Chapter 2 - Gavin Roarke’s Shadow in the Appalachian Mist
The distance between Gavin and the flour aisle seemed to stretch into an endless corridor of frozen time.
He reached slowly into his heavy charcoal coat pocket,
pulling out a silver lighter that clicked open and closed with a rhythmic,
metallic snap.
It was Declan’s lighter,
customized with the Voss family crest etched into the brushed chrome surface.
I had watched Declan spin that exact piece of polished metal a thousand times while sitting on the velvet sofa in his downtown penthouse,
listening to him plan the dismantling of rival syndicates across Illinois.
Seeing it now,
thousands of miles away in a damp Appalachian grocery store,
felt like a slow-motion executioner's blade descending upon my neck.
“Nice town,
” Gavin’s voice cut through the quiet,
deep,
unhurried,
and devoid of any warmth.
He didn’t turn around immediately,
but his eyes locked onto my reflection in the glass door of the upright freezer case beside the canned goods.
“Quiet,
unassuming,
and completely devoid of security cameras on the north side of Main Street.
A smart place to hide,
Miss Vance.
Or should I say,
Mrs.
Voss in spirit if not yet on paper?” The blood drained entirely from my face,
leaving my skin cold and prickling with sudden,
blinding terror.
I turned slowly,
my hands trembling as I clutched the canvas bag against my chest like a fragile shield protecting my unborn child.
“I’m not who you’re looking for,
” I whispered,
my voice sounding fragile and thin even to my own ears.
Gavin finally turned his head,
his sharp jawline shadowed by the overhead light,
a thin,
jagged scar running down the side of his neck from a long-forgotten Chicago turf war.
He offered a grim,
humorless smile that didn’t reach his cold gray eyes.
“Declan spent twenty-six days tearing Chicago apart brick by brick,
looking for the girl who walked out of Voss Tower with a hospital envelope and a single suitcase.
He didn’t care about the Calloway alliance.
He didn’t care about the territory wars on the South Side.
He turned his own organization inside out,
interrogating capos,
burning down warehouses,
and threatening half the city’s power brokers,
because his restoration artist vanished without a single word of goodbye.
” The distance between Gavin and the flour aisle seemed to stretch into an endless corridor of frozen time.
He reached slowly into his heavy charcoal coat pocket,
pulling out a silver lighter that clicked open and closed with a rhythmic,
metallic snap.
It was Declan’s lighter,
customized with the Voss family crest etched into the brushed chrome surface.
I had watched Declan spin that exact piece of polished metal a thousand times while sitting on the velvet sofa in his downtown penthouse,
listening to him plan the dismantling of rival syndicates across Illinois.
Seeing it now,
thousands of miles away in a damp Appalachian grocery store,
felt like a slow-motion executioner's blade descending upon my neck.
“Nice town,
” Gavin’s voice cut through the quiet,
deep,
unhurried,
and devoid of any warmth.
He didn’t turn around immediately,
but his eyes locked onto my reflection in the glass door of the upright freezer case beside the canned goods.
“Quiet,
unassuming,
and completely devoid of security cameras on the north side of Main Street.
A smart place to hide,
Miss Vance.
Or should I say,
Mrs.
Voss in spirit if not yet on paper?” The blood drained entirely from my face,
leaving my skin cold and prickling with sudden,
blinding terror.
I turned slowly,
my hands trembling as I clutched the canvas bag against my chest like a fragile shield protecting my unborn child.
“I’m not who you’re looking for,
” I whispered,
my voice sounding fragile and thin even to my own ears.
Gavin finally turned his head,
his sharp jawline shadowed by the overhead light,
a thin,
jagged scar running down the side of his neck from a long-forgotten Chicago turf war.
He offered a grim,
humorless smile that didn’t reach his cold gray eyes.
“Declan spent twenty-six days tearing Chicago apart brick by brick,
looking for the girl who walked out of Voss Tower with a hospital envelope and a single suitcase.
He didn’t care about the Calloway alliance.
He didn’t care about the territory wars on the South Side.
He turned his own organization inside out,
interrogating capos,
burning down warehouses,
and threatening half the city’s power brokers,
May you like
because his restoration artist vanished without a single word of goodbye.
”
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