Chapter 3 - THE ROOM BEHIND THE WALLVincent pressed his ear against the wood paneling.
Sophie screamed again.
The sound came from behind the northern wall.
Marco examined the carved molding and found a hidden pressure switch. When he pushed it, part of the wall slid inward, revealing a narrow service corridor.
Vincent entered first.
The passage had been built during Prohibition, decades before Torino Tower became his headquarters. Dust covered the floor, except for several fresh footprints.
At the end of the corridor, a masked man held Sophie against his chest.
A knife rested beneath her chin.
“Drop your weapons,” the intruder ordered.
Vincent lowered his pistol immediately.
Marco did the same.
The masked man backed toward an emergency stairwell.
“Tell your people to stand down.”
Vincent raised one hand.
“No one fires.”
Sophie’s eyes locked onto his.
She was terrified, but she remembered his promise.
Vincent took one slow step forward.
The masked man tightened his grip.
“I said stay back.”
“You entered my home,” Vincent said. “You injured my men. You frightened my family.”
“She’s not your family.”
Vincent’s gray eyes darkened.
“That was your last mistake.”
The intruder glanced behind him.
That brief distraction was enough.
Sophie bit his hand.
He shouted and loosened his grip.
Vincent crossed the distance in seconds. He struck the man’s wrist, caught the knife, and drove his shoulder into the intruder’s chest.
They crashed against the wall.
Marco pulled Sophie away while Vincent tore off the attacker’s mask.
The man was young, perhaps twenty-five, with a tattoo of a black crown behind his ear.
Vincent recognized the symbol.
The Black Crown was an intelligence network believed to have been dismantled fifteen years earlier. It specialized in political blackmail, assassinations, and the disappearance of protected witnesses.
“Who hired you?” Vincent demanded.
The attacker smiled.
A capsule cracked between his teeth.
Foam spilled from his mouth, and his body convulsed.
He died within seconds.
Sophie buried her face against Marco’s shoulder.
Vincent searched the dead man’s pockets. He found no identification, only a brass key engraved with the number 314.
Dominic stood at the corridor entrance.
“You think I brought him here,” he said.
Vincent rose.
“You were reflected in Gabriel’s photograph.”
“I can explain.”
“Start.”
Dominic looked at Sophie.
“Not in front of her.”
Vincent ordered Marco to take the girl to the medical wing.
Sophie resisted.
“You said you wouldn’t leave me.”
Vincent softened his voice.
“I’m not leaving. I need to make this building safe.”
She reluctantly took Marco’s hand.
After she disappeared, Vincent struck Dominic across the face.
The older man stumbled into the wall.
“You had one chance to tell me the truth.”
Dominic wiped blood from his lip.
“Gabriel came to me eight years ago.”
Vincent went completely still.
“He was alive?”
“Yes.”
“And you hid him from me?”
“He begged me.”
Vincent grabbed Dominic’s jacket.
“I buried my brother!”
“Because Gabriel believed you would drag him back into the family!”
“I would have protected him.”
“From everyone except yourself.”
Vincent released him with a violent shove.
Dominic opened a hidden safe inside his office and removed a stack of letters.
They were addressed to Vincent but had never been delivered.
Gabriel’s handwriting covered every envelope.
“He wrote to you for years,” Dominic said. “Then he changed his mind before sending them.”
Vincent opened the first letter.
Brother, I know you believe I am dead. Perhaps it is better that way.
The next letter mentioned Elena.
Another described Sophie’s birth.
The final letter had been written six months earlier.
They found us. If anything happens to me, protect Elena and Sophie. Do not trust the police. Do not trust the family. The person who arranged my false death is still beside you.
Vincent read the sentence twice.
“Who was Gabriel afraid of?”
“He never gave me a name.”
“Why were you at the hospital?”
“He called me after Sophie was born. He wanted someone from the family to know she existed.”
Vincent held up the brass key.
“What is 314?”
Dominic stared at it.
“Union Station.”
Vincent remembered the old storage lockers beneath the eastern platforms. Gabriel had used them during his youth to hide money from their father.
An hour later, Vincent and Marco entered Union Station disguised as ordinary businessmen.
Locker 314 contained a battered leather suitcase.
Inside were photographs of judges, police officers, and businessmen meeting members of the Black Crown. There were bank statements showing millions of dollars moving through offshore accounts.
At the bottom was a video camera.
Vincent played the recording.
Gabriel appeared on the screen.
He looked older, exhausted, and afraid.
“Vincent, if you’re watching this, I’m probably dead. Our father did not create the Torino empire alone. He made an agreement with an organization called the Crown. They helped him control Chicago. In return, the Torino family became their weapon.”
Gabriel looked over his shoulder.
“I discovered they’ve been using children to control politicians. Kidnapping them, changing their identities, raising them as leverage. I stole evidence that could destroy them.”
The recording glitched.
When the image returned, Gabriel was crying.
“Sophie is not only my daughter. Her blood gives her legal control over something the Crown has searched for since our father died.”
The recording stopped abruptly.
Marco examined the camera.
“The rest was deleted.”
A locker door slammed nearby.
Vincent drew his pistol.
A woman wearing a gray coat stood at the end of the corridor.
She raised both hands.
“My name is Claire Bennett. I worked with Gabriel.”
“Come closer.”
She obeyed.
“He was murdered last winter because he refused to surrender Sophie.”
“Who killed him?”
Claire looked directly at Vincent.
“Your sister.”
Vincent’s breath stopped.
He had only one sister.
Isabella Torino had died when she was six years old.
Claire reached into her coat and produced a recent photograph.
It showed a silver-haired woman entering the mayor’s residence.
On her wrist was the Torino family crest.
“She didn’t die,” Claire whispered. “She became the leader of the Black Crown.”
Before Vincent could respond, every screen in Union Station turned black.
A live image appeared.
Sophie was sitting beside Elena’s hospital bed.
A red laser dot moved slowly across the little girl’s forehead.
May you like
A woman’s voice filled the station.
“Come home, brother.”
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