Chapter 2 - THE SECOND CALL
The phone buzzed against Sadi’s palm.
Victor looked down at it.
She could not move.
Her knees were still on the marble outside his office, her hands wet with blood where the cracks in her skin had opened again.
The screen showed one message.
A photograph.
Sam.
Her sixteen-year-old brother lay asleep in his hospital bed at St. Jude’s, pale beneath a blue blanket, an IV line taped to his arm.
In the lower corner of the photograph stood a man’s shoe.
Black leather.
Too close to the bed.
Underneath:
FORTY-SEVEN MINUTES.
Sadi made a sound that was barely a breath.
Victor’s expression changed.
“Who sent that?”
She shook her head.
Not because she did not know.
Because fear had become physical.
A pressure around her throat.
A command her body obeyed before her mind.
Victor crouched.
The pistol disappeared behind his back as he slid it into the waistband at the base of his spine.
He did not reach for her.
Good.
Men had been deciding what happened to Sadi for months.
The hospital.
The lender.
The estate.
Bills arrived with instructions.
Debt arrived with instructions.
She could not survive another pair of hands making choices for her.
Victor’s voice lowered.
“Sadi.”
She looked up.
He knew her name.
That surprised her enough to break through the panic.
“What?”
“Who is threatening your brother?”
Her eyes filled.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because he’ll hurt Sam.”
“He already threatened to.”
“You don’t understand.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“Then explain it.”
“I borrowed money.”
“How much?”
She closed her eyes.
“Sixty thousand.”
“For treatment?”
“Yes.”
“From who?”
No answer.
Victor stood slowly.
Behind him, three men remained inside the office.
He looked over his shoulder.
“Out.”
Nobody argued.
The room emptied.
One man paused.
“Boss—”
“Now.”
The door closed.
Victor looked back at Sadi.
“No audience.”
Her phone buzzed again.
FORTY-SIX.
She started crying harder.
“I need twenty thousand.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
She stared at the floor.
“Mick O’Shea.”
For the first time, Victor looked genuinely surprised.
Not afraid.
Angry.
“You borrowed from O’Shea?”
“I didn’t know who he was.”
“When?”
“Five months ago.”
“Where?”
“A lending office in Cicero.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“What name?”
“Lakefront Emergency Finance.”
His mouth hardened.
“That office is supposed to be closed.”
Sadi laughed through tears.
“Apparently not.”
“What did you sign?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nothing?”
“I signed papers.”
“What papers?”
“They gave me sixty thousand cash within two days.”
Victor stared at her.
Cash.
Not a hospital loan.
Not charity.
Not legal consumer lending.
Something else.
“How much have you repaid?”
“Forty.”
His eyes sharpened.
“And he says you owe twenty?”
“Yes.”
“Then principal is almost cleared.”
“No.”
She laughed again.
A terrible sound.
“He says I still owe seventy-eight.”
Victor went still.
“Interest?”
“Fees. late charges. security fees. collection fees. I don’t know.”
“Do you have the contract?”
“At home.”
“Good.”
“What?”
“Evidence.”
She stared.
That was not the word she expected from him.
Victor Costello had a reputation in Chicago.
People said he solved problems in rooms with no windows.
They said contracts became irrelevant when he entered a conversation.
They said men disappeared.
Sadi had never known which stories were true.
Now he was saying evidence.
Her phone buzzed.
A call.
Mick.
She almost dropped it.
Victor held out one hand.
“Speaker.”
“No.”
“Sadi.”
“If he hears you—”
“He won’t.”
“How?”
Victor pointed toward the office.
“Desk.”
“What?”
“Set the phone on the desk. Answer normally. I listen.”
She shook her head.
“I can’t.”
“You can refuse.”
That stopped her.
Not an order.
Choice.
Forty-five minutes.
Sam.
She stood.
Her knees almost failed.
Victor stepped forward, then stopped before touching her.
“Can I help you?”
The question nearly broke her worse than the threat.
She nodded.
He held her right elbow, not the injured hands, and helped her stand.
Inside the office, she placed the burner phone on the mahogany desk.
Victor moved to the side.
She answered.
“Mick?”
“Sadi, darling.”
His voice was cheerful.
She hated cheerful men.
“I’m getting it.”
“Good.”
“Sam is sick.”
“I know.”
“Please get Declan away from him.”
“Payment first.”
“How do I send it?”
A pause.
“Cash.”
“Where?”
“You’ll get an address.”
“I don’t have twenty thousand.”
Victor’s face did not move.
Mick laughed.
“Then ask your employer.”
Sadi stopped breathing.
Victor’s eyes sharpened.
“What?”
“You work for a generous man.”
“I don’t—”
“You clean Victor Costello’s house, sweetheart. Don’t insult me.”
Her stomach dropped.
He knew.
Of course he knew.
That meant the debt had never been private.
“How long have you known?”
“Long enough.”
“Did you lend me because of where I work?”
Silence.
Then:
“You had collateral.”
