Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO PUT A GUN IN MY HAND
Grace Bell owned a shotgun.
That was the first good news I had received all night.
The second was that she knew how to use it.
She disappeared into the upstairs bedroom and returned with a twelve-gauge that looked older than both of us.
I stared.
“My father hunted.”
“You shoot?”
“Better than you currently do.”
Fair.
The downstairs door cracked.
Anthony Creel shouted.
“Grace, open up!”
She handed me the shotgun.
I gave it back.
“You keep it.”
“You’re the criminal.”
“I’m also bleeding.”
“Good point.”
Noah crouched behind the bathroom door clutching his dinosaur flashlight.
Grace kissed his forehead.
“Remember the rule?”
“Stay quiet.”
“And?”
“Only come out for pancakes.”
She closed the door.
The lower door splintered.
Footsteps entered.
Two men.
Maybe three.
I whispered, “Back stair?”
“Fire escape.”
“Can Noah climb?”
“Yes.”
“Then we leave.”
She stared.
“You said you’d hold them downstairs.”
“I lied.”
“You do that often?”
“Professionally.”
I crossed to the rear window.
The fire escape dropped into the neighboring courtyard.
Six feet from the alley.
Too exposed.
Then a flashlight beam moved below.
Someone was covering the back.
“They expected that.”
Grace looked around.
“Roof.”
“What?”
“Old bakery has roof access.”
“Show me.”
We got Noah first.
Grace went up.
Then Noah.
I followed badly.
Every rung felt like someone twisting a knife into my abdomen.
Halfway up, the apartment door exploded inward below.
Anthony shouted.
“Roman!”
Noah looked down.
“Is that the bad guy?”
“Yes.”
“He sounds mad.”
“He usually does.”
We reached the roof.
Rain had weakened to a steady drizzle.
South Philadelphia spread around us in wet brick, rooftop vents, church towers, and streetlights.
Grace pulled Noah close.
“Where?”
I looked across the rooftops.
Three connected buildings.
One gap.
Then a narrow maintenance bridge to the next block.
“Move.”
We crossed.
Behind us, roof access banged open.
Gunfire cracked.
Brick chipped beside my head.
Grace screamed.
I pushed her down.
“Go!”
She crawled with Noah behind an air-conditioning unit.
I turned.
Anthony came through the door.
Another man behind him.
He smiled when he saw me.
“You look terrible.”
“I’ve had better nights.”
“Carter said alive if possible.”
“That’s touching.”
“He wants to explain.”
“I heard enough in the alley.”
Anthony raised his gun.
I had no weapon.
Then Grace stood behind the vent.
Shotgun leveled.
“Drop it.”
Anthony looked at her.
He laughed.
“Lady.”
She fired into the vent beside him.
Metal screamed.
Anthony jumped sideways.
“Next one isn’t the vent.”
He looked at me.
I smiled.
“She’s an ER nurse.”
“As if that matters.”
“She knows where all the important organs are.”
Anthony’s smile disappeared.
He lowered the gun.
So did the second man.
I moved quickly despite the pain.
Took Anthony’s pistol.
Disarmed the second.
Grace stared.
“What now?”
“We go.”
“You’re leaving them?”
“Alive.”
Anthony laughed.
“Soft.”
That word again.
I looked at him.
“Tell Carter something.”
“What?”
“Ethan Bell.”
Anthony’s face flickered.
There.
He knew.
“Tell him I remember.”
I struck him hard enough to drop him.
We reached the next building and descended into the basement of a closed laundromat.
Grace’s hands shook now.
Adrenaline wearing off.
Noah did not cry.
That worried me.
Children should cry after gunfire.
He simply held his mother’s hand and watched everything.
I crouched despite the agony.
“Noah.”
He looked at me.
“You okay?”
He nodded.
“That was loud.”
“Yes.”
“Mom scared them.”
“She did.”
A small smile.
“My mom is tough.”
“I noticed.”
Grace leaned against a washing machine.
“You need medical care now.”
“I know someone.”
“Someone trustworthy?”
I thought of my world.
Men who had worked for me ten years.
Fifteen.
Some would already be getting calls from Carter.
Pick a side.
Roman is finished.
The throne is open.
Carter understood organizations.
Kill the boss.
Then create uncertainty faster than loyalty can react.
I had maybe three people I truly trusted.
One was a surgeon.
Dr. Samuel Park.
No criminal record.
No affiliation anyone could prove.
He had treated me after a stabbing twelve years earlier and spent the entire procedure insulting my life choices.
