Chapter 3 - THE MECHANIC'S WORN CANVAS COAT
The silver key cut into my palm as my hands began to violently shake.
“My father?” I whispered, the words tasting foreign on my tongue. “My father died in a factory accident when I was two years old.”
“Your father died in a warehouse fire on the South Side,” Nico corrected, his voice heavy with a grief that mirrored my own. “He was my father’s most trusted mechanic. He was the only one allowed to touch the family cars.”
I scrambled backward, hitting the wine racks. The glass bottles rattled in the dark.
“No,” I stammered. “No, my mother would have told me.”
“Your mother hid you to keep you alive, Nora,” Nico said gently, closing the distance between us. “If the Commission found out Arthur Bennett’s wife and daughter were still in Chicago, they would have assumed you were complicit in the assassination. They would have wiped you out.”
“Assassination?” I gasped. “You think my father killed your parents?”
“The Commission thinks he did,” Nico said. “Because Arthur was the last person to touch the brakes on the car. And the night they died, Arthur vanished. His body was found three days later in a burned-out building.”
Tears blinded me. My father wasn't a factory worker. He was a mafia mechanic. And my mother had spent twenty-three years looking over her shoulder, carrying the terrifying weight of a framed man's legacy.
“That’s why Sloane took her,” Nico said, his mind working with terrifying speed. “Sloane’s family—the Whitmores—were rivals to my father. They brokered a peace treaty by offering Sloane to me in marriage. But Sloane knows Evelyn is still alive. And Evelyn is the only living witness who can prove the Whitmores paid someone else to cut those brakes.”
“We have to find her, Nico,” I cried, grabbing the lapels of his tuxedo jacket. “If Sloane thinks my mother has proof, she’s going to kill her tonight.”
“She won't kill her yet,” Nico promised, his hands covering mine. “Sloane needs to know where Evelyn hid the evidence. She’ll interrogate her first.”
Nico stood up, pulling me to my feet.
“This key,” Nico said, pointing to the silver key in my hand. “It opens a storage locker at the old Dearborn train station. My grandmother gave it to me tonight before Sloane could see. She said you found it in your mother’s hospital room last week.”
My stomach dropped.
“I didn't find it,” I realized, horrified. “I told Sloane about it. My mother had it taped to the underside of her hospital bed. I thought it was just a locker for her old teaching supplies. I mentioned it to Sloane when she was pretending to care about my mother’s recovery.”
Nico swore violently in Italian.
“Sloane isn't just interrogating your mother,” Nico realized. “She’s sending her men to the train station right now to destroy whatever is in that locker.”
He grabbed my hand. “Come with me.”
We didn't go back upstairs. Nico led me through a hidden door behind a massive wine cask, into a dark, subterranean tunnel that ran beneath the estate.
“My grandfather built these during Prohibition,” Nico explained as we ran. “It lets out three blocks away in a private garage.”
We emerged into a concrete bunker holding a sleek, blacked-out Audi. Nico tossed me his tuxedo jacket to cover my stained uniform, climbed into the driver’s seat, and fired the engine.
We tore through the midnight streets of Chicago, the city blurring into streaks of neon light.
“If Sloane’s men get to that locker first, my mother is dead,” I said, my voice cracking with panic.
“They won't,” Nico said, flooring the accelerator.
We arrived at the abandoned Dearborn station. It was dark, smelling of rust and old rain. Nico drew a heavy Glock from his shoulder holster, keeping me strictly behind him as we moved through the echoing terminal.
We found the bank of rusted storage lockers in the basement.
Locker 412.
My hands shook as I slid the silver key into the lock. It turned with a heavy click.
I pulled the metal door open.
Inside was a single object.
A heavy, grease-stained canvas coat.
It was a mechanic’s coat. The name Arthur was stitched over the breast pocket.
I pulled it out, burying my face in the fabric. Even after twenty-three years, it smelled faintly of motor oil and my childhood.
“Check the pockets, Nora,” Nico ordered softly, his eyes scanning the dark hallway.
I reached into the deep front pocket.
My fingers brushed against a piece of stiff cardboard.
I pulled it out.
It was a faded, punched train ticket. Dated the exact night Nico’s parents died.
Destination: Montreal.
“He was running,” I whispered.
But tucked behind the ticket was a folded piece of heavy parchment.
I opened it.
It was a bank transfer receipt. An offshore deposit of five million dollars, authorized to Arthur Bennett.
But the signature at the bottom wasn't Sloane’s father.
Nico leaned over, shining a small flashlight on the receipt.
His breath hitched. He staggered backward, hitting the metal lockers.
“Nico?” I panicked. “What is it? Whose signature is that?”
Nico looked at me, his dark eyes filled with absolute, devastating horror.
May you like
“It’s my grandmother’s,” Nico whispered.
TITLE: THE MATRIARCH'S BLOODY LEDGER
