Chapter 2
I showed Rick the photo.
His face changed before he even read the message.
Not fear.
Recognition.
That scared me more.
“Who sent this?” I asked.
Rick took my phone and zoomed in on the image.
The angle came from across the street, near the parking lot behind the seafood place.
A person had been watching through the front window.
Watching me.
Watching Bradley.
Watching the whole thing unfold.
“I don’t know,” Rick said.
But his voice had gone careful.
Too careful.
I had worked in bars long enough to hear a lie before it grew legs.
“You know something.”
Rick looked toward the door Bradley had slammed through.
“Bradley’s father is Martin Vale.”
“I know.”
Everyone in Miami nightlife knew Martin Vale.
Hotels.
Clubs.
Liquor distribution.
Private security.
Enough money to buy silence before the first scream.
Rick lowered his voice.
“Martin doesn’t just do business. He collects ownership without names on paper.”
My stomach tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“It means Bradley doesn’t threaten unless someone bigger taught him how.”
Devin, my manager, stood nearby, wringing a towel in both hands.
“We should close early.”
Rick nodded.
“Lock the front. Staff only. Nobody leaves alone.”
The bar groaned when last call came early, but one look at Rick’s face stopped most arguments.
I cleaned my station on autopilot.
Cash still lay where Bradley had thrown it.
I refused to touch it.
Rick gathered it with gloves and dropped it into an evidence bag from his office.
“You keep evidence bags at a bar?” I asked.
He looked at me.
“I used to be a cop.”
I blinked.
“You never told me that.”
“You never asked.”
“Rick.”
He sighed.
“Internal affairs. Fifteen years. Then I testified against the wrong people and bought a bar where the biggest crime was supposed to be watered-down rum.”
Supposed to be.
There was that feeling again.
The floor shifting.
My phone buzzed a second time.
Another photo.
This one was of my apartment building.
My front door.
The message said:
Nice place.
My chest went cold.
Rick saw my face and reached for his own phone.
“You’re not going home.”
“I have to. My sister’s there.”
Rick froze.
“Sister?”
“My little sister, Maya. She’s seventeen. She stays with me on weekends.”
I called her.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
My hands started shaking.
The third call connected.
Maya whispered, “Chloe?”
“Are you okay?”
“I think someone’s outside.”
Everything inside me went silent.
“Lock the bathroom door. Now.”
“I’m already in it.”
Good girl.
“Stay on the phone.”
Rick was already moving.
“Devin, call 911. Now.”
We ran to Rick’s truck.
The city blurred past the windows.
Maya stayed on the line, breathing too fast.
“I heard someone try the handle,” she whispered. “Then they laughed.”
“Don’t open anything.”
“I won’t.”
I heard a bang through the phone.
Maya gasped.
Rick pressed harder on the gas.
“Two minutes,” he said.
Another bang.
Then a male voice from the hallway outside my apartment.
“Come on out, sweetheart. Your sister owes an apology.”
My blood turned to fire.
Rick grabbed my arm before I could jump from the truck at the curb.
“Think.”
“I am thinking.”
“No. You’re feeling. Let me go first.”
We reached my floor at the same time police sirens wailed outside.
Two men stood by my apartment door.
One held a crowbar.
The other held a phone.
Recording.
Rick drew his pistol from under his jacket.
“Drop it.”
Both men froze.
The one with the crowbar smiled.
“Rick Dawson. Heard you got soft.”
Rick’s eyes narrowed.
“Eddie.”
My stomach dropped.
This was not random.
May you like
This was someone from Rick’s old life.
And now he was standing outside mine.
