Chapter 2 - THE WINDOW SHATTERED THREE SECONDS LATER
Audrey had been inside the Maybach for exactly four seconds when the café window exploded.
Not cracked.
Exploded.
Glass blew outward across the sidewalk in a glittering sheet.
People screamed.
Mateo dropped behind the steering wheel.
The stranger beside Audrey moved faster than she would have believed possible.
One arm came across her chest.
Not around her throat.
Across her.
Shielding.
“Down.”
She didn’t need to be told twice.
Another sharp crack came from somewhere above street level.
The rear window starred white.
Mateo accelerated.
The car shot away from the curb.
Audrey’s forehead hit the leather seat.
Her heart seemed to stop.
Then restart wrong.
“What—”
“Stay down.”
The stranger’s voice had changed.
No smooth authority now.
Cold.
Controlled.
Real.
Audrey looked toward the café through the rear glass.
Jenna had disappeared behind the counter.
Pedestrians were running.
The place where the stranger had been sitting fifteen seconds earlier was directly behind the shattered front window.
His chair had toppled.
His coffee cup lay broken beneath it.
Audrey stared.
Then looked at the ruined white shirt under his open coat.
Coffee stained the entire left side.
Her mouth went dry.
“That was for you.”
He did not answer.
“That bullet.”
Silence.
Audrey’s stomach turned.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You dragged me out because you knew someone was going to shoot?”
“No.”
Mateo said from the front:
“Boss, second vehicle behind us.”
The stranger looked through the rear window.
“Not ours.”
Audrey stopped breathing.
He pressed a button.
A partition lowered.
“Take Lower Wacker.”
Mateo nodded.
The car turned hard.
Audrey grabbed the door handle.
Locked.
Of course.
She looked at him.
“Open this.”
“No.”
“You said I was coming home with you.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t say we were getting shot at.”
“I didn’t know.”
“That is not comforting.”
“No.”
He glanced at her.
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Another vehicle appeared behind them.
Black SUV.
Close.
Mateo took another turn.
Audrey’s hands started shaking.
The stranger noticed.
“What’s your name?”
She almost laughed.
“You kidnapped me before asking?”
His expression tightened.
“I did not handle that well.”
“No.”
“Name.”
“Why?”
“So I stop calling you waitress.”
“Audrey.”
“Last name?”
“No.”
Interest again.
Even now.
He nodded once.
“Fair.”
Then:
“I’m Vincent Caruso.”
Her blood went cold.
Caruso.
She knew the name.
Everyone did.
Not from newspapers exactly.
From the parts newspapers never printed plainly.
Construction.
Waste hauling.
Restaurants.
Unions.
And a family people in the neighborhood knew not to irritate.
Vincent Caruso.
Forty-two.
Older brother dead six years.
Father dead three.
Now head of the Caruso organization.
The man sitting beside her.
The man she had just covered in coffee.
Audrey stared.
“Fantastic.”
He almost smiled.
Then the SUV behind them accelerated.
Mateo swore.
Vincent’s expression went flat.
He pulled out his phone.
“Rafe.”
A voice answered.
“We’re moving.”
“Someone fired from across Halsted.”
“Second vehicle is tailing us.”
Pause.
“Who knew I was going to the café?”
Audrey looked at him.
That question mattered.
He listened.
Then:
“No.”
“Do not call anyone else.”
He hung up.
Audrey whispered:
“Someone inside your own people knew.”
Vincent looked at her.
“You listen well.”
“I serve coffee.”
“Same skill.”
The car veered into a parking structure.
Mateo killed the lights.
Another black sedan waited inside.
Men opened doors.
Audrey recoiled.
Vincent immediately said:
“Not her.”
One of the men froze.
“Boss?”
“She stays beside me.”
That did not reassure her.
“Stop saying things that sound like ownership.”
Vincent turned.
For one second, everyone stood silent.
Then he said:
“You’re right.”
That surprised her.
He stepped out first.
Audrey stayed seated.
“I’m not going anywhere until somebody tells me why you made me leave the café.”
Vincent looked back in.
“Because when you spilled coffee, you saw my cuff.”
Audrey frowned.
“What cuff?”
“My shirt cuff.”
She remembered.
White cotton.
Gold link.
And something else.
A tiny reddish smear?
No.
Blue?
She had barely noticed.
Vincent continued.
“You stared at it.”
“I stared because I poured coffee on you.”
“No.”
“You looked twice.”
Audrey’s pulse changed.
He was right.
There had been a mark near his cuff.
Dark green.
Almost waxy.
“I thought it was ink.”
“It wasn’t.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Then Mateo said:
“Boss, we need to move.”
