Chapter 3 - The Interrogation of ShadowsThe South Side warehouse sat near the edge of the Calumet River, surrounded by rusted shipping containers, overgrown weed lots, and the bleak, grey expanse of the water. Inside, the air smelled of damp concrete, old iron, and grease.
In a small, windowless office beneath the mezzanine floor, Marcus Reed sat tied to a heavy steel chair. His face was swollen, his crisp security suit torn and stained with dirt. He was breathing through his mouth, his chest heaving with terrified, erratic gasps.
The heavy iron door creaked open.
Victor Callaway stepped into the room, stepping over a puddle of murky water on the floor. He didn't carry a weapon. He didn't have his coat on anymore; he stood in his dark vest and white shirt, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
Behind him walked two broad-shouldered men who closed the door and stood against the concrete wall like statues.
Marcus looked up, his bloodshot eyes widening in sheer panic. “Victor... Victor, listen to me! It wasn't what it looked like! They forced me! Moretti had my son!”
Victor walked over to a wooden workbench in the corner, picked up a clean rag, and slowly wiped his hands. He didn't look at Marcus. His voice was low, almost conversational.
“You’ve worked for me for seven years, Marcus,” Victor said smoothly. “I paid your mortgage in Naperville. I sent your mother to the best cardiac unit in Mayo Clinic. I bought your son his first car when he turned sixteen.”
“Moretti... Moretti found out about the offshore accounts in Grand Cayman!” Marcus sobbed, his voice cracking into a desperate pitch. “He was going to give the records to Vance! I would have done twenty years in federal prison, Victor! I had no choice!”
“Everyone has a choice,” Victor said softly. He walked over and stood directly in front of Marcus, looking down at him with cold, dispassionate eyes. “You chose to put a dual-frequency charge under my car. You chose to risk my life, my home, and my staff.”
“It was supposed to be clean!” Marcus cried out. “No one else was supposed to be in the garage!”
“Emily Parker was in the garage,” Victor said.
Marcus blinked through his swollen eyelids, confusion flickering across his bloody face. “The... the maid? What does she have to do with anything? She’s nobody!”
Victor leaned down until his face was inches from Marcus’s ear. “That nobody is currently in the Intensive Care Unit at St. Matthew’s because of your bomb. And if her heart stops, Marcus, I am going to feed you to the river piece by piece.”
Before Marcus could answer, the iron door opened again. Dominic stepped inside, his expression dark, holding an encrypted phone to his ear. He looked at Victor and nodded once.
“We have Vance,” Dominic reported in a low whisper. “He’s in the main room. He didn't fight when the boys picked him up from his driveway. He knew why we were there.”
Victor stood up straight, smoothing his vest. He didn't give Marcus another glance as he stepped out of the small room and walked across the damp concrete floor of the main warehouse.
In the center of the open floor, sitting calmly on a folding wooden chair beneath a single hanging bulb, was Federal Agent Arthur Vance. He was fifty-five years old, with short grey hair, a wire-rimmed pair of glasses, and a thick tweed coat pulled tight over his suit. His hands were not tied. He was sipping water from a paper cup that one of Victor’s men had handed him.
When Victor approached, Vance set the paper cup on the floor beside his shoe.
“Callaway,” Vance said, his voice dry and steady. “I’d say it’s a pleasure, but your men didn't give me time to finish my morning coffee.”
“You’re alive, Vance,” Victor said, stopping five feet away. “That’s more courtesy than you’ve ever offered my people.”
Vance sighed, taking off his glasses and wiping them with his tie. “I heard about the explosion at your estate last night. I also heard Marcus Reed tried to take out your entire motorcade. I assume you brought me here to ask if I authorized the hit.”
“I know you didn't authorize it,” Victor replied flatly. “You’re a prosecutor, Vance. You like grand juries, search warrants, and wiretaps. You don't have the nerve for dynamite.”
Vance offered a bitter, half-smile. “Thank you for the vote of confidence.”
“I brought you here to ask about Emily Parker,” Victor said.
Vance’s hand froze for a fraction of a second as he put his glasses back on. He looked at Victor, the cynical edge in his eyes softening into something cold and sharp.
“Emily Parker,” Vance repeated slowly. “Is she alive?”
“Barely,” Victor said. “She took the blast from the guardhouse. She saved my life.”
Vance let out a long, slow breath, looking down at the concrete floor. He shook his head softly. “Of course she did. Her father was the same way. Stubborn to the end.”
Victor’s posture straightened, his eyes turning to flint. “So she was your asset.”
Vance looked up, meeting Victor’s gaze without fear. “No, Callaway. She wasn't my asset. She refused to be.”
Victor remained silent, waiting.
“Four years ago,” Vance explained, his voice echoing in the vast empty warehouse, “when her father died in prison, I approached her. I knew Thomas Parker was innocent—Sal Moretti framed him, and your father helped cover it up to protect the union contracts. I felt responsible for what happened to her family. I offered her a deal. I told her I could place her in your estate through a private domestic staffing firm. I told her if she gave me access to your study, if she copied your ledgers or gave me dates for your meetings, I would give her mother a federal pension and pay off her family’s debts in full.”
Victor felt a strange, tight knot form in his chest. “And what did she say?”
“She looked me in the eye,” Vance said softly, “and told me to go to hell.”
The warehouse went completely silent save for the distant hum of the river outside.
“She told me,” Vance continued, “that her father died with his honor intact because he refused to work for criminals or corrupt cops. She said she was going to earn her money cleanly, eleven dollars an hour at a time, without taking a dime from me or from you. She took the job at your house because it was the highest-paying domestic shift she could find in the city, and she needed the money for her mother’s medicine.”
Vance stood up slowly from the chair, facing Victor man-to-man.
“She stayed in your house for three years, Callaway. She cleaned your floors, she dusted your desk, and she never touched a single document. I had my agents watch her for six months thinking she would break, but she never did. She was clean. She was the only clean thing in your entire bloody world.”
Victor stood unmoving, the words settling into his chest like lead.
She wasn't a spy. She wasn't a plant. She wasn't an enemy.
She was just a girl who had scrubbed his floors, paid her mother’s bills, and decided that despite everything his family had done to hers, she would not let him die in a fire on a Thursday night.
“Where is Marcus?” Vance asked quietly.
Victor turned his back on the agent. “Dominic will drive you back to your home, Vance. Marcus Reed is inside that room. He belongs to the state now. Take him, charge him with the Moretti syndicate, and put them both away.”
May you like
Vance blinked in absolute shock. “You’re giving me Marcus? And Moretti’s line?”
“I’m giving you the man who tried to kill her,” Victor said, his voice dropping into a deep, resonant rumble as he pulled open the heavy warehouse doors, stepping back into the grey morning rain. “Take them all. Just keep her name out of the press.”
