Chapter 10 - THE WOMAN ON THE SCREEN
At 9:14 that night, Chicago saw Evelyn Carter speak for herself.
Rafe routed the feed through three accounts and two mirrored servers before the police breached the outer warehouse.
Evelyn stood in front of the same camera Celeste had used.
Her hair was wet from melting frost.
Her face was pale.
There was blood on her sleeve that belonged to someone else.
She looked nothing like the employee photograph on the news.
That was the point.
"My name is Evelyn Carter."
Her voice shook once.
Then steadied.
"I was working at the Obsidian when the attack happened."
"Lorenzo Moretti did not abduct me."
"I warned him because I saw a message on Celeste Vane's phone that described the attack before it began."
Lorenzo stood out of frame.
Daniel was behind him.
Rafe watched the hallway.
Evelyn continued.
"I am alive because Mr. Moretti took me out of the building after armed men entered the restaurant."
"I am making this statement because the public story being repeated about that night was prepared before the attack happened."
She held up the phone.
"I have evidence."
Then Rafe played the recovered video of Celeste and Dante planning the Obsidian operation.
He did not show everything.
Only enough.
Celeste saying Lorenzo would protect Evelyn once she warned him.
Dante asking what happened if she did not.
Celeste saying Lorenzo would die and they would use the girl later.
The clip ended.
Evelyn looked into the camera again.
"If I disappear after this, do not let anyone say I ran."
Daniel flinched at the words.
She had chosen them deliberately.
Rafe cut the feed.
Within seconds, notifications flooded the stolen phone.
The video was being copied.
Shared.
Reposted.
News stations picked it up before they could verify it.
Celeste's perfect narrative cracked in public.
Police shouted from the outer corridor.
"Chicago Police!"
"Drop your weapons and come out!"
Lorenzo looked at Evelyn.
"You just made yourself impossible to quietly erase."
"That was the idea."
"You also tied your name to mine."
"That part was less attractive."
Rafe glanced at the loading dock.
"We have about ninety seconds."
Dante was conscious but losing blood.
Daniel had wrapped his leg with a torn shirt.
"Take him," Lorenzo said.
Rafe stared.
"Police are at both doors."
"Then we use their attention."
Evelyn looked toward an old freight elevator.
"Rail level."
Daniel nodded.
"There is a drainage tunnel beneath it."
They moved.
The elevator did not work.
Rafe forced the doors apart.
A ladder ran down the shaft.
Dante laughed weakly.
"You are carrying me?"
Lorenzo looked at him.
"Do not mistake utility for mercy."
They lowered Dante with a maintenance harness.
Police entered the loading bay as Evelyn descended.
Voices echoed above.
"Clear!"
"Blood here."
"Check the lower levels."
At the bottom, Daniel led them through a drainage tunnel barely tall enough to stand in.
Water covered their shoes.
Evelyn's body felt beyond exhaustion.
She walked because stopping seemed more dangerous.
Twenty minutes later, they emerged beneath a highway overpass two blocks south.
A dark sedan waited.
Isabella sat behind the wheel.
Rafe blinked.
"How did you know?"
"I raised Lorenzo."
"Escaping buildings is his most consistent habit."
Lorenzo opened the rear door.
"Mother, you were told to stay at the church."
"And you were told not to marry Celeste."
"We are both disappointed."
Isabella saw Daniel.
All humor disappeared.
Fourteen years stood between them.
Daniel stopped.
"Bella."
Evelyn looked at her.
Nobody had called Isabella that.
The Moretti matriarch's eyes filled for one second.
Then she slapped Daniel across the face.
"That is for 2014."
She slapped him again.
"That is for 2020."
Daniel accepted both.
"Fair."
Then Isabella hugged him.
Evelyn looked away.
She could not decide whether the sight comforted or enraged her.
They drove to an apartment above a closed bakery in Bridgeport.
Father Tomas owned the building through the church.
Apparently priests also understood shell companies when necessary.
Dante was treated in a back room by the same doctor who had helped Gilbert.
He remained under guard.
The rest gathered around a kitchen table.
For the first time, Daniel told the story without riddles.
Project Janus began in the late 1990s as a partnership between Salvatore Moretti, Victor Vane, and several political fixers.
