Chapter 3 - THE TRAITOR AT MY TABLEThe front doors locked at 4:26 a.m.
Nobody complained until they realized I meant it.
Antonio Vega was first.
“You think we're prisoners?”
“Temporarily.”
“I'm not staying locked in your restaurant like some suspect.”
“You are a suspect.”
The silence after that sentence could have cracked glass.
Vincent Marconi sat at the end of the dining table surrounded by twelve men who had spent years discussing ways to destroy him.
He seemed entertained.
“If any of you want to shoot me,” he said, “I recommend waiting until Julian finishes questioning you.”
Antonio glared at him.
“Keep talking.”
“Antonio.”
One word from me stopped him.
I connected Evelyn's flash drive to the private television.
Images appeared.
Fake shipping manifests.
Routes.
Dock numbers.
Millions in unauthorized transactions.
Every Cross division had its own internal code.
Southside Construction.
Lakefront Hospitality.
Cross Freight.
Cross Security.
One authorization pattern appeared more than the rest.
Marcus Vale's security division.
Marcus stared at the screen.
“No.”
Nobody spoke.
He stepped closer.
“Those codes belong to my department, but fifty people can access them.”
“Seventeen,” I corrected.
He looked at me.
“You already checked?”
“I built the system.”
His expression hardened.
“You think it's me?”
“I think Evelyn did.”
That hurt him.
I saw it immediately.
Marcus had known Evelyn almost as long as I had.
They fought constantly.
He called her Spreadsheet.
She called him Neanderthal.
Three Christmases earlier she had spent two days helping his daughter apply for college without ever mentioning it to anyone.
“No,” Marcus repeated. “She would've asked me.”
“Maybe she did.”
I opened her notebook.
One entry had been underlined.
M.V. unaware or pretending? Find original personnel file.
Marcus read it.
His face drained.
Antonio made a satisfied sound.
“Interesting.”
Marcus lunged.
I stepped between them.
“Sit down.”
He looked ready to argue.
Then obeyed.
Vincent tapped his cane lightly.
“My nephew discovered your routes were being used because some shipments entered Marconi territory.”
“Why didn't he tell you immediately?”
“He doesn't tell me many things.”
“Why help Evelyn?”
Vincent's expression changed.
“They were seeing each other.”
That surprised me.
Marcus actually blinked.
“Evelyn and Luca?”
“For eight months.”
I thought back through every late meeting.
Every unexplained dinner.
Every time Evelyn said she had “plans.”
It was almost funny.
Almost.
“She hid it because she knew what our organizations would make of it,” Vincent said.
He was right.
Some men treated love like a diplomatic crisis.
“Luca found discrepancies. Evelyn started investigating. They thought someone in both organizations was profiting.”
“Both?”
Vincent nodded.
“There are Marconi signatures too.”
That changed everything.
This wasn't a traitor inside my organization working alone.
It was a partnership.
Someone had been feeding from both sides.
I looked around the table.
“Phones.”
Nobody moved.
“Put them on the table.”
One by one, they did.
Antonio protested.
Vincent smirked.
Marcus silently placed his phone down.
I had a technician pull call histories from company devices.
At 2:03 a.m., three minutes after I gave the order not to retaliate, one number inside the restaurant had called a prepaid phone.
Twenty-eight minutes later, Luca Marconi was shot.
The company phone belonged to Thomas Reed.
My chief financial officer.
Thomas was fifty-six.
Quiet.
Married.
Two grandchildren.
He had worked for me for thirteen years.
When everyone looked toward him, he laughed.
“This is absurd.”
“Unlock your phone,” I said.
“Julian.”
“Unlock it.”
His hands shook.
Barely.
But I saw it.
“That's private.”
Marcus stood.
“Wrong answer.”
Thomas pushed his chair backward.
I nodded toward my technician.
He searched the device.
Deleted messages.
Encrypted applications.
Nothing immediate.
Then he found a photograph taken one week earlier.
Evelyn leaving Cross Tower.
From above.
Someone had been watching her.
Thomas shook his head.
“I didn't take that.”
“No,” I said. “But somebody sent it to you.”
“I receive hundreds—”
“Who sent it?”
“I don't know.”
“Thomas.”
He looked at me.
Thirteen years of trust sat between us.
“This is your last chance.”
His shoulders dropped.
“I was being threatened.”
“By whom?”
“I don't know his real name.”
Antonio laughed.
“How convenient.”
Thomas ignored him.
