Chapter 2 - The Shot in the DarkThe first gunshot exploded through the warehouse darkness.
Someone screamed.
Then the entire crowd moved at once.
Chairs scraped across concrete. Glass shattered. Men who had spent ten thousand dollars betting on blood suddenly discovered they were terrified of their own.
I dropped instinctively.
Travis dropped with me.
His massive arm wrapped around my shoulders and dragged me flat against the canvas.
“Stay down.”
Another shot cracked above us.
A bullet ripped through one of the hanging lights.
Sparks showered the ring.
“Who are they shooting at?” I whispered.
Travis stared toward Cole’s table.
“Not you.”
That should have made me feel better.
It didn’t.
A third gunshot thundered through the warehouse.
This time, somebody grunted.
Then Cole’s voice cut through the chaos.
“West door! Lock it!”
Emergency lights flickered red along the walls.
The warehouse changed from darkness to something worse.
Shadows.
Two hundred frightened faces.
Men running in every direction.
And Cole Maddox standing beside an overturned table with blood on his white shirt.
My chest tightened.
“Cole!”
He looked down.
The blood wasn’t his.
One of the men who had been sitting beside him was on the floor.
A bullet had entered just below his collarbone.
Cole knelt and pressed both hands against the wound.
“Call an ambulance.”
Nobody moved.
Cole looked up.
“I SAID CALL AN AMBULANCE!”
Suddenly everyone remembered their phones.
Travis climbed to his feet.
“Stay here.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Nora.”
“You told me to survive the second round. I’m guessing you weren’t talking about boxing.”
His jaw tightened.
Another man vaulted the ring barrier.
Cole’s security chief.
“Shooter exited through the loading bay.”
Cole stood.
“Find him.”
“Cameras went dead thirty seconds before the lights.”
Cole’s eyes snapped toward me.
Toward the bar.
Toward the empty place where Patrick had been standing.
Then he looked back at Travis.
“What did you tell her?”
“Not enough.”
Cole climbed into the ring.
I stepped toward him.
“What is happening?”
“Go home.”
I laughed once.
“You knew my father.”
His face went still.
“You knew him, Travis knew him, Patrick set me up to spill that wine, and someone just started shooting after Travis told me to survive.”
Cole lowered his voice.
“This isn’t the place.”
“It became the place when somebody shot at you.”
Travis shook his head.
“They weren’t shooting at Cole.”
We both looked at him.
Travis pointed toward the wounded man.
“That was Raymond Maddox’s chair.”
I froze.
Cole did too.
Raymond.
The name my father had whispered about in old conversations whenever he thought I wasn’t listening.
The man in the photograph.
Cole’s uncle.
I turned toward the table.
“Where is he?”
Cole’s expression changed.
Not anger.
Realization.
“He left before the fight.”
Travis cursed.
“Then somebody knew.”
“Knew what?”
Neither man answered.
I climbed out of the ring.
Cole grabbed my wrist.
The second his fingers touched the narrow scar there, he released me as though I had burned him.
I saw it.
Again.
Fear.
“You recognize this scar,” I said.
“No.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“Nora.”
“What happened beneath the red clock?”
Travis looked away.
That was answer enough.
Something had happened.
Something both men remembered.
And apparently it had something to do with me.
Sirens approached in the distance.
Cole leaned close.
“You need to leave before the police arrive.”
“Why?”
“Because if Raymond realizes what you know—”
“You just said his name.”
Cole stopped.
I watched the color drain from his face.
Travis muttered, “Too late.”
Cole took my shoulders.
“Listen carefully. Don’t go to your apartment.”
“My apartment?”
“Don’t call Patrick. Don’t answer blocked numbers. Don’t speak to anyone who says they knew your father.”
“Apparently that includes you.”
His eyes hardened.
“Yes.”
He released me.
Two of his guards escorted the wounded man toward the entrance.
I watched blood drip across the floor.
Then I noticed something near Cole’s overturned chair.
A brass shell casing.
I bent to pick it up.
Travis stopped me.
“Don’t touch it.”
There was writing scratched into the side.
Three tiny letters.
T.B.M.
My stomach turned.
“What does that mean?”
Cole looked at it.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he whispered, “Thomas Bennett Memorial.”
My father’s name.
I stared at him.
“Someone put my father’s initials on a bullet?”
Cole grabbed the casing with a handkerchief.
“Someone wanted us to know this shooting was about him.”
Us.
Not me.
Us.
The police sirens grew louder.
Cole looked toward Travis.
“Take her out through the east bay.”
“No.”
“Nora—”
“I’m done being moved around like furniture.”
“This is not a negotiation.”
“That’s funny. Four hours ago, you gave me ten seconds to choose dinner or a beating.”
His face tightened.
“You think that matters now?”
“It mattered to me.”
Something flickered in his eyes.
Shame, maybe.
But before he could answer, a security guard ran toward us.
“Mr. Maddox.”
Cole turned.
“We found Patrick.”