Vincent ignored him.
“Audrey, five minutes before you spilled coffee, a man brushed past me near the register.”
She tried to remember.
Tall.
Gray cap.
Delivery jacket.
He had bumped Vincent’s left side.
“I saw him.”
Vincent’s eyes sharpened.
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“He apologized.”
“Anything else?”
Audrey closed her eyes.
Think.
The man.
Cup lids.
Rain.
Jenna calling out orders.
Then—
“He didn’t buy anything.”
Vincent said nothing.
“He came in.”
“Walked past you.”
“Used the bathroom?”
“No.”
Audrey shook her head.
“He looked toward the window.”
Then walked out.
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
Mateo swore quietly.
Audrey stared at Vincent’s cuff again.
“What was on you?”
Vincent removed the coat.
Then carefully peeled off the wet shirt.
Not in a seductive way.
Not even remotely.
There was a small patch along the cuff where the coffee had diluted a dark green substance into streaks.
Mateo looked.
“Jesus.”
“What?”
Audrey asked.
Vincent said:
“Could be tracking dye.”
“Or chemical marker.”
“For what?”
Mateo answered this time.
“To tell the shooter which man at the window was the target.”
Audrey felt sick.
The shooter needed a mark.
Vincent wore a white shirt like half the businessmen in the café.
Green on cuff.
Visible when he raised his cup.
Then Audrey spilled sixteen ounces of coffee across him.
Covered the marker.
Forced him to stand.
Forced him away from the window.
Forced the entire plan to change.
Three seconds after she climbed into the car—
the shot hit the seat where he had been sitting.
Audrey whispered:
“I saved your life.”
Vincent looked at her.
“Yes.”
She stared.
Then anger replaced fear.
“And your response was to drag me into your car.”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“That is insane.”
“Yes.”
Mateo looked through windshield like he desperately wanted to be anywhere else.
Vincent spoke slowly.
“I thought the man who marked me might have seen you notice him.”
“So?”
“So if he believed you had seen too much, leaving you in that café might have gotten you killed.”
Audrey went quiet.
That was different.
Not better.
Different.
“You could have explained.”
“There was no time.”
“You could have said, ‘Someone may be trying to kill me and you might be a witness.’”
“Yes.”
“You went with ‘Get your coat.’”
His mouth twitched.
“Bad habit.”
“Terrible habit.”
Then the second vehicle appeared at the parking garage entrance.
Mateo looked up.
“Boss.”
Vincent’s expression hardened.
“Now.”
They moved into the second sedan.
Audrey got in voluntarily this time.
Not because she trusted Vincent.
Because someone had just fired into her workplace.
That was a different calculation.
They reached a brownstone forty minutes later.
Not mansion.
No visible guards outside.
Inside, however, every man looked like he knew exactly how to block a doorway.
Audrey noticed that.
Vincent noticed her noticing.
“Temporary.”
He said.
“What?”
“You are not staying here against your will.”
“Good.”
“But until we know whether the shooter saw you—”
“You want me here.”
“Yes.”
Audrey looked around.
“Phone.”
Vincent handed hers back immediately.
That surprised her.
She called Jenna.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Her stomach tightened.
“Something happened at café.”
Vincent called Mateo.
“Check.”
Two minutes later:
“Police secured scene.”
“Manager safe.”
Audrey exhaled.
Then Jenna texted.
I’m okay. Police here. Audrey where are you?
Audrey typed:
Safe. I’ll call soon.
Then she stopped.
Safe.
Was she?
She looked at Vincent.
He looked exhausted suddenly.
Not dangerous.
Human.
Then a man entered carrying a clear plastic evidence bag.
Inside—
Vincent’s ruined shirt cuff.
“Lab guy says marker contained fluorescent compound.”
Vincent’s face hardened.
“Used commercially?”
“Yes.”
“Construction inventory tags.”
Audrey remembered something.
The delivery jacket.
Gray cap.
Logo.
Not coffee supplier.
She had seen it.
“Wait.”
Everyone looked at her.
“The man who bumped you.”
“What about him?”
“His jacket said Bellini Restoration.”
Silence.
Vincent’s face changed.
Mateo looked toward him.
“Boss.”
Audrey frowned.
“What?”
Vincent answered quietly.
“Bellini Restoration is owned by my cousin.”
That was the moment the coffee spill stopped being a lucky accident.
Because if the man marking Vincent Caruso for death had been wearing a company tied to his own family—
someone close enough to know his routine had not merely wanted him dead.
They had wanted the killing to look like it came from outside.
May you like
And Audrey Hale had ruined the plan before she even knew one existed.
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