Chapter 2 - THE FADED SIGNATURE

The ride to Sophia’s apartment was a blur of screeching tires and deafening silence.

Sophia sat in the back of the armored SUV, her hands clamped tightly over her mouth to muffle her own sobs. Adrian sat beside her, radiating a cold, lethal energy that seemed to lower the temperature in the vehicle. He didn’t offer empty reassurances. He didn’t tell her it would be fine. He simply loaded a matte-black handgun with terrifying precision.

“Who has the watch?” Adrian asked, his voice cutting through the dark cabin of the car.

Sophia looked at him, her vision blurred with tears. “What?”

“The silver pocket watch in the photo,” Adrian clarified, his eyes sharp. “Who keeps it?”

“It was my dad’s,” Sophia choked out, gripping her phone. “When he died, I put it in a shoebox under my bed. I never touch it. Leo knows he’s never supposed to touch it. Whoever took that photo had to dig through my room to find it.”

Adrian’s jaw tightened. “They didn’t just find it. They positioned it. It’s a message.”

The SUV slammed to a halt in front of Sophia’s modest brick apartment building. Before the vehicle was even fully parked, Marcus and three other heavily armed men poured out, securing the perimeter. Adrian grabbed Sophia’s arm, keeping her close behind him as they moved up the narrow, dimly lit stairwell to the third floor.

The door to apartment 3B was slightly ajar.

The wood around the deadbolt was splintered.

Sophia tried to push past Adrian, a feral, maternal panic taking over, but Adrian’s strong arm held her back. “Wait,” he commanded softly.

He pushed the door open with his foot, his weapon drawn.

The apartment was wrecked. Bookshelves were overturned, the sofa cushions were slashed, and flour from the kitchen coated the cheap linoleum floor. But the living room was empty. There was no man. And there was no tied-up child.

“Leo!” Sophia screamed, fighting past Adrian and rushing into the wreckage. “Leo, where are you?!”

She ran into the kitchen. On the floor lay Sarah, the teenage babysitter. She was unconscious, a nasty bruise swelling on her temple, but she was breathing steadily.

“Call an ambulance,” Adrian ordered Marcus, who had followed them inside.

Sophia tore through the hallway, checking her bedroom, the bathroom, and finally, Leo’s small room. It was empty. The window was closed. His bed was unmade.

“He’s gone,” Sophia collapsed against the doorframe, her legs giving out. “They took him. Adrian, they took my brother.”

Adrian knelt beside her, his dark eyes scanning the room. “Look at the floor, Sophia. Look at the dust.”

Sophia blinked through her tears. Underneath Leo’s small twin bed, in the thick layer of undisturbed dust, there were small handprints leading toward the back of the narrow closet.

Sophia crawled across the floor, throwing open the closet door and tossing aside the piles of dirty laundry.

Huddled in the very back corner, trembling so violently his teeth were chattering, was Leo.

“Leo!” Sophia cried, dragging the boy out and pulling him into a desperate, crushing hug. “Oh my god, you’re safe. You’re safe.”

Leo buried his face in his sister’s neck, sobbing uncontrollably. He was unharmed, but his small hands were clutching something tightly against his chest.

Adrian stepped into the room, lowering his weapon so as not to frighten the boy further. He knelt down, his massive frame taking up most of the small bedroom. “You did a brave thing, Leo,” Adrian said, his voice surprisingly gentle, a stark contrast to the ruthless man he had been minutes earlier. “You hid well.”

Leo peeked at Adrian, then looked at his sister. “He told me to hide, Phia. The nice man with the cane told me to hide in the closet and not come out until you got home.”

Sophia froze. She pulled back, looking at her brother’s tear-stained face. “The man with the cane? The man who broke in?”

Leo shook his head. “No. The bad men broke in. They hit Sarah. I was hiding under the sofa. But then the nice man with the cane came. He chased the bad men away. Then he gave me this, and told me to get in the closet.”

Leo opened his small, trembling hands.

Resting in his palms was their father’s silver pocket watch.

Sophia took the watch, her hands shaking. “I don’t understand. Someone broke in to hurt us, and someone else stopped them?”

Adrian’s face had drained of all color. He stared at the silver watch as if it were a venomous snake.

“A man with a cane,” Adrian whispered, his voice entirely hollow. “Did he have a silver ring on his right thumb, Leo?”

Leo nodded. “Yes. And he smelled like peppermint.”

Marcus stepped into the doorway, having just finished with the paramedics. He looked at Adrian, seeing the devastation on his boss’s face. “Boss? What is it?”

“It was Silas,” Adrian said, the name sounding like shattered glass in his throat.

Sophia looked up. “Who is Silas?”

“My father’s oldest friend,” Adrian replied, closing his eyes for a fraction of a second. “The man who raised me after my father died. The man who runs half my empire.”

Adrian reached out and gently took the silver watch from Sophia’s hands. He pressed the small latch on the side. The watch popped open.

The glass face of the clock had been removed. In its place, tucked into the casing, was a tiny, folded piece of thick cardstock.

Adrian unfolded it. His hands, which had not trembled when holding a gun, shook visibly now. He turned the card around so Sophia could see it.