Chapter 8 - A Photograph That Shouldn’t Exist
The door behind us slammed shut.
Marco immediately pulled at the handle.
Locked.
Dante looked up at the camera.
“Voss.”
A soft laugh came through the speaker.
“So impatient.”
Mia began crying.
I crouched beside her.
“You’re okay.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“He said you’d come.”
“Who?”
“The doctor.”
“How long have you been here?”
“I don’t know.”
Dante examined the walls.
No visible exit besides the locked door.
Voss continued.
“Mr. Marino, you have spent nine years telling yourself a simple story.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Come say it to my face.”
“You believe Clara died because someone wanted you dead.”
Silence.
“You believe guilt is proof of love.”
I hated the way Voss spoke.
Calm.
Clinical.
As though human suffering were a case study.
Dante aimed at the camera.
I grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t.”
He looked at me.
“If you shoot it, we lose information.”
His eyes stayed on mine.
Then he lowered the gun.
Voss chuckled.
“Ms. Carter, always practical.”
I looked at the camera.
“What did you do to my brother?”
Silence.
Then: “Which time?”
Rage shot through me.
Dante stepped in front of the camera.
“You want my attention? You have it.”
“Excellent.”
“Open the door.”
“In a moment.”
A monitor on the wall flickered to life.
Black-and-white footage appeared.
Young Noah.
Twenty years old.
Standing outside a hotel.
Camera around his neck.
The date stamp was nine years earlier.
“No,” I whispered.
The image changed.
Noah photographing cars.
People entering.
Then Clara joining him.
Dante stared.
Next image.
Anthony.
Carlo Bellini.
Several men we didn’t recognize.
Then one final frame.
A man stepping from a limousine.
Tall.
Gray-haired.
Younger then.
But familiar.
I stared.
Dante swore.
“What?”
He pointed.
“That’s Senator Whitaker.”
Today, Whitaker was one of the most influential politicians in Illinois.
Presidential rumors.
National donor network.
Respectable public image.
In the photograph, he shook hands with Sebastian Voss.
Then another man emerged.
Police Commissioner Grant.
Then Judge Reed.
Council.
The Architect.
Noah had photographed them together.
Proof.
Not money.
Not rumor.
Proof that some of Chicago’s most powerful public figures had secretly met.
Voss spoke.
“Your brother was remarkably talented.”
My nails dug into my palms.
“You tortured him.”
“I treated him.”
“You destroyed him.”
“No.”
The calmness made me hate him more.
“I redirected an unstable young man.”
“He was healthy.”
“Mostly.”
My breath stopped.
Mostly.
“What does that mean?”
No answer.
“Voss.”
“You really should ask your mother.”
My body went cold.
“My mother is dead.”
“Yes.”
Dante looked at me.
I couldn’t breathe.
Voss continued.
“Did Noah never tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Your mother knew me.”
“No.”
“She brought Noah to my clinic when he was sixteen.”
My mind rejected it.
“No.”
“Minor anxiety. Insomnia. Gifted child under pressure.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
The monitor changed.
Medical record.
Noah Carter.
Age sixteen.
Dr. Sebastian Voss.
Initial evaluation.
My hands shook.
I had been away at college.
Our mother handled medical appointments.
Noah never mentioned it.
“He already had vulnerabilities,” Voss said. “I simply learned where they were.”
“You used them.”
“Yes.”
The simple admission turned my stomach.
“Why?”
“Because fear is extraordinarily efficient.”
Dante’s voice became deadly.
“When that door opens, you’re mine.”
Voss laughed.
“No, Mr. Marino. That is the lie you have always believed.”
Lights switched off.
Mia screamed.
I grabbed her.
Emergency lights came on seconds later.
The door unlocked.
Marco pushed it open.
Empty corridor.
“Move,” Dante ordered.
We ran.
No Voss.
No guards.
Only abandoned rooms.
Then smoke began filling the hallway.
“Fire!” Marco shouted.
We moved toward the stairs.
A side door opened.
Anthony Marino stumbled out.
Blood on his shirt.
Dante stopped.
“Anthony.”
His uncle collapsed.
Dante caught him.
“Where’s Voss?”
Anthony gasped.
“Gone.”
“Where?”
“Tunnels.”
“Under the building?”