Its purpose was continuity.
Not peace.
Control.
If a public official became unreliable, Janus had a replacement ready.
If a business owner refused, a creditor appeared.
If a union leader resisted, a deputy was already compromised.
If a criminal organization changed leadership, Janus made sure the successor owed the system before taking power.
"Your father joined because he thought it would reduce violence," Daniel told Lorenzo.
"It did for a while."
"Then Salvatore realized stability was more profitable than loyalty."
Lorenzo leaned against the counter.
"When did my father turn?"
"After Matteo died."
Isabella looked down.
Daniel continued.
"He discovered the crash was ordered because Matteo had found Janus accounts."
"He came to me."
"We began building the third ledger."
Evelyn asked.
"Why call it third?"
"One set of books belonged to the Morettis."
"One to the Vanes."
"The third showed the transactions between them."
Daniel looked at her.
"The truth did not belong to either side."
Rafe asked.
"And Marian Vale?"
Daniel's face changed.
"She was the best source we had."
"Victor's wife."
"Celeste's mother."
"She discovered Victor was using a family foundation to move Janus money."
"She wanted out."
"She agreed to testify."
"Then she vanished."
Isabella spoke quietly.
"Everyone assumed Victor killed her."
"He tried," Daniel said.
"She survived."
"I helped her disappear."
Evelyn stared.
"You hid Celeste's mother and left Celeste with the people trying to kill her?"
Daniel looked sick.
"Marian made the decision."
"Celeste was eleven."
"Victor threatened to kill her if Marian surfaced."
"So Marian stayed dead."
Lorenzo's expression was cold.
"And Celeste grew up believing her mother abandoned her."
"Yes."
Evelyn finally understood the crack in Celeste's voice when Daniel said Marian's name.
"That is why she needs me alive."
Daniel nodded.
"Marian knows you are my daughter."
"She knows I would never expose her location except to you."
"Why me?"
"Because you were a child when all of this began."
"She decided the children should get one chance to end what the parents built."
Lorenzo laughed without humor.
"Generous."
Daniel reached into his coat.
He removed a folded piece of paper sealed in plastic.
"I have one contact protocol."
"It only works once."
Evelyn stared at it.
"You have carried that for how long?"
"Six years."
"And you never used it?"
"I was watched."
"If I contacted Marian, Janus would find her."
"Now they already know she is alive."
He placed the paper in front of Evelyn.
"You have to send the message."
Lorenzo stepped closer.
"What message?"
Daniel opened the paper.
There was a phone number and a phrase.
THE RED BICYCLE STILL HAS TWO WHEELS.
Evelyn stared at it.
"That is ridiculous."
Daniel smiled faintly.
"Ridiculous is memorable."
Rafe handed her a clean phone.
Evelyn typed the sentence.
She hesitated before sending.
"If she answers, what happens?"
Daniel's face lost its smile.
"We learn whether Celeste is the architect of Janus now."
"Or its prisoner."
Evelyn sent the message.
Nothing happened for one minute.
Then five.
Then twelve.
At minute fourteen, the phone rang.
Unknown number.
Evelyn answered.
"Hello?"
A woman's voice spoke.
Older.
Careful.
"Daniel used to say the front wheel was crooked."
Evelyn looked at her father.
He nodded.
"Marian?"
"Who is this?"
"Evelyn Carter."
Silence.
Then a breath that sounded almost like relief.
"You have his eyes."
Evelyn went cold.
"You have seen me?"
"Many times."
Lorenzo leaned closer to the phone.
Marian continued.
"Do not trust Daniel's ledger by itself."
"Janus changed after he disappeared."
"The real command structure is somewhere else."
"Where?"
"Inside the Vane Foundation."
"Celeste controls it?"
A long pause.
"Celeste thinks she does."
Evelyn looked at Lorenzo.
"Who actually does?"
Marian's voice became a whisper.
"The person who convinced her I was dead."
Daniel went rigid.
"Marian, who?"
The line crackled.
Then she said a name that silenced the room.
"Isabella Moretti."
Every eye turned toward Lorenzo's mother.
Isabella did not look surprised.
May you like
That was worse than denial.
