Chapter 2: The Secret On Leo’s Phone
For 17 long seconds, no one in the library moved. The fire popped, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney, and the wind howled outside, rattling the leaded glass windows, but inside the stone walls of the Voss compound, time seemed to stand still. Victor’s grip on Leo’s phone was so tight his knuckles turned white, his dark eyes locked on Richard Voss, the man who’d been his mentor, his boss, his only family for half his life. He’d grown up in the foster system, bouncing from home to home until he was 20, when he’d gotten into a fight outside a bar in Queens and nearly killed a man who’d been beating his girlfriend. Richard had been there, seen the fight, and offered Victor a choice: go to jail for assault, or come work for him. Victor had chosen the latter, and for 15 years, he’d been loyal. He’d killed for Richard, he’d smuggled drugs and guns for Richard, he’d taken the fall for a crime he didn’t commit to keep Richard out of prison, and all of it had been a lie. The text glowing on Leo’s phone screen, sent from a number saved only as “R”, told him that.
“Wire transfer of the $2M to the Cayman account went through. Victor and Elena are in the library. Clean this up tonight, or we both go down.”
Victor read the text three times, his brain struggling to process what it meant. The waterfront development deal Richard had been pushing for months, the one that was supposed to turn the old warehouse in Jersey City into luxury apartments, was a front. They weren’t building apartments. They were building a smuggling hub, a place to bring in fentanyl from overseas, distribute it across the East Coast, and make billions of dollars. Victor had known the deal was off, that something was wrong, but he’d never imagined Richard would go behind his back, that he’d team up with Leo, of all people, to cut Victor out of the profits. Leo was a surgeon, for God’s sake. He’d spent his whole life saving people, not killing them, but the text told a different story. He’d been in on it from the start. He’d dated Elena not because he loved her, but because she was the only person who could get past the compound’s security, the only person Richard could use to lure Victor upstate, so they could kill him and Elena, make it look like a murder-suicide, and walk away with all the money.
Victor slowly stood up, tucking Leo’s phone into his own pocket, and turned to look at Elena. She was still sitting on the floor, his jacket wrapped around her shoulders, her eyes wide with fear, and his heart ached. He’d loved her for years, since the day he’d met her when she was 12, when Richard brought her home from foster care and she’d walked up to him, offered him a cookie she’d baked, and told him he looked like he needed a friend. No one had ever talked to him like that. No one had ever seen him as anything but the enforcer, the monster, but Elena had. He’d spent years pushing his feelings down, telling himself she was too young, that she was out of his league, that she deserved a normal life, a life far away from the darkness of the Voss family. But Richard and Leo had taken that away from her. They’d dragged her back into the mess, and they were going to pay for it.
“Richard,” Victor said, his voice low, steady, the voice he used when he was about to kill someone. “You want to tell me what this is about?” Richard stood up, his hands raised in surrender, a fake smile on his face. “Come on, Victor, that’s a mistake. Leo must have hacked my phone, or something-” “Don’t lie to me,” Victor shouted, slamming his fist on the table, making the remaining glasses rattle. “I’ve been by your side for 15 years. I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked me to do, and you repay me by trying to kill me? By using Elena to get to me?” The room erupted into chaos. Richard’s lieutenants stood up, reaching for the guns tucked into their waistbands, but Victor was faster. He pulled his own gun from his jacket, a 9mm Glock he’d carried since he was 22, and fired a shot into the ceiling, sending plaster raining down on everyone. “Anyone moves, and I put a bullet in their head,” he said, his voice cold. No one moved. They all knew he meant it.
Victor walked over to Elena, helped her stand up, and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to his side. She leaned into him, her body still trembling, and he could feel her tears soaking through his shirt. “We’re leaving,” he said, his gaze locked on Richard. “If you follow us, if you even try to come near us again, I will burn this whole compound to the ground. I will kill every last one of you. Don’t test me.” Richard nodded, his face pale, and Victor turned, leading Elena out of the library, out of the compound, and to his truck, a black Ford F-150 that was parked out front. He helped her into the passenger seat, buckled her seatbelt, and climbed into the driver’s seat, starting the engine and peeling out of the driveway, before anyone could stop them.
For the first hour of the drive back to New York City, no one spoke. Elena stared out the window, the trees blurring past, her mind racing, trying to process everything that had happened. The man she’d loved, the man she’d planned a future with, had used her. Her uncle, the man who’d been like a father to her, had tried to kill her. The only person who’d ever kept her safe was Victor, the man everyone feared. She turned to look at him, his hands tight on the steering wheel, his jaw clenched, and for the first time, she realized she’d been in love with him for years. She’d just been too scared to admit it, too scared to let herself feel anything for a man who was part of the world she’d spent so long running from. But in that moment, as they drove away from the only home she’d ever known, she realized the world had never been the problem. The people in it had been.
“Victor,” she said, her voice soft, breaking the silence. “What are we going to do?” He turned to look at her, his eyes softening for a second, before turning back to the road. “We’re going to go to my safe house in Queens,” he said. “No one knows about it. It’s the only place they won’t find us. We’ll lay low for a few days, figure out our next move. Richard has a lot of enemies. People who would love to get their hands on proof that he’s running a fentanyl ring. We can use that. We can give them the proof, take Richard down for good. And then we can be free.” Elena nodded, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “What about Leo?” she asked. Victor’s jaw tightened. “Leo will get what he deserves,” he said. “He used you. He tried to hurt you. No one gets away with that.”
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They pulled into the driveway of the safe house an hour later, a small, brick row house in Astoria, Queens, hidden between two bodegas, a place that blended in so well no one would ever suspect it was a safe house for a crime family enforcer. Victor helped Elena inside, showed her to the guest room, and told her to get some rest. He’d stay up, keep watch, make sure no one followed them. Elena nodded, but she couldn’t sleep. She changed into one of Victor’s old t-shirts, sat on the bed, and thought about everything that had happened. An hour later, she walked out into the living room, where Victor was sitting on the couch, staring at Leo’s phone, going through the texts, the emails, trying to find more proof of Richard’s plan. He looked up when she walked in, a soft smile on his face. “Can’t sleep?” he asked. She shook her head, sitting down next to him. “I can’t stop thinking about it,” she said. “How could I have been so stupid? How could I not see what they were doing?” Victor put his arm around her, pulling her close. “You’re not stupid,” he said. “You’re kind. You see the best in people. That’s not a flaw. That’s your greatest strength.”
They sat there for hours, talking, going through the phone, finding more and more proof of Richard and Leo’s plan. They’d been planning it for over a year. They’d scouted the warehouse in Jersey City, they’d set up the bank accounts in the Caymans, they’d even arranged for a team of hitmen to kill Victor and Elena at the compound. When Elena looked up at the clock, it was 5 a.m., the sun just starting to rise over the Queensboro Bridge, painting the sky pink and orange. She leaned into Victor, her head on his shoulder, and for the first time since the nightmare began, she felt safe. She felt like everything was going to be okay. But what neither of them knew was that Richard hadn’t given up. He’d tracked Victor’s truck. He knew exactly where they were. And he was sending his team of hitmen to the safe house to finish what they’d started. The real danger was only just beginning.