“Old service tunnels.”
Dante’s face tightened.
“Did you bring us here?”
Anthony shook his head.
“I tried to stop him.”
“Why should I believe you?”
Anthony reached inside his coat.
Dante raised the gun.
“Slowly.”
Anthony removed a photograph.
Handed it to him.
Clara.
Alive.
Dated three months after the car bomb.
Dante stared.
Everything stopped.
“No.”
I looked.
The woman was Clara.
Same face.
Same hair.
Walking beside Voss outside a private clinic.
Three months after her funeral.
Dante’s hands began shaking.
“No.”
Anthony whispered, “That’s what I came to tell you.”
The fire alarm screamed.
Smoke thickened.
Dante could not move.
I grabbed his arm.
“We have to go.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I know.”
“She died.”
“I know.”
“I buried her.”
“I know.”
Anthony coughed.
“Dante.”
He looked at his uncle.
“Clara survived the explosion.”
The world changed.
“What?”
“They lied.”
Anthony struggled to breathe.
“The body was identified through dental records.”
Dante’s eyes widened.
“Voss controlled the medical examiner.”
The photograph trembled in his hand.
“Why?”
“They needed her.”
“For what?”
“She knew too much.”
“Where is she?”
Anthony’s eyes filled.
“I don’t know.”
“WHERE?”
“Voss moved her.”
Dante grabbed him.
I stepped between them.
“Not here.”
Smoke poured into the hall.
We carried Anthony and Mia out through a service exit.
Minutes later flames consumed one wing of North Lake.
Dante stood in the snow-damp grass staring at Clara’s photograph.
He looked less like a crime boss than a man whose reality had been ripped open.
“She lived.”
I stood beside him.
“For at least three months.”
“They made me bury someone else.”
“Yes.”
He looked at me.
“Emily.”
His voice cracked.
“If she survived…”
I knew.
Hope was crueler than grief.
Because grief eventually became fixed.
Hope reopened everything.
“We’ll find out.”
He stared again at the photograph.
Anthony was transported to a private hospital under guard.
Mia returned to Sal.
The reunion broke even Marco.
Sal held his daughter so tightly she protested she couldn’t breathe.
Dante watched from the doorway.
Then turned away.
I followed.
“Why didn’t Anthony tell you before?” I asked.
“He says he didn’t know until years later.”
“You believe him?”
“No.”
“Neither do I.”
We returned to Highland Park near sunrise.
Dante went directly to the room where he kept Clara’s belongings.
I had never seen it.
Her clothes remained boxed.
Photographs stacked.
Jewelry.
Perfume bottle.
Wedding album.
He opened a drawer.
Pulled out her ring.
Then looked at the photograph again.
“I identified her.”
“What?”
“At the morgue.”
He sat.
“I couldn’t see her face.”
My heart broke.
“They showed me the ring.”
His hand tightened around it.
“Dental records.”
“Manipulated.”
“I should have known.”
“No.”
“I should have.”
“Dante.”
“I buried someone.”
His voice cracked.
“I stood beside a coffin for a woman who might have been alive.”
I knelt in front of him.
“You did what anyone would have done.”
“She called me.”
“What?”
“The morning of the bomb.”
I stayed quiet.
“I heard the explosion.”
“Yes.”
“So if she survived…”
“She was probably severely injured.”
“And they took her.”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
“For nine years.”
We sat there.
The weight of that possibility too large for words.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number again.
I answered.
No voice.
Only breathing.
“Hello?”
A woman spoke.
Weak.
Older.
But unmistakably familiar from the recording.
“Dante?”
He looked at me.
I put it on speaker.
His entire face changed.
“Clara?”
Silence.
Then crying.
Dante stood.
“Clara?”
The woman whispered:
“Don’t let Voss find me.”
Dante stopped breathing.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t—”
The line crackled.
“Clara, please.”
“They told me you were dead.”
Dante closed his eyes.
I grabbed his hand.
“I’m not.”
Another sob.
“Dante?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
The connection broke.
He stared at the phone.
Then at me.
For nine years, Dante Marino had lived inside grief.
Now, with one phone call, grief became something even more dangerous.
Hope.
And hope gave a man like Dante something he had not possessed in years.
May you like
A reason to destroy anyone who stood between him and the truth.
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