Chapter 4 – THE BURNER PHONE
The penthouse felt like it had been plunged into an ice bath.
I stared at Vincent, the words echoing meaninglessly in my brain.
“Your father?” I whispered, my voice barely working. “Greg called the man who killed your father?”
Vincent stood perfectly still, but the air around him crackled with a lethal, terrifying energy. His father, Don Carlo Caruso, had been assassinated twelve years ago in a brutal drive-by shooting that had nearly torn the Chicago syndicate apart. The killer had never been found.
“Marco pulled the GPS data from the burner phone,” Vincent said, his voice a low, vibrating growl of suppressed violence. “Greg has been communicating with a man named Silas for the last three weeks. Silas is a freelance cleaner. He’s the man I’ve been hunting for twelve years.”
“I don’t understand,” I stammered, stepping backward, shaking my head. “Greg is a deadbeat. He’s a mechanic who couldn’t hold down a job. Why would he have the private number of an elite mafia hitman?”
“That is exactly what I intend to find out,” Vincent said coldly.
He reached for his suit jacket, shrugging it on with practiced, fluid motion.
“Where are you going?” I panicked, rushing toward him.
“To the warehouse,” Vincent replied, checking the heavy black handgun holstered beneath his jacket. “Greg is going to tell me exactly how he knows Silas, and then he is going to tell me where to find him.”
“Vincent, wait!” I pleaded, grabbing his arm. “You said Marco saved him from Marchand’s men. Greg was just attacked. He’s terrified. If you go in there like this, you’ll kill him before he can tell you anything!”
Vincent stopped, looking down at my hand gripping his sleeve. His eyes were completely black, consumed by a decades-old vengeance.
“He knows who murdered my father, Denise,” Vincent said softly, a terrifying promise in his tone. “He loses the right to my patience.”
“Let me talk to him,” I offered desperately, an idea forming in my panicked mind.
Vincent frowned, genuinely confused. “You?”
“He hates me, but he doesn’t fear me the way he fears you,” I reasoned rapidly. “If you walk in, he’ll clam up out of sheer terror. He’ll think you’re going to execute him anyway. But if I go in… if I offer him a deal to protect Lily… he might talk.”
“I am not letting you walk into an interrogation room with that animal,” Vincent snapped, immediately rejecting the idea.
“You won’t be letting me do anything alone,” I countered, my voice hardening. “You’ll be behind the two-way mirror. You’ll be listening. If he doesn’t talk to me in five minutes, you can do whatever you want. But give me a chance to get the truth without bloodshed.”
Vincent stared at me, his jaw clenched tight. He was a man accustomed to taking what he wanted by force. Trusting a civilian—a maid—to conduct a high-stakes interrogation was absurd.
But he looked at the fierce determination in my eyes, the same determination that had kept me and my daughter alive for twelve years.
“Five minutes,” Vincent finally agreed, his voice a low rumble. “Get your coat.”
The warehouse on 5th Street was a massive, desolate structure that smelled of old motor oil and damp concrete. Marco was waiting for us at the heavily guarded entrance, looking grim.
“He’s in the back room, Boss,” Marco reported, leading us through a maze of stacked shipping crates. “Marchand’s men broke three of his ribs before we breached. The medic patched him up, but he’s in rough shape.”
“Did he say anything about the phone?” Vincent asked.
“Nothing,” Marco grunted. “He’s terrified. Keeps asking for a lawyer like he’s in a police station.”
Marco opened a heavy steel door that led into a darkened observation room. A large two-way mirror overlooked a stark, concrete interrogation room.
Sitting in the center of the room, handcuffed to a metal table, was Greg.
He looked pathetic. His face was badly bruised, his lip split, and he was clutching his side in obvious pain. The arrogant blackmailer from the parking lot was completely gone, replaced by a broken, terrified coward.
I stood behind the glass, looking at the man who had abandoned me.
“Are you ready?” Vincent asked softly from the shadows beside me.
I took a deep breath, steeling my nerves.
“Yes.”
I walked out of the observation room and entered the interrogation room. The heavy steel door clicked shut behind me with a sickening thud.
Greg jumped at the sound, wincing in pain. He looked up, his eyes widening in shock when he saw me.
“Denise?” Greg gasped, his voice raspy and weak. “What are you doing here? Did you bring the police?”
I walked slowly to the metal table and sat in the chair opposite him. I didn’t yell. I didn’t cry. I looked at him with absolute, cold detachment.
“The police aren’t coming, Greg,” I said flatly. “You’re in a private facility owned by Vincent Caruso. The men who saved you from Senator Marchand’s goons are the same men who bury bodies in the foundation of this building.”
