Roman saw it. “What?”
Dominic looked from Emma to Roman. “We have a problem.”
Roman’s face darkened. “Speak.”
Dominic stepped inside and closed the door.
“I heard that name before. Emma Hart. It came up in a call we pulled from Novak’s people last year.”
Emma frowned. “Novak?”
Roman went very still.
Dominic’s voice lost all humor. “They were looking for her.”
The bottle slipped slightly in Emma’s hand.
Lily fussed.
Roman crossed the room in one step, not toward Emma, but between her and the door.
“Why?” he asked.
Dominic hesitated.
Roman’s stare hardened. “Why?”
“Because they thought Caleb gave her something.”
Emma shook her head. “He didn’t give me anything.”
“Think,” Roman said.
“I am thinking.”
“Something small. A key. A note. A drive. A book. Anything.”
“He didn’t.”
Dominic looked at Lily. “Maybe not to her.”
The room turned silent.
Emma’s blood went cold.
Roman’s voice was deadly soft. “Choose your next words carefully.”
Dominic swallowed. “I’m saying Caleb knew he might be followed. If he wanted to hide something where no one would look—”
“No,” Emma snapped.
Both men looked at her.
She stood, Lily in her arms.
“No. You do not get to turn my daughter into one of your mysteries.”
Roman’s expression shifted. “Emma—”
“No. I don’t care who Caleb was to you. I don’t care what he stole. She is a baby.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” Her voice cracked. “Because men like you say things like that, and then people like me end up buried under them.”
Dominic looked away.
Roman did not.
For a moment, Emma thought he would remind her who he was. What he could do. How little choice she truly had in his office, in his restaurant, in his city.
Instead he said, “No one touches her.”
The words were simple.
Dominic’s eyebrows lifted.
Roman did not look at him. “No one.”
Emma wanted to believe him.
She hated that she almost did.
A knock came at the door.
Dominic turned slightly, hand near his jacket.
Roman’s eyes narrowed. “Who is it?”
A voice from outside answered, “Marco.”
Roman opened the door himself.
Marco stood in the hallway, pale beneath the golden light. He was one of the bartenders upstairs, a nervous man with a thin mustache and a habit of wiping glasses until they squeaked.
“There’s someone asking for Emma,” Marco said.
Emma’s heart dropped.
Roman did not move. “Who?”
Marco glanced past him toward her. “Man says he’s her brother.”
“I don’t have a brother,” Emma whispered.
Roman’s face became something terrible.
“Where is he?”
“By the coat check.”
Dominic smiled without warmth. “That was fast.”
Roman turned to Emma. “Stay here.”
“No.”
His eyes cut to her.
She took a step back with Lily. “I’m not staying in a room underground while strange men ask for me upstairs.”
“You’ll be safer here.”
“I have spent almost two years being told what was safer by men who disappeared.”
Roman absorbed that.
Then he looked at Dominic. “Take the back stairs. Quietly. See if he came alone.”
Dominic nodded and left.
Roman turned back to Emma. “You stay behind me. You do exactly what I say.”
Emma almost argued.
Then Lily hiccupped against her shoulder, warm and trusting.
Emma nodded.
Roman led them out.
The corridor beyond the office was dim, lined with dark wood and framed photographs of men who looked like they had never smiled without permission. Emma had passed the entrance to this hallway for months and never wondered what lay beyond it. Now every step felt like walking deeper into someone else’s war.
They climbed a narrow staircase that opened near the private dining rooms. Music swelled as Roman pushed through a service door. The restaurant was alive above them—laughter, candles, silverware, wine poured into crystal, women in velvet dresses, men with expensive watches.
And near the coat check stood a man Emma had never seen.
He was tall, with sandy hair and a pleasant face that did not belong in a place like this. He wore a gray overcoat and held a folded newspaper beneath one arm.
When he saw Emma, he smiled.
The smile chilled her.
“Emma,” he called warmly, as if they were old friends. “Thank God. I’ve been looking everywhere.”
Roman stopped.
The man’s eyes moved to him, and the smile did not falter.
