Chapter 4: The Daughter Of The Man Who Vanished
The photograph stayed on my screen for three seconds.
Three seconds was enough time for my entire life to split into two versions.
Before.
And after.
Before that message, I was Evelyn Hart.
A waitress.
A woman trying to pay rent before the landlord changed the locks.
A person nobody powerful had any reason to remember.
After that message, I was something else.
A target.
A secret.
A piece of a story that started before I was even old enough to understand it.
Lorenzo watched my face carefully.
“What did they send?””
I didn’t answer.
I couldn’t.
My fingers felt numb around my phone.
Marcus stepped closer.
“Give it to me.””
I handed it over.
He looked at the screen.
The longer he stared, the more serious his expression became.
Lorenzo took the phone from him.
His eyes moved over the photograph.
Then the message.
For a moment, the entire room disappeared.
The broken glass.
The abandoned tables.
The guards waiting for orders.
Everything.
There was only Lorenzo Moretti staring at proof that someone had been watching me.
Not tonight.
Not for a few hours.
Longer.
“How long?”” he asked.
I looked at him.
“What?””
“How long have you been followed?””
“I don’t know.””
“Think.””
His voice wasn’t harsh.
It was urgent.
I searched through my memories.
The feeling that someone was behind me walking home.
The same black sedan near my apartment.
The footsteps I heard outside my door three nights ago.
The phone call where nobody spoke.
“I thought I was imagining it.””
Lorenzo’s expression hardened.
“You weren’t.””
The certainty in his voice made my stomach twist.
“You knew?””
“No.””
“Then how can you say that?””
“Because people who are imagining things don’t usually receive photographs taken by professionals.””
The word professionals made my skin crawl.
Marcus looked toward the entrance.
“Boss, we need to move.””
Lorenzo nodded.
“Agreed.””
Celeste stepped forward.
“Lorenzo.””
Everyone stopped.
She looked different now.
The perfect confidence was gone.
The woman who entered the restaurant beside Chicago’s most feared man was gone.
Now she looked like someone watching a disaster she helped create.
“You can’t believe this girl over me.””
Lorenzo turned.
The silence between them was painful.
“I don’t know what to believe.””
Those words hurt her more than anger would have.
I saw it.
Because for the first time, Celeste looked like she might actually break.
“I love you.””
Lorenzo’s face didn’t change.
“That’s not enough.””
She swallowed.
“You think I’m involved.””
“I think you know more than you told me.””
Her eyes filled with anger.
“I was trying to protect you.””
“By hiding information?””
“Because I knew what you would do!””
Lorenzo stepped closer.
“And what exactly do you think I would do?””
Celeste hesitated.
That was her answer.
Everyone understood.
She thought he would destroy anyone who threatened him.
Maybe she wasn’t wrong.
But the fact that she had hidden it mattered.
A lot.
Lorenzo looked away.
“Take Celeste home.””
Two guards moved.
Her face changed.
“Lorenzo.””
He didn’t look at her.
“Go.””
She stood there for several seconds.
Then she walked away.
No screaming.
No dramatic goodbye.
Just a woman leaving a room where she no longer knew if she belonged.
When the doors closed behind her, I realized something.
Lorenzo looked tired.
Not physically.
Something deeper.
Like betrayal was heavier than any wound.
“Why are you helping me?”” I asked.
He looked at me.
“I’m not.””
The answer surprised me.
“I’m protecting a problem.””
“A problem?””
“Yes.””
His eyes moved to the phone.
“You are connected to my past.””
I frowned.
“I don’t understand.””
“Neither do I.””
That honesty unsettled me more than anything.
A man like Lorenzo Moretti admitting he didn’t know something?
Impossible.
Yet here he was.
“Your father disappeared seventeen years ago,” he continued.
“The same year my father was killed.””
I froze.
“My father?””
Lorenzo nodded.
“Angelo Moretti.””
The name sounded familiar.
Even to someone like me.
Everyone knew the old stories.
The previous Moretti.
The man who built an empire.
The man who supposedly died during a business dispute.
But nobody talked about details.