Greg paled, pulling weakly against the handcuffs. “Denise, please. You have to help me. I didn’t know what I was getting into. Marchand told me it was an easy shakedown!”
“I know about Senator Marchand,” I interrupted smoothly. “I don’t care about the Senator.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a photograph Marco had given me. It was a picture of the burner phone they had taken from Greg.
I slid it across the metal table.
“I care about the man you’ve been calling on this phone for three weeks,” I said, locking eyes with him. “Silas.”
Greg’s entire body went rigid. The terror in his eyes shifted from panic to a deep, primal horror.
“I… I don’t know who that is,” Greg stammered, looking away, sweat beading on his forehead. “I found that phone.”
“You’re lying,” I said, my voice unwavering. “And you’re out of time, Greg. Vincent Caruso is standing behind that mirror right now. He knows Silas murdered his father twelve years ago. If you don’t tell me exactly how you know a cartel hitman, Vincent is going to walk through that door, and you will not leave this room alive.”
Greg began to hyperventilate, his chest heaving painfully against his broken ribs.
“You don’t understand, Denise!” Greg wept, tears of sheer panic spilling down his bruised face. “If I tell you about Silas, he’ll kill me! He’ll kill me worse than Caruso ever could!”
“Silas isn’t here,” I said coldly. “Vincent is.”
I stood up, pretending to walk toward the door.
“Wait! Wait, please!” Greg screamed, terrified of being left alone with the monster behind the glass.
I stopped, turning back to him.
“Talk,” I commanded.
Greg swallowed hard, his eyes darting frantically around the concrete room.
“I didn’t know Silas twelve years ago,” Greg choked out, his voice a pathetic whisper. “I met him three weeks ago. In a bar on the South Side.”
“Why?” I demanded.
“He approached me!” Greg sobbed, desperation breaking him completely. “He bought me a drink. He knew everything about me. He knew about you. He knew about Lily.”
My blood ran cold. The hitman knew about Lily.
“What did he want?” I pressed, leaning over the table.
“He wanted me to cause a scene,” Greg confessed, refusing to look me in the eye. “Silas told me that Senator Marchand was looking for a stooge to extort Vincent Caruso using Lily’s scholarship. Silas told me to take the job. He told me to threaten you.”
I frowned, deeply confused. “Why would a hitman care about a political extortion plot?”
“He didn’t care about the extortion!” Greg cried, his voice cracking. “Silas just needed a distraction! He needed Senator Marchand to focus all his attention on the charity scandal, so Marchand wouldn’t notice what Silas was actually doing!”
“What was Silas doing?” I demanded, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Greg looked up at me, tears streaming down his face, delivering a truth that shattered everything I thought I knew about the night.
“Silas wasn’t hired by the Senator, Denise,” Greg whispered, terrified of the words leaving his mouth. “Silas was hired by Celeste.”
The room spun.
Celeste. The fiancée. The woman who had humiliated Lily just a few hours ago.
“Celeste hired the man who killed Vincent’s father?” I gasped, unable to process the magnitude of the betrayal.
“Yes!” Greg nodded frantically. “Celeste found out that her father, the Senator, was the one who actually ordered the hit on Don Caruso twelve years ago! Marchand used Silas to kill Vincent’s dad to weaken the syndicate so the politicians could seize control of the ports!”
Greg took a ragged breath, clutching his ribs.
“But Celeste didn’t care about the ports. When Vincent broke off the engagement tonight, she realized she was going to lose everything. So she called Silas.”
Greg looked directly at the two-way mirror, knowing exactly who was listening.
“Celeste hired Silas to assassinate her own father tonight, and frame Vincent for the murder. She’s using the chaos of the broken engagement as the perfect cover to inherit the Senator’s fortune and wipe out the Caruso family in one strike.”
Before I could even react to the horrific confession, the heavy steel door of the interrogation room was kicked open with explosive force.
Vincent Caruso stood in the doorway. He didn’t look like a man seeking answers anymore. He looked like the angel of death.
He didn’t look at Greg. He looked at Marco, who was standing right behind him.
“Where is Senator Marchand right now?” Vincent demanded, his voice a terrifying, vibrating rumble.
“He’s at his campaign headquarters downtown, Boss,” Marco reported quickly. “He’s holding a late-night strategy meeting.”
Vincent turned to me.
“Go back to the penthouse. Lock the doors.”
“Vincent, what are you going to do?” I asked, terrified by the absolute lack of mercy in his eyes.
“I am going to downtown Chicago,” Vincent said, racking the slide of his handgun with a lethal clack. “And I am going to save the life of the man who murdered my father.”
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