Chapter 3 Sal Greco

Jake’s truck was already in the lot. So was the Navigator. Jake met him at the side door.

“Hey. You good?” Jake clapped his shoulder. “Rafael’s inside. Just , be cool, alright? He’s in one of his moods.”

“When is he not.”

Rafael stood near the back office in a suit that cost more than Marcus made in two months, Sal Greco beside him and a man Marcus didn’t recognize.

“Marcus.” Rafael smiled , warm-looking, which was somehow worse. “Thank you for coming. I know it’s early. Hard week.”

“It has been.”

“Your father. Fifteen years he kept this family’s books. Never a mistake.” Rafael shook his head. “Which is why it’s a little strange , when my guys went by his house last night to collect his files, routine, closing out his accounts , your car was sitting right outside, and you were nowhere to be found.”

“I was there earlier. Looking through his things. Left to get dinner, lost track of time , you know how it is. House was locked when I got back, figured your guys had already been and gone, so I went home.”

Rafael nodded slowly. “Of course. Grief makes us all a little unmoored.” He stepped closer, hands in his pockets. “Did you find anything? Going through his things?”

“Just old stuff. Photos. Some of my mom’s things he kept. Nothing useful for you.”

“That’s exactly what I’m asking.” Rafael’s smile didn’t move, but something behind it recalculated. “Your father managed a great deal of sensitive paperwork for this family. Tax records, account statements , the kind of thing that, in the wrong hands, causes everyone a great deal of trouble. Right now, some of that paperwork is missing from where it should be.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“No,” Rafael agreed pleasantly. “I imagine you wouldn’t.” He circled, slow. “Your father was careful. If he found something , hypothetically , he wouldn’t leave it lying around for anyone to find. He’d send it somewhere only one person would know to look.” He stopped, looked straight at Marcus. “His son, for instance.”

“If my dad left me something, Rafael, I’d have found it by now. I went through that house top to bottom last night. There’s nothing there.”

Nobody moved. Then Rafael laughed , easy , and clapped Marcus on the shoulder, exactly like Jake had at the door, except it didn’t feel the same at all.

“Of course there isn’t. Forget I asked. Boring stuff, family paperwork.” He turned to Sal. “Get Marcus and Jake set up on the Henderson shipment. Light day.”

Just like that, the room reset. Sal peeled off toward the dock. The unnamed man disappeared into the office. Rafael walked away like the last five minutes hadn’t happened.

Jake fell in beside Marcus, low. “Dude. What was that?”

“Nothing. He’s just being Rafael.”

“Yeah, well , ‘being Rafael’ doesn’t usually involve asking that nicely. Normally if Rafael thinks someone’s got something of his, he doesn’t ask twice.”

They reached the dock. Marcus stopped dead.

The unnamed man was at the open bay doors, on his phone, back to them , looking out at the lot. At Marcus’s car.

Two more men were walking toward it. One of them held something small and black that caught the light.

Rafael hadn’t let it go. He’d just decided he didn’t need to ask Marcus anything else , because he was about to find out everything by following him home.

Marcus didn’t stop walking. Don’t turn your head, don’t give them anything to react to. He kept pace beside Jake toward the dock like he hadn’t seen a thing.

“You good?” Jake asked. “You went kinda pale.”

“Didn’t sleep. Gonna grab my phone charger, left it in the car. Back in a sec.”

He walked straight at the two men. Worse than them tracking his car was them tracking his car while he stood there pretending not to notice.

“Hey,” Marcus called out, easy, already reaching for his keys. “You guys need something? That’s my car.”

The stocky one in the gray jacket smiled without his eyes. “Just admiring it. Nice ride for a fixer.”

“My dad’s. Hand-me-down. Held together with duct tape and prayer.” Marcus slid into the driver’s seat. “You guys have a good one.”

He pulled out at a normal speed. Only once the warehouse disappeared behind a row of shuttered storefronts did he pull into a gas station, kill the engine, and breathe.

Then he got out and checked the car. Four minutes , a magnetic tracker, no bigger than a matchbox, tucked into the rear wheel well.

Rafael hadn’t believed a word he’d said. And men like Rafael didn’t install trackers out of curiosity. They installed them right before they needed to know exactly where someone was , fast, without warning.

Marcus left it exactly where it was.

He drove three miles the wrong way, ditched the car in a hospital garage, and took a bus toward Cicero , toward the safe, the music box.

Two texts came in on the ride.

The unknown number, first. ‘You went anyway. I figured you would. Are you safe?’

Then Jake. ‘Hey , you never came back for the charger. Rafael wants to know where you went. I covered for you but man, you gotta tell me what’s going on. This is starting to scare me.’

Marcus stared longest at Jake’s. Three years of friendship, two deployments, a hundred small kindnesses. You weren’t supposed to be able to fake that.

He typed back to the unknown number instead. ‘I’m safe. For now. I need to know who you are before I trust anything else you tell me.’

The reply took three minutes.

‘My name is Elena Reyes. I was your father’s doctor for the last six months , not his cardiologist. His psychiatrist. He came to me because he couldn’t sleep, said someone was watching the house. I treated him for anxiety. I should have realized it wasn’t anxiety. Marcus , I need to see you in person. There’s something about how he died the official report left out, and it changes everything you think you know about that music box.’

Dr. Reyes. Marcus knew the name , his own VA referral, eight months ago, the psychiatrist he’d seen exactly once. His father’s doctor and his own were the same person, and neither had ever mentioned it.

That wasn’t a coincidence. Nothing survived contact with men like Rafael as a coincidence.

‘Where and when?’

‘Coffee shop on Lincoln, near the VA. Tomorrow, 9 AM. Come alone , and don’t bring the music box. If what I think happened to your father is true, that box is the most dangerous object in Chicago, and the moment it’s in the same room as both of us, we become targets together.’

Two messages. Two timelines. Dr. Reyes wanted 9 AM, alone, without the box. Jake wanted answers tonight , because Rafael was asking.

In the next twelve hours, Marcus was going to have to choose which conversation he survived to have.

His phone buzzed a third time. Not Jake. Not Dr. Reyes.

The motel’s front desk.