“Three years ago, someone contacted me. They had evidence about my son.”
“What evidence?”
“He'd been gambling. Owed people money. He changed invoices to cover debts.”
“And you hid it.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“What did they make you do?”
“Approve payments. Create companies.”
“Move weapons?”
“I never knew what was inside the shipments.”
I believed that part.
Maybe.
“Who?”
“I only knew him as Bishop.”
Vincent stopped tapping his cane.
I noticed.
“You know the name.”
He leaned back.
“A rumor.”
“What rumor?”
“Bishop is supposed to be a broker. Not mafia. Not police. Someone who buys people instead of killing them.”
Thomas whispered, “He knows everything about everyone.”
I thought of Evelyn.
“Did he order you to watch her?”
“Yes.”
“And Luca?”
“I gave Bishop his location.”
Vincent rose.
Thomas recoiled.
I stepped in front of Vincent.
“Sit down.”
“He handed my nephew to a killer.”
“And killing Thomas tells us nothing.”
Vincent's eyes burned.
For several seconds, I expected him to ignore me.
Then he sat.
Thomas began crying quietly.
Not loudly.
That made it worse.
“Where does Bishop contact you?”
“Different places.”
“Last one.”
“A locker.”
My hand went to the brass key.
“What number?”
Thomas looked confused.
“Union Station. Locker 417.”
Every instinct sharpened.
Evelyn had gotten there first.
By dawn, Union Station was waking.
Commuters moved through the great hall carrying coffee and luggage while Marcus, Vincent, Detective Monroe, and I descended toward a row of old secured storage lockers.
Monroe hated our unofficial alliance.
“I want it noted that I advised all three of you not to touch anything.”
“Noted,” Vincent said.
She glared.
Locker 417 opened with Evelyn's key.
Inside was a cheap canvas bag.
One phone.
One ledger.
One envelope.
The envelope had my name on it.
I opened it.
Inside was a photograph taken nineteen years ago.
My father.
Alexander Cross.
Standing beside three men.
One was Vincent's older brother, who had died in prison.
The second was a retired Chicago judge.
The third was someone I had not seen since I was twenty-two.
My father's accountant.
Samuel Kessler.
Officially, Samuel died in a boating accident seventeen years ago.
Evelyn had written beneath his face:
BISHOP?
I turned the photograph over.
Another sentence.
JULIAN, YOUR FATHER DIDN'T DIE THE WAY YOU WERE TOLD.
Everything around me disappeared.
The station.
The voices.
The footsteps.
My father died when a car exploded outside one of his clubs.
Police blamed Vincent's organization.
That death had started the original Cross-Marconi war.
A war that lasted eleven years.
Thirty-four men died.
Five civilians too.
Families were destroyed.
Businesses burned.
And apparently the story beneath all of it was a lie.
The phone inside the locker rang.
Every person froze.
I answered.
“Julian.”
The voice was electronically distorted.
“You finally learned to ask questions.”
“Bishop.”
A soft laugh.
“Your father never did.”
“What do you want?”
“You already gave me what I wanted.”
“What?”
“Peace.”
The line disconnected.
Marcus frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
I looked toward Vincent.
“Yes, it does.”
Bishop had spent years making both organizations violent, paranoid, profitable.
If we stopped fighting, his operation might be exposed.
Evelyn had discovered that.
So he'd tried to restart a war.
I looked at Monroe.
“Can you trace it?”
She was already dialing.
“We'll try.”
Then the station erupted with shouting.
People ran.
A man in a baseball cap sprinted toward the stairs.
Marcus chased him.
I followed.
The stranger shoved through commuters, reached the street, and jumped into a waiting sedan.
Marcus grabbed the rear door.
The car accelerated.
He fell.
I reached him as the vehicle vanished into traffic.
Something had dropped from the stranger's coat.
A photograph.
I picked it up.
It showed Evelyn asleep in her hospital bed.
Taken less than thirty minutes earlier.
On the back:
YOU SHOULD HAVE STARTED THE WAR.
I called the hospital.
No answer from the security desk.
Then Marcus's phone rang.
His daughter.
He answered.
“Dad?”
Her voice was shaking badly enough that I could hear it.
“There's a man outside our house.”
Marcus went still.
“What man?”
“He says he has a message for Mr. Cross.”
Marcus looked at me.
For the first time, Bishop had stopped manipulating businesses.
Now he was targeting families.
May you like
And that meant my six-word order had done exactly what I hoped.
It had frightened him.
Related Stories
