Chapter 3: Four Letters
I stared at the message.
*Run.*
Joseph was watching me.
He saw my face change.
"What is it?"
I turned the phone toward him without thinking.
He read the four letters.
Something moved behind his eyes — not surprise.
Recognition.
"She knows they're here."
"How would she know that?"
"Because she's been watching for this for twenty years." He looked at his lieutenant.
"Marco.
Back exit.
Now."
"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what is happening." My voice came out steadier than I felt.
"Who are those people outside?
Why are they watching me?
And how does my mother know to tell me to run before I've even told her anything is wrong?"
Joseph looked at me for a long moment.
"Come with me.
I'll explain everything in the car."
"Explain it here."
"Audrey—"
"Here.
Or I walk out the front door right now."
Marco put a hand on Joseph's arm.
"Boss.
We don't have time."
Joseph ignored him.
He kept his eyes on me.
"There is a man named Victor Caine," he said.
"He has been my enemy for fifteen years.
He has tried to find a way to hurt me for fifteen years and failed every time." He paused.
"The one thing he always knew about me — the one wound he could never reach — was that I lost someone I loved.
And that she was carrying my child when she disappeared."
The restaurant had emptied around us.
Staff had retreated to the kitchen.
The remaining bodyguards stood at the doors.
"He's been looking for Rose," I said.
"He's been looking for proof that the child survived." Joseph's voice was flat.
Careful.
"If he finds you — if he confirms who you are — you become leverage.
Not a person.
A tool."
"To use against you."
"Yes."
I looked down at my phone.
Mom's message was still on the screen.
"She knew he was getting close," I said.
It wasn't a question.
"She must have."
"And she never told me any of this."
Joseph said nothing.
"She let me take a job at the Golden Crown." I laughed — a short, hollow sound.
"Your restaurant.
She let me walk in here and serve tables fifty feet from you and she never said a word."
"Maybe she thought—"
"Don't." I held up a hand.
"Don't explain her to me right now."
Marco appeared at Joseph's shoulder again.
"Three cars just became four.
One of them is parked across the service entrance."
Joseph looked at me.
Not commanding.
Not demanding.
Something closer to asking.
"I have a place they don't know about," he said.
"Twelve minutes from here.
We get there, we call Rose, we figure out what she knows.
You stay in control of every decision after that.
But right now, I need you to walk with me."
I looked at the front windows.
Through the frosted glass, the shape of a dark car idled at the curb.
I looked at my phone.
*Run.*
"If you're lying to me," I said, "about any of it — the photograph, my mother, any of it — I will find a way to make that your problem."
Something shifted in Joseph's expression.
Not amusement this time.
Something that looked almost like pride.
"Fair," he said.
I set the serving tray down on the table beside the shattered scotch glass.
"Then let's go."
We moved toward the back of the restaurant.
Marco led.
Two bodyguards fell in behind us.
Joseph walked beside me — not in front, not behind.
Beside.
I noticed that.
The kitchen staff pressed against the walls as we passed through.
Nobody spoke.
The back door opened into a narrow alley, cold air hitting my face.
A black car waited with its engine running.
I stopped at the door.
"One condition," I said.
Joseph waited.
"I make the call to my mother.
Not you.
Me."
"Agreed."
I got in.
The door closed.
The car moved.
Through the rear window, I watched the Golden Crown shrink behind us.
A man in a dark coat stepped out of a doorway across the street and raised a phone to his ear.
He was looking directly at the car.
Joseph saw it too.
"Marco."
"I see him."
"He already has the plate."
Marco said nothing.
May you like
Joseph turned to face forward.
"Then we have less time than I thought."
