broke the engagement, Celeste's father promised to execute Ewan immediately."
Marcus's eyes filled with genuine tears as he begged me to understand.
"I was trying to keep you both alive long enough to find where they were holding him."
I lowered the gun, rubbing my temples as the massive conspiracy tightened like a noose around my neck.
"We need to get Delia out of that hospital right now," I said.
Marcus nodded, reaching for the gearshift to turn the car around.
Before his hand could touch the lever, my cell phone rang in my pocket.
I answered it, expecting to hear my head of security reporting from the hospital.
Instead, a voice I had not heard in six years echoed through the receiver.
May you like
"Do not go back for the nurse, Julian," Ewan whispered, his voice raspy and broken.
"She is the one who sold me to the Vandermarks."
