Chapter 5 - THE PRICE OF THE PAST
Morning came with the smell of expensive coffee and the sound of Victor’s footsteps.
I hadn't slept.
I had spent the night in the library,
going over the intelligence reports on the shooter.
It wasn't the Morettis.
It was someone much closer to home.
"The weapon used in the apartment,"
Victor said,
placing a tablet on the table.
"It’s a specialty rifle.
Only a few people in the city have access to that kind of hardware."
"Who?"
"The Romanos.
But they’ve been quiet for years."
"They're not quiet anymore,"
I muttered.
The Romanos had been my father’s closest allies until the Carter investigation.
When Thomas Carter started digging,
the Romanos were the first to jump ship.
"They think Emily has something,"
I realized.
"They think her father didn't just disappear.
They think he left her something that could bury them."
"The lost files,"
Victor whispered.
"The evidence that Thomas Carter was going to use to dismantle the entire Chicago syndicate."
"If she has those files,
she's a walking death sentence,"
I said.
I stood up,
my body feeling heavy.
"Is she awake?"
"She’s in the kitchen.
Trying to convince the chef that she can make her own eggs."
I walked to the kitchen,
finding Emily in a heated debate with a man who had trained in Paris.
"I just want a piece of toast,"
she was saying,
her hair tied back in a messy bun.
She was wearing one of my shirts—it was huge on her,
the sleeves rolled up several times.
The sight of her in my clothes did something to my chest that felt worse than the bullet wound.
"Leave us,"
I told the chef.
He scurried away,
leaving us alone in the sun-drenched kitchen.
Emily turned to me,
clutching a piece of dry toast like a weapon.
"Did you get my cat?"
"He’s in the laundry room.
Being fed tuna that costs more than my car."
She relaxed slightly,
taking a bite of the toast.
"Good.
He’s the only friend I have."
"We need to talk about your father,
Emily."
The toast stopped halfway to her mouth.
The atmosphere in the room changed instantly.
The warmth of the sun seemed to vanish,
replaced by a chilling draft.
"I don't talk about him,"
she said,
her voice flat.
"I know he was investigating my family.
I know he disappeared."
"He didn't just disappear,
Richard.
He was murdered."
"Do you know who did it?"
She looked at me,
her eyes burning with a sudden,
ferocious intensity.
"Your father did it.
Or his men did.
Does it matter?
The name Callahan is written in my father’s blood."
"I didn't know,"
I said,
and for the first time in my life,
I felt the weight of a sin I hadn't committed.
"I was eighteen.
I was away at school."
"Ignorance isn't an excuse,"
she snapped.
"You live in this house.
You run this empire.
You profit from the bones he broke."
"I'm trying to save your life,"
I reminded her.
"Because the people who helped my father...
they think you have his evidence.
They think Thomas Carter gave you the key to the kingdom before he died."
Emily laughed,
a sound of pure,
unadulterated misery.
"He gave me nothing.
No money.
No files.
Just a note."
I stepped closer.
"What did the note say?"
She hesitated,
her eyes searching mine.
For a moment,
the silence was so thick I could hear the clock ticking on the wall.
"It said:
'The truth is hidden where the light never reaches.'"
She looked away,
her voice trembling.
"I've spent ten years trying to figure out what that means.
I thought it was just the rambling of a dying man.
But now...
now people are shooting at me for it."
"The truth is hidden where the light never reaches,"
I repeated.
It sounded like a riddle.
But in this city,
riddles usually led to graves.
"I'm going to find it,"
I said.
"And I'm going to use it to end this."
"You'll use it to protect yourself,"
she countered.
"No,"
I said,
taking her hand.
Her skin was soft,
but her grip was firm.
"I'm going to use it to set you free."
She didn't pull away this time.
May you like
She just looked at our joined hands,
the daughter of the law and the son of the crime,
