Chapter 2 - THE GIRL WITHOUT A FATHER
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Sarah Callahan knew something was wrong before Vincent Russo said a single word. She was
standing at the kitchen counter cutting strawberries into small pieces for Lily’s breakfast
when the knock came—three slow, measured strikes that sounded nothing like a delivery driver
or a neighbor borrowing sugar. The knife stopped beneath Sarah’s hand. Across the room, Lily
sat at the scarred wooden table with her tongue caught between her teeth, coloring so
intensely that the rest of the world seemed not to exist. The apartment smelled of coffee,
toast, and the cinnamon candle Sarah lit every morning to make the small kitchen feel warmer
than it was.
Lily had drawn the family again. Sarah could see it upside down from the counter: a little
girl with yellow hair clips, a woman in a green dress, and a tall man in blue. The man’s
face was blank. Again. Sarah set down the knife and wiped her palms on a towel even though
they were not wet. “Stay here, sweetheart,” she said, forcing softness into her voice. Lily
looked up. “Who is it?” Sarah answered, “Just someone Mommy knows,” and hated how easily the
lie came.
She checked the peephole. Vincent stood outside with two men she did not recognize. He was
wearing a dark overcoat over yesterday’s clothes, and his expression held the exhausted
stillness of someone who had been carrying bad news for hours. Sarah unlocked the deadbolt
but kept the chain in place. “What happened?” Vincent looked at her for one beat too long.
“Adrian’s awake.” The name moved through Sarah like cold water.
For three years she had trained herself not to react to it. She had learned to discuss the
trust account without saying where the money came from, to call the apartment an inheritance
from an old family friend, and to ignore the black sedans that sometimes appeared two blocks
behind her when she walked Lily home from preschool. She had learned to receive flowers on
Lily’s birthday with no card and to throw them away before Lily could ask who sent them.
Most difficult of all, she had learned to tell a child that her father was “somewhere far
away” when the truth was that he might have been watching from the end of the street.
“He wants to see Lily,” Vincent said. Sarah closed her eyes. Behind her, crayons scraped
across paper in innocent little bursts. “Does he know about the drawings?” Vincent nodded.
“That’s what changed everything.” Sarah tightened her fingers around the doorframe. “She
doesn’t know who he is.” Vincent said he understood. Sarah’s voice grew harder. “She knows
she has a father. She knows he’s alive. And because he never comes, she thinks he doesn’t
love her.”
Vincent’s face softened. “He loves her enough to die for her.” Sarah almost laughed, because
the sentence was tragic rather than comforting. “That is exactly what I’m afraid of.” She
removed the chain and allowed Vincent inside while the other two men remained in the
hallway. He explained the shooting, the hospital, and the newly discovered heart condition.
When he said Adrian’s heart could stop without warning, Sarah’s anger suddenly felt small
and humiliating. She had spent years imagining the speech she would give him if he ever
returned. None of those speeches included the possibility that he might not live long enough
to hear them.
Then Vincent mentioned Volkov. Sarah’s fear sharpened instantly. Adrian believed Viktor
Volkov would make another attempt. The old Russian crime boss had been a name spoken only
once in Sarah’s presence years earlier, but she remembered how Adrian’s entire posture had
changed when he heard it. Some men were dangerous because they were violent. Volkov was
dangerous because he was patient. Sarah crossed her arms over herself. “Then Adrian cannot
come near her.” Vincent did not argue. “He knows. He wants one chance to meet her before we
move you both.”
“Move us where?” Sarah demanded. Vincent told her they had prepared a secure residence
outside the city, but transport would not happen until he was certain they were not being
watched. Sarah’s gaze went toward Lily. The little girl had switched to a purple crayon and
was filling in the faceless man’s shoes. Sarah realized with sudden clarity that every adult
in the room had already failed her in a different way. Adrian failed by disappearing. Sarah
failed by turning silence into protection. Vincent failed by believing surveillance could
substitute for a family.
She walked to the table and knelt beside Lily. “Remember when you asked me why we don’t have
pictures of Daddy?” Lily’s eyes became serious immediately. “Is he dead?” The question
crushed Sarah every time. “No,” she whispered. “He’s alive.” Lily’s mouth opened slightly.
The purple crayon slipped from her fingers. “Really?” Sarah nodded. “Really.” Lily stared at
her drawing. “Does he know me?” Sarah’s eyes burned. “Yes.” Then came the question Sarah had
dreaded most. “Does he love me?”
There was too much truth inside it. Love had paid their rent. Love had hired armed men. Love
had missed every birthday candle, every fever, every nightmare, every first day of school.
Finally Sarah said, “More than you know.” Lily looked down at the blank face. “Then why
doesn’t he have a face?” Sarah asked why she drew him that way. Lily shrugged with the
solemn logic of a child. “Because I don’t know what he looks like.” Then she leaned closer
and whispered, “But I think I saw him once.”
Sarah froze. “What?” Lily pointed toward the front window. “The man from the black car. He
looked at me like he was sad.” Vincent’s expression changed. He moved to the curtains and
opened them one inch. Across the street sat a dark SUV with black windows. It was parked
illegally near a hydrant. The engine was running.
Vincent’s phone rang. He answered immediately, listened, and went pale. One of his security
teams had been followed from the hospital. Another team had found a tracking device beneath
a decoy vehicle. Sarah watched him look from the phone to the SUV. “Get Lily away from the
windows,” he ordered. Sarah stood. “Who is that?” Vincent did not answer. He pulled a pistol
from beneath his coat and moved toward the door.
Outside, the dark SUV’s rear window lowered two inches. A camera lens appeared, caught the
morning light, and vanished. Then the vehicle rolled away without hurry. Vincent did not
chase it. Chasing was what the watcher wanted. He locked the door and turned back toward
Sarah. “Pack one bag. Nothing electronic.” Sarah’s heart pounded hard enough to hurt. “How
much time do we have?”
Vincent looked at Lily’s faceless
drawing, then at the street below.
“None.”
Lily picked up the blue crayon and
carefully added two eyes to the man on
the page.
Sarah packed while Lily asked questions faster than she could answer them. Could Daddy come
too? Did Daddy like strawberries? Was he tall? Did he know her teacher’s name? Sarah folded
pajamas with hands that would not stop trembling and gave truthful answers whenever she
could. Yes, he was tall. No, she did not know whether he liked strawberries anymore. Yes, he
knew her teacher’s name, which made Lily delighted and Sarah unexpectedly furious. Adrian
had known details from a distance that should have been learned while sitting at a kitchen
May you like
table. Yet beneath the anger, another feeling was growing—fear that the chance to confront
him had arrived only because someone else intended to take the chance away.
