Chapter 3 - A TRAITOR AT THE TABLE
Kell’s smile vanished almost as quickly as it appeared.
But Rafael had seen it.
That was enough.
“Who sent the photograph?” Rafael asked.
Diego checked the number.
“Encrypted relay. It bounced through three overseas servers.”
“Call Sofia.”
Diego did.
The call went unanswered.
He tried again.
Still nothing.
Rafael turned to Kell.
“You find something amusing?”
“My mouth is bleeding,” Kell said. “Maybe you saw my teeth.”
Rafael studied him.
Kell had been with the organization for thirteen years.
He had driven trucks when Rafael’s empire consisted of two warehouses and a loan no bank would acknowledge.
He had been shot outside a nightclub protecting Diego.
He had spent eight months in prison rather than give prosecutors Rafael’s name.
Loyalty like that created dangerous assumptions.
It made men believe the past could protect them from the present.
“Take him downstairs,” Rafael said.
Two men grabbed Kell’s arms.
He did not resist.
Before they reached the stairs, he glanced at Nate.
Not with anger.
Not exactly.
It was the look of a man measuring the size of an unexpected problem.
Rafael moved in front of him.
“If you look at the boy again, I’ll remove your eyes.”
Kell’s expression became blank.
“I understand.”
Rafael turned to Mara.
“Pack enough clothes for three days.”
“We’re not going anywhere.”
“You’re no longer safe here.”
“Because of you.”
“Because of the men pretending to work for me.”
“That is the same thing to people like us.”
Rafael accepted the accusation without defending himself.
Perhaps because he knew she was right.
“You can stay,” he said. “But if Kell has been selling my name, anyone connected to tonight may become leverage.”
Mara looked at Nate.
The decision was made before she spoke.
“Five minutes.”
Rafael waited in the hallway while she packed.
Diego stepped close.
“Do you believe Kell sent the picture?”
“I believe he knew it was coming.”
“Then why isn’t he dead?”
“Because a dead traitor answers no questions.”
“And a living one may send a warning.”
Rafael looked toward the stairwell.
“Search him twice.”
Downstairs, Kell was placed in the rear vehicle between two armed men.
Rafael rode in the first sedan with Mara and Nate.
The convoy pulled away from the curb.
Nate sat beside his mother, wrapped in a dry coat Diego had found in the trunk.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“A safe house,” Rafael said.
“Is it a house that is safe, or is that just the name?”
Rafael looked at him.
“It is safer than your apartment.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Mara placed a hand on Nate’s knee.
“Not now.”
Rafael turned toward the window.
“The walls are reinforced. The windows are bullet-resistant. There are men outside at all times.”
Nate considered this.
“So it’s both.”
“Yes.”
The convoy reached an old textile district near the river.
The safe house looked like an abandoned printing company from the outside.
Inside, it contained a medical room, several bedrooms, security monitors, and enough weapons to defend a city block.
Mara stared at the gun racks.
“I’m taking my son to a hotel.”
“No hotel can protect you tonight,” Rafael said.
“You think this can?”
“I know who built it.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“No place is completely safe.”
It was the first honest thing she believed.
Rafael assigned two guards to the hallway outside their room.
Then he descended to the basement.
Kell sat in a steel chair beneath a single overhead light.
His hands were uncuffed.
Rafael wanted him comfortable enough to talk.
Diego stood behind him.
On the table were Falcon Shield payroll records, photographs, shell-company registrations, and several unopened bank files.
Rafael placed Nate’s handwritten badge numbers in front of Kell.
“You used my security company to collect protection money.”
“No.”
“The boy identified you.”
“He is seven.”
“He remembered four badge numbers.”
“Children remember monsters under their beds too.”
Rafael leaned forward.
“If you mention that boy again with disrespect, I will forget we were ever friends.”
The word friends changed something in Kell’s face.
It exposed an old wound.
“You remember friendship now?” Kell asked.
Diego moved forward.
Rafael lifted a hand.
“Explain.”
Kell looked at the documents.
“You approved Falcon Shield.”
“For warehouse protection.”
“You signed the accounts.”
“Not these accounts.”
“Your signature is on everything.”
“Forged.”
Kell laughed once.
“Convenient.”
Rafael opened the first bank file.
More than four million dollars had moved through Falcon Shield during the previous eighteen months.
Payments came from laundromats, apartment buildings, neighborhood clinics, family restaurants, and small construction companies.
People without the influence to complain.
People whose fear would never reach Rafael’s dining table.
At the bottom of several transfers was a coded authorization.
KM-17.
Kell Mercer.
Seventeen was the number of the warehouse where he had begun working for Rafael.
“You were careless,” Diego said.
“No,” Kell replied. “Someone wanted it to look obvious.”
“Who?”
Kell looked at Rafael.
“You already decided.”
Rafael remained silent.
Kell leaned back.
“You hit me in front of a child, a nurse, and three men who report to me.”
“You humiliated yourself before I arrived.”
“You used to hear both sides.”
“I heard the side that climbed down a fire escape.”
Kell’s eyes hardened.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The great Rafael De Santos, protector of children. Defender of nurses. A man discovers morality after building an empire on graves.”
Diego struck Kell across the back of the head.
Kell barely reacted.
Rafael closed the file.
“Who photographed Sofia?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who is threatening my family?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who gave Falcon Shield permission to collect money?”
“I don’t know.”
Rafael stood.
“You have until sunrise to remember.”
As he turned away, Kell spoke.
“Ask yourself why the message came immediately after the boy named me.”
Rafael stopped.
Kell’s split lip curled slightly.
“Someone wanted you angry.”
“Someone succeeded.”
“No. Someone wanted you distracted.”
A gunshot cracked somewhere above them.
Then another.
The basement lights flickered.
An alarm began to scream.
Diego drew his weapon.
Rafael reached the stairwell just as one of his guards came stumbling through the door, blood pouring from his neck.
“They’re inside,” the guard gasped.
“Who?”
The man collapsed before answering.
Rafael looked toward the security monitor.
Every camera showed static.
Then a new image appeared across all twelve screens.
Sofia sat tied to a chair.
May you like
A man stood behind her wearing a silver mask.
And pressed against her throat was a knife.
