Page 41 of Chasing Danger

Larceny.

Multiple counts of every type of assault charge possible.

Attempted homicide.

Kidnapping?

Manslaughter?

I stopped reading after that.

“No, this isn’t...” I sank to my knees and the phone tumbled from my hands, bouncing off the carpet. “This can’t be.”

A pair of perfectly polished shoes stepped into my vision before D’Angelo knelt down to look me in the eye. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but the information is true. I’d have no reason to lie to you about this, and neither do they. If anything, I wish it wasn’t true.” He picked up the phone, turning the black rectangle over in his hands. “This isn’t the kind of thing anyone should just have sprung on them... Wait a minute…”

He stood so abruptly that a breeze brushed over my skin in the wake of his movement. Turning to face the bodyguard pair, his hands gripped the phone tight enough to turn white.

“Fifteen years ago? Isn’t that...”

Although he didn’t finish the question, the pair seemed to understand what he was asking and nodded.

“Yes, Arturo Radcliffe was the primary suspect,” Gavriil said. “He disappeared immediately after the shipment went missing. It’s suspected that the fire was set deliberately to cover his tracks. He was hunted down, of course, but it took years to find him, and by then, it turned out he was already dead. Cancer got him before any of our people could. If he did steal the shipment, it was long gone by the time we found him, so it was never recovered.”

The explanation made no sense, and I felt like I was missing some vital information, but one word stuck out to me like a bomb going off in the middle of a symphony.

“Fire? What are you talking about? What do you mean ‘set deliberately’? Stop speaking like I’m not here and explain it to me.”

No one spoke immediately. Eva and Gavriil looked to D’Angelo, who was scrolling through the information on the phone again. His expression grew darker and darker, until eventually, he closed his eyes and just hung his head. A few uncertain moments passed before he jerked back into a proper, upright posture with a new glint of determination in his blue eyes. Yet, when he sat before me on the floor, his voice was warmer than I’d ever heard it.

“Oliver. I’m going to summarize everything for you, and I need you to listen and not interrupt until I’m done. Can you do that?”

Still huddled pathetically on the floor, I sat up a little straighter, wiped the frustrated tears from my eyes, and nodded.

He smiled. “Good boy.”

Despite everything, the sound of that midnight velvet voice praising me still made me shiver.

He explained the truth as clearly and simply as possible, but nothing could soothe the horror that swelled in me as I listened.

My father, Arturo Radcliffe, was a member of the Italian mafia. Specifically working for the Vidales family. Fifteen years ago, the Italian mafia and the Russian mafia had been in the middle of establishing a trade deal that used the Baltimore harbor, but it had fallen through when one of the shipments had been stolen.

My father was suspected of being the thief because he disappeared right after the theft happened. The fire that burned down my childhood home destroyed all traces and records ofhim, making him much more difficult to track down, which meant he had likely set the fire intentionally. That was how he’d gotten away with it.

Now, the Russian and Italian mafia were trying to reestablish the same trade deal that fell through fifteen years ago, but just like back then, another shipment had gone missing. It was why D’Angelo was here in Baltimore in the first place, to figure out how to solve the mess and stop the Italians and the Russians from declaring war on each other.

“Do you understand?” D’Angelo said after he’d finished summarizing everything.

Sometime during his explanation, unnoticed by me, he’d grabbed both my hands and held them tightly.

“Because of this, it’s even more important than I realized that you stay here where I can protect you. If the Russians figure out that your father was probably the thief fifteen years ago, now that the situation seems to be repeating, you’re going to be the number one suspect now. You wouldn’t survive their interrogation. My own people I can handle. They won’t touch you without my permission, but I don’t have any control over the Russians. If they get their hands on you, I may not be able to save you in time.”

I heard his words. They flowed between the crevices of my brain like water, delivering their meaning directly into my thoughts. Yet, I couldn’t put in the effort to remember what he said.

Instead, I just squeezed his hands so hard that both of our fingers were going numb.

“They knew.”

“Oliver?” D’Angelo started to say, but I cut him off.

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