Nobody survived long enough to tell them.
“What does my father have to do with his death?””
Lorenzo looked at the floor.
“My father trusted very few people.””
“And Daniel Hart was one of them?””
“Yes.””
My chest tightened.
I had spent years believing my father was a loser.
A man who ran away.
A man who abandoned his family.
But Lorenzo was telling me something completely different.
“He worked for my father,” Lorenzo said.
I shook my head.
“No.””
“You’re sure?””
“Yes.””
“Why?””
“Because my father hated criminals.””
The words came out quickly.
Too quickly.
Lorenzo noticed.
“Did he tell you that?””
I stopped.
Memories flashed.
My father sitting at the kitchen table late at night.
The smell of cigarette smoke on his jacket.
The way he checked the windows before closing the curtains.
The way he told me never to answer the door after midnight.
“He told me he made mistakes.””
Lorenzo looked at me.
“What kind of mistakes?””
“I don’t know.””
“You never asked?””
I laughed quietly.
A sad sound.
“I was twelve.””
The room softened for a moment.
Then Lorenzo asked:
“Did he leave anything behind?””
The question was simple.
But something inside me reacted.
A small, buried memory.
A box.
Hidden under a loose floorboard.
My father’s voice.
*If anything happens to me, Evelyn, never give this to anyone.*
I looked away.
Too late.
Lorenzo noticed.
“What?””
“Nothing.””
“Evelyn.””
I hated that he was good at reading people.
“I don’t know.””
“You do.””
I stayed silent.
Marcus watched me carefully.
“There’s something.””
I looked between them.
This was insane.
A few hours ago, my biggest problem was a power bill.
Now two dangerous men were standing in front of me asking about my dead father’s secrets.
“I have something,” I admitted.
Lorenzo’s expression changed.
“What?””
“I don’t know what it is.””
“Where?””
“My apartment.””
Marcus immediately shook his head.
“No.””
Everyone looked at him.
“That’s exactly where they expect her to go.””
Lorenzo nodded.
He was right.
My apartment wasn’t a home anymore.
It was a location.
A place someone had probably already searched.
“Do you have security footage?”” Lorenzo asked.
“From my building?””
“Yes.””
I shook my head.
“Broken cameras.””
“Convenient.””
“I told you, it’s a terrible building.””
Lorenzo almost smiled.
Almost.
Then his phone rang.
Everyone became alert.
He answered.
“Speak.””
A pause.
His expression changed.
“Repeat that.””
The person on the other end spoke.
Lorenzo listened.
Then his eyes moved to me.
“What?””
Marcus asked.
Lorenzo ended the call.
“They found Anthony Bell.””
“That’s good,” Marcus said.
“No.””
The single word silenced him.
“Where?””
Lorenzo looked at me.
“In Daniel Hart’s old neighborhood.””
My blood turned cold.
“Why?””
Lorenzo didn’t answer immediately.
Because he already knew.
And somehow, I knew too.
The past wasn’t buried.
It had been waiting.
“What did they find?”” Marcus asked.
Lorenzo’s face became unreadable.
“Anthony was dead.””
Nobody moved.
“And beside his body…”
He stopped.
My heart pounded.
“What?””
Lorenzo looked at me.
“They found a message.””
The room went silent.
“What message?””
His voice was barely above a whisper.
“Bring the daughter of Daniel Hart to the place where the betrayal began.””
A cold feeling crawled over my skin.
Because I knew that place.
I had never told anyone.
Not even Lorenzo.
Not even my mother before she died.
The place my father disappeared.
The abandoned warehouse near the river.
The place I had spent seventeen years avoiding.
Lorenzo watched my face.
“You know where it is.””
I couldn’t lie.
Not anymore.
“Yes.””
His eyes narrowed.
“Where?””
I swallowed.
And whispered the words I had never said out loud in years.
“Where my father left me.””
Outside, the city lights reflected against the black windows of The Obsidian.
May you like
And somewhere in Chicago, someone was waiting for us to return to the place where Daniel Hart’s story ended.
Or where mine was supposed to begin.
