Chapter 2 - THE GREEN SNAKE
Damian crouched beside Ellie, keeping his face calm even as every instinct inside him demanded violence.
“Who opened the gate?” he asked.
Ellie pressed one black-stained finger against the green snake in her drawing.
“Mr. Marcus.”
The name entered the room like a bullet.
Marcus Vale had protected the Cross family for more than thirty years. He had carried Damian out of a burning car when Damian was twelve. He had stood beside Damian’s father at funerals, weddings, and negotiations where everyone else entered unarmed only because Marcus had already searched the room.
After Gabriel Cross died, Marcus became Damian’s chief of security.
He knew every alarm code in the mansion.
Every hidden entrance.
Every guard’s family.
Every weakness Damian had spent his life concealing.
And now a three-year-old child was telling him that Marcus had opened the rear gate for a stranger.
Damian looked at the rest of the drawing.
The stranger was blue because Ellie had apparently run out of black. A crooked rectangle hung from the stranger’s hand. Beside him, Ellie had drawn three red circles.
“What are these?” Damian asked.
“Lights.”
“Car lights?”
She shook her head.
“He made them blink.”
Damian understood.
The stranger had tested the security sensors.
“Did Mr. Marcus say anything?”
Ellie looked toward the study door.
Her voice became quieter.
“He said the little girl sleeps in the blue room.”
Damian’s blood went cold.
Ellie’s bedroom was blue.
“Anything else?”
“He said you look at me before you sleep.”
The betrayal was not only inside his house.
It had been studying him.
Damian folded the drawing and slipped it inside his jacket.
“You did something very brave.”
“Was I bad for hiding in the flowers?”
“No.”
“Mr. Marcus said little girls shouldn’t spy.”
“Mr. Marcus was wrong.”
A knock sounded.
Before Damian could answer, Marcus entered the study.
He was sixty-one, silver-haired, and built like a man who had never trusted chairs. His dark suit was perfectly pressed. A black watch covered most of his left wrist.
But when he reached for the door, his sleeve pulled back.
A green serpent tattoo wrapped twice around his skin.
Exactly as Ellie had drawn it.
Marcus glanced from Damian to the child.
“Miss Ellie should be asleep.”
Damian forced a faint smile.
“She wanted to show me a picture.”
“What did she draw?”
“A house.”
Marcus extended his hand.
“May I see?”
Damian’s smile remained in place.
“She spilled polish on it.”
Ellie looked up at him.
Damian touched one finger to his lips.
It was not an order.
It was a request.
She nodded solemnly.
Marcus studied the exchange.
Then he said, “There was a technical failure at the rear gate yesterday. I’m replacing the camera.”
“What caused it?”
“Moisture inside the wiring.”
“Was the gate opened?”
“No.”
The lie came without hesitation.
Damian rose slowly.
“Move Hannah and Ellie to the west guest rooms tonight.”
Marcus’s eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
“Hannah needs quiet.”
“The blue room is more secure.”
“I wasn’t asking which room you preferred.”
For one second, the air changed.
Then Marcus lowered his head.
“Of course.”
He left without another question.
Damian waited until the footsteps disappeared.
Then he picked Ellie up.
“We’re going to play a hiding game.”
“I’m good at hiding.”
“I know.”
He carried her through a concealed doorway behind the study bookshelves. The passage had been built during Prohibition and removed from all modern floor plans. Only Damian and an elderly family driver named Samuel Quinn knew it still existed.
Hannah was awake when Damian entered the guest wing.
Her fever had broken, but she still looked weak.
She sat up when she saw Ellie.
“What happened?”
“We need to move.”
“Why?”
Damian handed her the drawing.
Hannah stared at it.
Then she looked at Ellie.
“Sweetheart, where did you see this?”
“Near the roses.”
Hannah touched the green serpent.
Her fingers began shaking.
“I’ve seen this before.”
Damian stopped.
“Where?”
“The night Daniel died.”
The name belonged to Hannah’s husband.
Firefighter Daniel Reed had been killed four years earlier inside a warehouse blaze on the South Side. The city called him a hero. He had carried a six-year-old boy through two floors of smoke before the roof collapsed.
Damian had quietly paid for the funeral.
He had never told Hannah.
She believed the fire was an accident caused by faulty electrical wiring.
“What do you mean you saw the tattoo?” Damian asked.
Hannah looked toward her daughter.
“Ellie, can you sit on the bed and count the flowers on the blanket?”
Ellie obeyed.
Hannah lowered her voice.
“Daniel called me from outside the warehouse before he went in. He said a man was arguing with the building owner. The video froze for a second, but I saw part of the man’s wrist.”
“The snake?”
“I didn’t know what it meant.”
“Did Daniel say a name?”
“No. He said something was wrong because the fire doors had been chained.”
Damian stared at her.
The official investigation never mentioned chained doors.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I did. A detective said smoke and panic confused people. Then someone broke into our apartment and took Daniel’s phone.”
“Did anything else disappear?”
“His helmet camera.”
Damian’s stomach tightened.
Firefighters sometimes carried small recording units during high-risk calls.
If Daniel’s camera survived, it might have captured who chained the doors.
Marcus had not simply betrayed Damian.
He might have murdered Hannah’s husband.
A faint mechanical sound came from the hallway.
Damian turned.
The security lock on the guest wing had engaged.
Marcus had sealed the doors remotely.
Damian took out his phone.
No signal.
Hannah stood.
“What is happening?”
“He knows.”
“How?”
Damian looked toward the ceiling.
A tiny red light blinked inside the smoke detector.
Marcus had installed a camera in the guest wing.
He had watched Ellie hand over the drawing.
Damian pulled Hannah and Ellie toward the hidden passage.
Behind them, someone tried the main door.
“Mr. Cross?” Marcus called calmly from the hallway. “There appears to be a security problem.”
Damian opened the concealed panel.
“Go.”
Hannah carried Ellie into the darkness.
Damian followed and closed the wall behind them.
Seconds later, the guest-room door burst open.
From inside the passage, they heard men search the room.
Then Marcus spoke.
“The child saw too much.”
Another man answered.
“Then remove the child.”
Hannah covered Ellie’s ears.
Damian recognized the second voice.
Victor Bellandi.
The head of the rival family that had spent five years trying to take Chicago from him.
Marcus had not opened the gate for a photographer.
May you like
He had opened it for the man planning Damian’s death.
And according to the footsteps moving toward the hidden wall, they already knew where the passage ended.