My pulse jumped.
“Where?”
The guard swallowed.
“Parking lot.”
Cole’s expression told me the answer before the man spoke.
“He’s been shot.”
We ran.
Patrick lay beside his car with his back against the rear tire.
Blood soaked the front of his shirt.
His breathing came in short, wet sounds.
“Patrick.”
I dropped beside him.
His eyes opened.
“Nora.”
“You idiot. What did you do?”
His mouth twitched.
“I was trying to fix it.”
Cole crouched beside me.
“Who shot you?”
Patrick’s eyes landed on him.
For the first time since I had known him, Patrick didn’t look afraid of Cole Maddox.
He looked afraid for him.
“Your uncle knows.”
Cole’s face hardened.
“Knows what?”
Patrick began coughing.
Blood touched his lips.
I grabbed his hand.
“Stay with me.”
“Nora.”
His fingers tightened around mine.
“I spilled the wine on purpose.”
“I know.”
“No.”
His eyes widened desperately.
“You don’t understand. I needed Cole to see your wrist.”
The world seemed to narrow.
“My scar?”
Patrick nodded.
“Your father told me if anything happened to him... if Raymond ever started the fights again... I was supposed to put you in front of Cole.”
“Why?”
“Because Cole would remember.”
“Remember what?”
Patrick looked at him.
Cole’s face had gone gray.
“The red clock,” Patrick whispered.
I felt Cole move beside me.
Patrick turned back to me.
“Your father didn’t die in a car accident.”
“I know that.”
“No.”
Patrick coughed again.
“He died saving three boys.”
I looked at Cole.
Then Travis.
Three boys.
My father’s photograph.
Three young fighters.
Cole.
Travis.
And someone else.
“Who was the third?”
Patrick’s eyes filled with terror.
“Your brother.”
I stopped breathing.
“I don’t have a brother.”
Patrick’s grip weakened.
“Yes... you do.”
Then his eyes closed.
“Patrick!”
Cole checked his pulse.
“He’s alive.”
An ambulance turned into the parking lot.
Paramedics rushed toward us.
I barely saw them.
One sentence kept repeating inside my head.
Your brother.
My father had trained three boys.
Cole.
Travis.
And a brother I had never known existed.
As the paramedics lifted Patrick onto a stretcher, his hand slipped from mine.
Something fell from his palm.
A small key.
I picked it up.
A red plastic tag was attached.
Number 12.
Cole stared at it.
Travis whispered, “Locker twelve.”
I looked between them.
“At my father’s gym?”
Cole nodded.
The abandoned Bennett Boxing Club had been closed since the week my father died.
I had not entered it in six years.
I stood.
“We’re going there.”
Cole immediately shook his head.
“No.”
“You don’t get to decide.”
“Raymond may be waiting.”
“Good.”
I started walking.
Cole grabbed my arm.
“If Raymond is involved, this is bigger than your father.”
I turned.
“That sentence is exactly why I’m going.”
Travis stepped beside me.
“So am I.”
Cole looked at him.
“You’re supposed to be working for me.”
Travis glanced toward the blood on the pavement.
“Tonight I’m working for Thomas.”
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Cole pulled out his phone.
“Get the car.”
Twenty minutes later, the three of us stood across the street from the building where my childhood had ended.
BENNETT BOXING CLUB.
Half the letters had fallen from the sign.
The windows were dusty.
The old red clock was still visible through the glass.
Frozen at 11:47.
The exact time my father had been declared dead.
Cole stood beside me.
His voice was barely audible.
“He made us promise never to come back.”
“Why?”
“Because what happened here started everything.”
I unlocked the side door.
The smell hit first.
Dust.
Old leather.
Sweat trapped in walls.
Memories.
I walked past the heavy bags my father used to make me punch until my wrists hurt.
Past the cracked mirror.
Past the ring where he taught me never to close my eyes when a fist was coming.
Locker twelve stood in the back hallway.
The key fit.
Inside was an old black duffel bag.
I opened it.
Photographs.
Ledgers.
A cassette recorder.
And a sealed envelope with my name across the front.
NORA.
My hands started shaking.
Cole stood behind me.
“Open it.”
I tore the envelope.
Inside was one sheet of paper.
My father’s handwriting.
Nora,
If you are reading this, Raymond has started again.
Trust the boys I trained.
Even when they give you reasons not to.
Especially Cole.
He will hate me for writing that.
I looked back.
Cole had stopped breathing.
I continued.
Your brother is alive.
His name is Michael.
Raymond took him because Michael saw what happened beneath the red clock.
And if Raymond discovers you know he survived, he will finish what he started six years ago.
Something moved behind us.
A floorboard creaked.
Travis spun.
Cole reached inside his jacket.
A man stepped from the darkness beneath the red clock.
Older.
Broad shoulders.
A scar across his jaw.
He looked straight at me.
May you like
Then he said the words I had waited my entire life to hear without ever knowing it.
“Hello, little sister.”
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