I called from Grace’s phone using a number I knew by memory.
He answered at two sixteen in the morning.
“If this is Roman, you owe me twenty thousand dollars.”
“Good morning, Sam.”
A pause.
“What happened?”
“Gunshot.”
“How many?”
“Two.”
“You’re calling me instead of a hospital?”
“Yes.”
“So serious enough to make you stupid.”
“Can you help?”
“Where?”
I gave him the laundromat address.
“Twenty minutes.”
He arrived in eighteen.
Took one look at me.
Then Grace.
Then Noah.
Then the shotgun.
“I’m not asking.”
“Good.”
He brought us to a private surgical suite above an old medical office he owned.
The bullet in my arm had passed through.
The second had lodged shallowly near my left flank after glancing off a rib.
Lucky.
Painfully lucky.
Sam operated under local anesthetic because moving me to a hospital was too dangerous.
Grace assisted.
At one point I heard her say, “Pressure dropping.”
I opened my eyes.
Noah stood behind the glass outside the room in yellow rain boots and dinosaur pajamas.
He had refused to change.
His face was pressed against the window.
I raised two fingers.
He copied me.
Then darkness took me.
When I woke, sunlight was coming through blinds.
Grace sat asleep in a chair beside the bed.
Noah was curled against her.
For several seconds, I forgot where I was.
Then everything returned.
Carter.
Ethan.
The key.
The black Escalade.
I looked at Grace’s hand.
The silver key hung from a chain around her wrist.
Sam Park entered.
“You’re alive.”
“Disappointing?”
“Financially promising.”
“How bad?”
“You lost a lot of blood. No major organs hit. You’re either lucky or God has administrative delays.”
“When can I walk?”
“You already proved you can make poor decisions immediately.”
“Sam.”
“Forty-eight hours before you should do anything difficult.”
“I have twelve.”
He sighed.
“I knew you’d say something stupid.”
Grace woke.
Her eyes found mine immediately.
“You lived.”
“Apparently.”
Noah stirred.
He climbed from her lap and walked to the bed.
“Did Mom save you?”
I looked at Grace.
“She did.”
Noah smiled.
“Told you.”
Something unfamiliar pressed beneath my ribs.
Not pain.
I looked away.
Grace noticed.
“You don’t get emotional easily, do you?”
“No.”
“Good. Because we need to talk.”
She removed the silver key.
“Ethan hid something.”
“I know.”
“I remembered where.”
I sat higher.
“What?”
“The week before he died, he rented a safety deposit box.”
“Where?”
“First Philadelphia Trust.”
“Still open?”
“The bank closed.”
My heart sank.
Grace continued.
“But its accounts were transferred.”
“To whom?”
“Liberty Federal.”
I knew the branch.
Center City.
She handed me the key.
“Ethan wrote one word on the paper sleeve.”
“What?”
She looked directly at me.
“Roman.”
Silence.
He had been trying to get evidence to me.
Even after Carter convinced everyone around him that I was the danger.
I closed my hand around the key.
Noah climbed onto the edge of the bed.
“What’s in the box?”
“We don’t know.”
He nodded thoughtfully.
“Treasure.”
Grace almost laughed.
“Probably not.”
Then Sam Park entered again carrying a tablet.
His expression had changed.
“Roman.”
“What?”
“Turn on the news.”
He handed me the screen.
Philadelphia local news.
A photograph of me.
A photograph of Carter.
Headline:
MARCELLI CRIME FIGURE MISSING AFTER SUSPECTED INTERNAL SHOOTING.
The reporter continued.
“…sources claim longtime lieutenant Carter Voss has assumed temporary control over Marcelli-linked business interests while authorities investigate.”
Carter had moved fast.
Then the screen changed.
Another photograph appeared.
Grace.
I turned sharply.
The headline beneath it made her stop breathing.
NURSE WANTED FOR QUESTIONING IN CONNECTION WITH MAFIA DISAPPEARANCE.
Grace whispered, “What?”
The reporter said police were seeking Grace Bell after witnesses saw her leaving the scene with an injured Roman Marcelli.
Carter had done more than take my organization.
He had framed the woman who saved me.
Exactly as he had framed her husband eight years earlier.
Grace looked at Noah.
“My job.”
Her apartment.
Her life.
Everything collapsing.
I stared at the television.
And something inside me became very calm.
Carter had made one mistake.
He thought I was fighting to get my empire back.
May you like
I wasn’t anymore.
I was going to destroy the lie.
