Chapter 2 - The Face in the GlassThe woman in the photograph was smiling. She had dark hair pulled back into a severe knot, high cheekbones, and sharp, intelligent eyes that looked straight through the camera lens.
It was a picture of Nula’s mother, taken fifteen years ago outside a federal courthouse in downtown Chicago.
Nula’s knees buckled slightly, forcing her to lean one hand against the mahogany desk to steady herself. Her mother had died—or so Nula had been told—in a hit-and-run accident on the south side when Nula was twelve years old. The police file had been brief, the investigation closed within a week due to a lack of witnesses, and the grief had been something Nula and her father spent a decade burying beneath grueling work and mounting medical debt.
Yet here, locked inside a secret compartment in the office of Chicago’s most feared syndicate boss, was a pristine, professionally developed photograph of her mother.
Why?
The question echoed in her mind like a physical blow. What connection could Andrew Callahan—a man who ruled the docks and laundered millions through cash-only fronts—possibly have with a quiet, working-class woman who had supposedly died in an alley twenty blocks from their apartment?
Before Nula could process the timeline or formulate an escape plan, the heavy brass handle of the office door turned.
Heavy, measured footsteps echoed across the parquet floor.
Panic, cold and sharp, flooded her veins. She dropped the photograph back into the hidden compartment, shoved the wooden panel shut with the heel of her hand, and snatched up her feather duster just as Andrew stepped back into the office.
He had shed his suit jacket, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her still standing beside the desk.
“I thought I told you to go home, Nula,” Andrew said, his voice dropping an octave into that dangerous, flat register that made even hardened syndicate capos swallow hard.
Nula gripped the handle of her duster so tightly her knuckles turned white. She forced her voice to remain steady, though her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
“I dropped my cleaning spray behind the cabinet, Mr. Callahan. I was just retrieving it.”
Andrew’s eyes narrowed. He looked at her face, reading her micro-expressions with the terrifying precision of a man who evaluated liars for a living. He took two slow steps toward her, closing the distance until she could feel the heat radiating off him.
“You’re shaking,” he noted quietly.
“It’s drafty in this room,” she lied, refusing to break eye contact, though her soul screamed for retreat.
Andrew stared at her for three agonizingly long seconds. He didn't believe her story about the cleaning spray. But instead of calling her bluff or demanding answers, he simply reached past her, his fingers brushing the edge of the wainscoting exactly where the hidden compartment was located.
“Chicago winters,” Andrew said softly, his face inches from hers, “have a way of letting the cold into places it doesn't belong.”
He pulled his hand back, stepping away. “Go home, Nula. Take your pay from the kitchen envelope, and don't come back until Monday.”
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Nula didn't argue. She grabbed her caddy, turned on her heel, and walked out of the office, her mind racing through a labyrinth of terror and unanswered questions.
She had found the secret. But she had no idea that walking out of that room was only the first step into a trap Andrew Callahan had been setting for six long years.
