Chapter 4 - THE BRASS LUGGAGE TAG
Blair didn’t hesitate.
She ran into the living room and scooped Lily into her arms. The little girl gasped, dropping the wooden bird, but Blair didn’t have time to retrieve it.
“We’re playing a game, Lily,” Blair said, her voice shaking but her tone artificially light. “We have to be super quiet.”
“Where’s Daddy?” Lily whimpered, burying her face in Blair’s neck.
“He’s right behind us.”
Blair rushed to the service corridor, swiping the keycard Rocco had dropped. The heavy metal doors hissed open.
Behind them, the sound of splintering wood echoed through the penthouse. Shouting in German. Then, the deafening roar of Leo’s gun.
Blair flinched, pulling Lily tighter, and mashed the button for the basement.
The elevator began its agonizingly slow descent.
Blair looked down at the keys in her hand. The brass luggage tag gleamed under the fluorescent lights.
Locker 402. Union Station.
That was where the ledger was. The proof Leo needed to survive. The proof of why her father died.
The elevator dinged at the basement level.
Blair stepped out into the damp, concrete parking garage. Rocco had told them earlier that he parked a spare vehicle down here—a nondescript gray sedan.
She found it, strapped Lily into the backseat, and climbed behind the wheel.
Her hands were shaking so violently she could barely put the key in the ignition.
She backed out just as the stairwell door burst open. Two men in dark suits ran out, raising suppressed weapons.
Blair slammed the gas pedal.
The sedan fishtailed, tires screaming, as bullets sparked against the concrete pillars behind them. She burst through the security gate, shattering the wooden barrier, and merged recklessly into the midnight Chicago traffic.
She drove for twenty minutes, taking random turns, watching the rearview mirror.
No one was following them.
She pulled into the dark parking lot of an all-night diner.
She turned off the engine and rested her forehead against the steering wheel, gasping for air.
“Are we safe?” Lily asked from the backseat.
Blair turned around. Lily was clutching her knees, her blue eyes wide and terrified.
“We’re safe,” Blair promised, though she didn’t know if it was true. “I’m going to take care of you.”
She pulled out her cheap cell phone. It was at 12%.
She dialed the burner number Leo had used in the SUV.
It rang three times.
“Where are you?” Leo’s voice barked. He was breathing heavily, sirens wailing in the background.
Blair almost sobbed with relief. “A diner off 4th. Are you okay? Is Rocco—”
“Rocco is alive, but he took a bullet to the thigh. I left him at a clinic. I lost the Germans in the subway.” Leo paused. “Is Lily okay?”
“She’s right here. She’s safe.”
Leo let out a shuddering breath. “Okay. Listen to me, Blair. Dieter didn’t just give them the restaurant. He gave them everything. My safehouses, my bank accounts.”
“How did they find the penthouse?” Blair asked.
“Someone inside gave them the access codes,” Leo said grimly. “I can’t trust anyone in my organization right now.”
Blair looked down at the brass luggage tag.
“The ledger,” she said quietly. “It’s at Union Station. Locker 402.”
Silence on the other end. “How do you know that?”
“The keys you threw me.”
Leo cursed softly. “If they compromised my inner circle, they might know about the locker. Klaus will send men there to destroy it.”
“I’m closer to the station than you are,” Blair realized.
“No. Absolutely not,” Leo demanded. “You stay hidden. I’ll go.”
“If you walk into that station, they’ll recognize you immediately,” Blair argued, a strange, reckless courage bubbling up inside her. “They don't know my face. They only saw a waitress in a uniform. I’m wearing a coat now. I look like a commuter.”
“Blair, these men killed your father. They won't hesitate to kill you.”
“My father died trying to get you this ledger,” Blair said, her voice hardening. “I’m not letting his death mean nothing.”
Leo was silent for a long moment.
“Get the ledger,” he finally said. “But leave Lily in the car. Lock the doors. If you see anyone in a grey trench coat, you walk away. That’s Klaus’s personal detail.”
“I understand.”
Blair hung up.
She turned to Lily. “I have to run inside to get something for your dad. I’m going to lock the doors. You hide on the floorboard, okay? Don't make a sound.”
Lily nodded bravely, sliding down onto the floor mat.
Blair grabbed the keys and stepped out into the freezing rain.
Union Station was massive, echoing, and mostly empty at 2:00 AM. A few homeless people slept on benches. A janitor pushed a mop.
Blair kept her head down, walking briskly toward the locker banks in the West Wing.
Locker 402.
She slid the key into the lock. It turned with a heavy click.
She opened the metal door.
Inside sat a small, leather-bound book.
Blair reached for it, her fingers brushing the worn leather.
But as she pulled it out, a folded piece of paper fluttered to the ground.
She bent down and picked it up.
It was a photograph.
It showed Leo, younger, standing with his arm around another man. They were smiling.
But it wasn't the picture that made Blair’s blood run cold.
It was the man standing next to Leo.
It was the same doctor she had seen at the free clinic she took her cat to. The man who supposedly ran a charity.
But on the back of the photo, written in her father’s handwriting, were three words:
Klaus’s inside man.
Before Blair could process the betrayal, a heavy hand clamped down on her shoulder.
May you like
She spun around.
Standing behind her was a man in a grey trench coat.