Sadi looked at Victor.
He understood too.
Not her car.
Not her nonexistent savings.
Access.
“Did you want information from the estate?”
Mick’s tone changed.
“Careful.”
There.
She had touched the real thing.
“I didn’t give you anything.”
“No. You’ve been disappointingly honest.”
Victor’s expression changed at that.
Mick continued.
“But desperate people become useful eventually.”
Sadi’s blood went cold.
“What do you want?”
“Tonight? Twenty thousand.”
“And after?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether Mr. Costello keeps making enemies.”
Victor’s face became stone.
The phone line crackled.
Then Mick said:
“Forty minutes.”
He hung up.
Sadi stared at the phone.
Victor did not speak for several seconds.
Then:
“Your brother is not collateral.”
“I know.”
“No. I mean legally. Practically. In every way that matters.”
She laughed bitterly.
“You think Mick cares?”
“No.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Call the hospital.”
Her head snapped up.
“No.”
“Sadi.”
“He said the machines—”
“I heard him.”
“If he sees security—”
“He already has a man inside.”
Her heart stopped.
Victor continued.
“That means doing nothing is not safety.”
She knew that.
Hated that.
“What do we tell them?”
“The truth.”
Again.
That word.
Victor picked up his office phone.
Then paused.
“Do you want me to call?”
Sadi stared.
“Yes.”
He called St. Jude’s security desk.
Not a private Moretti contact.
The hospital.
Then police.
He identified himself.
That caused its own silence on the other end.
Victor said:
“A patient named Samuel Hayes may be under threat from a man currently inside your oncology wing. Do not alarm the room. Notify your security supervisor and Chicago police. The patient’s sister is here with me.”
Sadi closed her eyes.
No mention of mafia.
No order.
Just information.
Hospital security asked questions.
Description?
None.
Possible name Declan O’Shea.
Threat to equipment.
They immediately contacted the nursing supervisor.
Sadi whispered:
“Tell them not to leave Sam alone.”
Victor did.
The nurse confirmed Sam was asleep.
His monitors were functioning.
A man had been seen earlier near the family lounge asking which room belonged to “the Hayes kid.”
Security was checking cameras.
Sadi gripped the desk.
Victor looked at her hands.
Blood on the polished wood.
She pulled away instinctively.
“Sorry.”
His expression changed.
“For what?”
“The desk.”
“Sadi.”
He looked at the blood.
“Wood cleans.”
The sentence almost made her laugh.
He found a first-aid kit in a cabinet.
“Sit.”
She stared.
“Can I clean your hands?”
She nodded.
He poured saline over the cracks.
Gentle.
No disgust.
No comment about how ugly industrial bleach had made them.
“Why are you doing this?”
He looked up.
“Because they’re bleeding.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know.”
He wrapped gauze around two knuckles.
Then his phone rang.
One of his men.
Victor answered.
“Talk.”
Pause.
His face hardened.
“Where?”
Another pause.
“Do not touch him.”
Sadi’s heart stopped.
“Who?”
Victor covered the phone.
“My security team found the Lakefront office.”
She stared.
“You sent them?”
“Yes.”
“You said police.”
“I called police about Sam.”
“And your men?”
“To observe the lender.”
There it was.
The other world.
“Observe?”
“Yes.”
“Only observe?”
Victor held her gaze.
“Yes.”
She believed him.
Mostly.
He returned to the call.
“Photograph vehicles. license plates. no contact.”
Then ended it.
“You’re going to hurt Mick.”
“No.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
The answer surprised her.
Victor leaned against the desk.
“I have hurt men before.”
Not rumor now.
Fact.
“But tonight, if I touch O’Shea privately, your brother remains vulnerable and the debt records can disappear.”
Sadi said nothing.
“So we preserve evidence.”
“Why?”
“Because fear solves one night. Records can solve a network.”
That sentence did not sound like the man newspapers described.
Maybe newspapers knew a version.
Maybe he was changing.
Maybe he was simply being strategic.
She did not need to decide yet.
His office phone rang.
Hospital.
Victor put it on speaker.
Security chief.
“We located the man.”
Sadi stopped breathing.
“He entered the oncology floor using a visitor pass under the name Declan Shea. He is being detained by CPD.”
Her knees weakened.
“Sam?”
The chief answered:
“Safe. Nurse is with him. No equipment tampered with.”
Sadi covered her mouth.
A sob escaped.
Victor closed his eyes.
For the first time that night, relief entered the room.
Then the hospital security chief added:
“There’s something else.”
“What?” Victor asked.
“The visitor had a photograph of Ms. Hayes.”
Sadi stared at the phone.
“And?”
“A printout of employee access schedules for the Costello estate.”
Victor went completely still.
Sadi looked at him.
She did not understand.
He did.
Mick had not targeted her only because she was desperate.
Someone had given him her schedule.
Someone inside Victor’s house.
May you like
The debt was not just a trap around Sam.
It was a door into the estate.