“Mr. Callahan,” he said. “Didn’t expect personal service.”
Roman said nothing.
The restaurant seemed to sense the change. Conversations softened. A waiter paused mid-step.
The man looked back at Emma. “I’m sorry to bother you at work. It’s about Caleb.”
Emma’s fingers dug into Lily’s blanket.
Roman’s voice was low. “You don’t say that name here.”
The man sighed. “Then I’ll say another. Caleb Callahan. Your brother. Her lover. The baby’s father.”
A woman at a nearby table gasped.
Roman did not turn.
Emma’s face burned. Fear and fury tangled in her chest.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
The man reached into his coat.
Every Callahan man in the room moved.
The man froze, then slowly withdrew a white envelope between two fingers.
“Just a messenger,” he said. “And a polite one, for now.”
Roman took the envelope.
The man’s eyes remained on Emma.
“He told me you’d have her eyes,” he said softly.
Emma went cold. “Who told you?”
The man smiled again.
“Caleb.”
Roman stepped forward.
The man did not step back.
“He’s alive,” the stranger said.
The words tore through Emma so violently that she almost lost her grip on Lily.
Roman caught her elbow.
For one second, she let him.
The stranger glanced at Roman’s hand on her arm, then at the baby.
“He wants to see his daughter.”
Roman’s voice was barely human. “Where is he?”
The man tapped the newspaper under his arm. “That depends on what Emma gives us.”
“I don’t have anything,” Emma said.
“You do.”
“I don’t.”
The man’s pleasant expression thinned. “Caleb was always sentimental. That was his weakness. He trusted love to keep secrets better than fear.”
Roman’s grip on the envelope tightened.
“Leave,” he said.
The man looked around the room, noting the watching faces, the silent guards, the waiters pretending not to listen.
Then he bowed his head slightly. “Twenty-four hours.”
“For what?” Emma asked.
“To remember what he left behind.”
“I told you, he left nothing.”
The man’s eyes dropped to Lily.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he said. “He left everything.”
Roman moved so fast Emma barely saw it.
One moment the man was standing. The next, Roman had him by the throat against the wall near the coat check, the newspaper crushed between them.
The room erupted in startled cries.
Lily began to wail.
Emma stepped forward, panicked. “Roman!”
He heard Lily.
That was what stopped him.
Not the stranger’s choking sound. Not the witnesses. Not the danger.
Lily’s cry cut through him.
Roman released the man, who bent forward coughing, still smiling through it.
“Twenty-four hours,” he rasped.
Then he walked out into the snowy Chicago night.
No one stopped him.
Roman turned slowly to the room.
“Dinner is on the house,” he said.
The conversations did not resume until he had guided Emma and Lily back through the service door.
By the time they reached the office, Emma’s hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold Lily. Roman noticed and took the baby without asking. This time Emma did not resist.
Lily sobbed against his chest, angry and frightened.
Roman walked with her, slow circles across the rug, one hand supporting her head, the other patting her back in an awkward rhythm that somehow worked. His face remained hard, but his voice changed when he spoke to the child.
“Enough now,” he murmured. “You’re safe.”
Lily cried louder.
Roman frowned. “That usually works on grown men.”
A shaky laugh escaped Emma before she could stop it.
Roman looked at her.
For a second, the room changed again.
Then Dominic entered through the side door, breathing hard.
“He had two cars outside,” Dominic said. “We tailed both. Lost one near Halsted.”
Roman handed him the envelope. “Open it.”
Dominic did.
Inside was a photograph.
Roman took it first.
Emma watched his face.
Whatever he saw made him stop moving.
He gave the photo to her.
Emma looked down.
Her knees nearly failed.
Caleb stood in the picture, thinner than she remembered, with bruises along his jaw and a beard grown rough across his face. He was alive. Older somehow. His eyes looked hollow, but it was him.
He held a newspaper dated two days ago.
Behind him was a wall painted blue.
On the back of the photograph, written in black ink, were six words:
Ask Emma about the silver lamb.
Emma stared.
Roman watched her. “What silver lamb?”
