THE SHATTERED GLASS AND THE LOCKED DOOR

The concrete stairwell spun.

I pressed my back against the freezing wall, staring at the blood-stained ticket stub in my trembling hands.

Marcus, meet me at the back exit. Don't tell my father.

Elena.

My beautiful, chaotic, fiercely protective older sister. She was three years older than me. She had been twenty-two when our father died. She had always told the police she was studying at the library the night of the hit-and-run.

Why was she meeting Marcus Santoro? Why was her handwriting on a ticket stub hidden in a ledger filled with mafia bribes?

Footsteps echoed from the stairwell above me. Heavy. Urgent.

Marcus was coming down.

Panic surged through my veins. I shoved the ticket deep into my pocket, grabbed my high heels, and scrambled down the remaining thirty-nine flights of stairs. My lungs burned, my legs trembling so violently I nearly tripped over my own feet.

When I finally burst through the ground-floor exit into the alley behind the building, the freezing Chicago wind hit me like a wall.

I didn’t stop. I ran barefoot over the icy asphalt until I reached a busy, well-lit intersection. I flagged down a passing taxi, practically throwing myself into the backseat.

“Where to, miss?” the driver asked, eyeing my disheveled state in the rearview mirror.

I rattled off Elena’s address in Logan Square.

The twenty-minute drive felt like an eternity. My mind raced, trying to piece together the shattered fragments of my life. Dominic’s coldness. Marcus’s charm. My father’s death. My sister’s lie.

I had spent eighteen months managing Dominic’s schedule, completely unaware that I was standing in the epicenter of the conspiracy that destroyed my family.

The taxi pulled up to a renovated brick walk-up. I paid the driver with cash from my purse and sprinted up the three flights of stairs to Elena’s apartment.

I pounded on the door. “Elena! Open up!”

A minute later, the deadbolt clicked. Elena stood in the doorway, wearing an oversized sweater, her dark hair messy from sleep. She rubbed her eyes.

“Diana? It’s one in the morning. What’s wrong with your feet?”

I pushed past her into the apartment, locking the deadbolt and sliding the chain into place behind me.

“Diana, what the hell is going on?” Elena asked, fully awake now.

I turned around, reaching into my pocket. I pulled out the ticket stub and held it up.

“Where were you the night Dad died, Elena?”

Elena’s face drained of all color. Her eyes locked onto the small piece of cardboard. She took a step back, her back hitting the kitchen counter.

“Where did you get that?” she whispered.

“I asked you a question!” My voice cracked, tears of absolute betrayal spilling down my cheeks. “You told the police you were at the library. You told me you were at the library. What is this?”

Elena covered her mouth with her hand, a strangled sob escaping her lips.

“I was so stupid,” she cried, sinking to the floor. “Diana, I was so young. I didn’t know who he was.”

“Who? Marcus?”

She nodded, pulling her knees to her chest. “We dated for six months. Dad hated him. He said Marcus was dirty. He told me to break it off. But Marcus was… he was so charming. He made me feel special.”

My stomach churned. It was the exact same charm he had used on me at dinner hours ago.

“The night Dad died,” Elena continued, her voice trembling. “Marcus took me to the theater. He slipped out during the intermission. He said he had to make a business call. He was gone for an hour. When he came back, his knuckles were bruised. He had blood on his cuff.”

“He killed him,” I breathed, the reality finally setting in. “Marcus ran him down.”

“I didn’t know!” Elena sobbed, looking up at me with terrified eyes. “When the police came the next morning… when they said it was a hit-and-run… I confronted Marcus. He told me if I went to the cops, he would kill you, Diana. You were only nineteen. He knew where you went to school. He knew everything.”

She buried her face in her hands.

“He took the ticket stub from me. He said it was his insurance. Proof that I was his alibi. I had to lie. I had to protect you.”

I dropped to my knees, wrapping my arms around my sister. I held her as she wept, the weight of a ten-year-old secret finally crushing us both. She hadn’t betrayed our father. She had sacrificed her own peace to keep me alive.

Suddenly, my phone buzzed in my coat pocket.

I pulled it out. The caller ID read: Dominic.

I stared at the screen.

He used you as bait, Marcus had said.

Did Dominic know about Elena? Was he using my family’s tragedy to wage his war against his partner?

I answered the phone, keeping my voice dead steady. “Hello.”

“Diana.” Dominic’s voice was strained, breathless. In the background, I heard the screech of tires. “Where are you?”

“Why?” I demanded coldly. “Do you need to use me as bait again?”

There was a heavy pause on the line.

“I never used you as bait,” Dominic said, his voice dropping an octave, raw and desperate. “I gave you the key to the room so you would see the truth about Marcus. I needed you to see the files and run. I needed you out of the building before the raid started.”

“What raid?”

“The feds are moving on the Vitelli family tonight. Marcus tipped them off. The entire operation went sideways. Marcus is hunting for the red ledger. Did you see it?”

“I threw it at his head,” I said. “But I kept the ticket stub hidden inside it.”

Dominic exhaled sharply. “Good. That stub is the physical evidence linking him to the night of your father’s murder. Diana, listen to me very carefully. You are not safe. If you are with your sister, you both need to leave. Right now.”

“Why?”

“Because Marcus’s men have been tapping my phones. They know about Elena.”

Before he could finish the sentence, a heavy, deafening CRASH shattered the quiet of the apartment.

The front door splintered inward, the deadbolt tearing out of the doorframe.

Three men in dark jackets stepped into the living room.

And in the center of them stood Marcus.

He looked at me, then at the phone in my hand, and smiled that terrible, warm smile.

“Tell Dominic I said hello,” Marcus said.

He raised his gun.