Chapter 8 - Mave Learned Her Father’s Death Had Never Been an Accident

Mave remembered her father as fragments.

A wool coat that smelled like rain. A laugh too loud for restaurants. Strong hands lifting her onto his shoulders during a summer parade. His name had been Thomas Holloway, and for most of her life he had been a simple grief: a man killed when a delivery truck crossed a center line on an icy road.

Now Father Rainer was telling her there had been nothing simple about it.

“Thomas worked for Northstar?” she asked.

“Not knowingly,” Rainer said. “He audited freight insurance claims for a regional firm. Twelve years before Celia received the ledger, he flagged a pattern of staged losses involving containers at the south docks.”

Silas understood. “Renato’s theft pipeline.”

Rainer nodded. “Thomas filed internal reports. Two vanished. He kept copies. Three weeks later, he died.”

Mave gripped the table. “My mother knew?”

“Not at first. Elias found the connection years later while investigating Anthony Carbone’s murder. He told Celia because he believed she deserved the truth.”

“And then he asked her to hide evidence for him.”

“Yes.”

A laugh escaped Mave, sharp and ugly. “He told a widow that criminals might have killed her husband, then recruited her.”

“He offered her protection.”

“She should have called the police.”

“She tried.”

Rainer slid one of the old documents toward her. It was a copy of a letter addressed to a federal task force. Celia’s handwriting appeared at the bottom.

The letter had never been logged.

Silas’s gaze hardened. “Renato had someone inside.”

“He always did,” Rainer said.

Mave turned away. Every institution in the story seemed to have a hidden door Renato had built himself.

She wanted out.

Not strategically. Not after one more discovery.

Out.

“I’m done,” she said.

Silas’s face changed.

“I will give you whatever information you need about my mother’s scores, then I’m leaving Chicago.”

“Mave—”

“No.” She pointed at him. “You do not get to turn this into one more reason I need you. My father died before I knew your name. My mother carried this without you. I can leave without you.”

Silas swallowed whatever argument came first.

“Where would you go?”

“That is exactly the kind of question I will no longer answer.”

Vivien said quietly, “He can protect the route without knowing the destination.”

Mave looked at her.

Vivien met her gaze. “You are right to leave if that is what you want.”

Silas turned on her. “There is a citywide hunt for her.”

“And keeping her beside you has worked beautifully so far.”

The words landed.

Teresa interrupted before Silas could respond. “Daniel Voss is awake.”

The captured driver had been moved to a private clinic controlled by Teresa rather than the Carbone organization. He had finally asked to speak with Mave.

“Why me?”

“He says he knew Thomas Holloway.”

Silas said no immediately.

Mave looked at him.

He corrected himself through clenched teeth. “I strongly advise against it.”

“Better.”

She went.

Daniel Voss was handcuffed to a hospital bed. His face was swollen from the ambush at the conservatory, but his eyes were alert.

When Mave entered, he stared at her for several seconds.

“You look like Celia,” he said.

“Everybody keeps telling me things too late. Try something new.”

A weak smile touched his mouth. “You have Thomas’s temper.”

Mave sat beyond arm’s reach.

“Why were you attacking the convoy?”

“I wasn’t. I was trying to get taken.”

“Convenient.”

“I needed to reach Vivien without Renato knowing I was alive.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because Elias Creel is alive.”

Mave stared at him.

Voss continued. “He has been alive for three years. He disappeared because Renato had compromised everyone near him. He built Northstar as a dead-man system. The trust is part of it.”

“What does it have to do with me?”

“Thomas found the first piece. Celia preserved the second. Elias decided the final control could not belong to a Carbone or a Creel.”

Mave’s mouth went dry. “What control?”

“Northstar owns evidence, not money. Original insurance records. Shipping manifests. payoffs. recordings. enough to destroy Renato’s network and half the men protecting it.”

“Where?”

Voss looked toward the security camera in the corner.

Mave followed his gaze.

The red recording light was off.

“It doesn’t matter where,” he said. “Only who can open it.”

She knew before he said it.

“You.”

A sound came from the corridor.

Silas turned toward the door.

Voss’s eyes widened.

“Too late,” he whispered.

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The fire alarm began to ring.

Mave glanced at Silas. His instinct was clearly to move her behind him, seal the corridor, and make the next decision alone. He caught himself. Instead he asked, “What do you want to do?” The question was imperfect and late, but it mattered. “Hear him out,” she said. “Then decide whether any of you deserve another secret.” Silas nodded, and for once he did not add conditions.