Chapter 1 - The Shadows of Pilsen
I thought bringing my daughter to work would cost me my job, but instead I found Lily asleep beneath Roman Callahan’s jacket while Chicago’s most feared mafia boss watched her like she belonged there. Then Roman told me his missing brother’s name was Caleb—the same first name as Lily’s father, who had vanished before she was born. When he quietly asked me for her father’s last name, I suddenly wondered if the man I believed had abandoned us had been hiding something far more dangerous.
“Then why are you helping me?” I whispered.
Roman looked toward Lily, curled peacefully on his office couch.
“Because someone should’ve stepped in before your life became this difficult.”
I lowered my eyes. I couldn’t afford to cry in front of the man everyone downstairs was afraid to look at for too long.
“Who normally watches her?” he asked.
“My neighbor, Mrs. Alvarez. She fell on the ice this morning and hurt her knee.”
“Family?”
“Gone. Or too far away.”
Roman hesitated.
“And her father?”
My body stiffened.
“He’s gone.”
Something in my voice must have warned him because he didn’t push.
Instead, Roman picked up his phone and gave a short instruction. Minutes later, one of his security men appeared carrying Lily’s diaper bag.
“Feed her when she wakes up,” Roman said. “Then finish your shift.”
I stared at him.
“You’re letting me stay?”
“You need the paycheck.”
“I also need this job tomorrow.”
“You’ll have it.”
I almost laughed from relief.
“Mr. Callahan—”
“Roman.”
The correction startled me.
“Roman,” I said softly. “Thank you.”
He looked at Lily again.
“But why are you doing this?”
For several seconds, Roman said nothing.
Then his expression changed.
“I haven’t slept properly in almost two years.”
I hadn’t expected that.
“My little brother used to sleep exactly like her,” he continued. “One fist closed. Serious expression. Like even his dreams belonged only to him.”
I glanced at Lily. One tiny hand was curled beside her cheek.
“You have a brother?”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“Caleb.”
My heart gave one strange, heavy beat.
“Caleb?”
“He disappeared seventeen months ago.”
Roman walked toward the window.
“He got involved with people he shouldn’t have. He took something that didn’t belong to him. I tried to reach him before things got worse.”
His voice hardened.
“I was too late.”
I barely heard the rest.
Caleb.
The name was suddenly everywhere inside my head.
Lily’s father had called himself Caleb Price.
I had met him when he worked at a small auto shop outside Pilsen. He drank terrible gas-station coffee, played old country songs in his truck, and talked to my stomach before Lily was even born.
When I told him I was pregnant, Caleb stared at me for almost a minute.
Then he covered his face and cried.
I thought he was happy.
For the next two weeks, he was more attentive than ever. He talked about cribs, daycare, and finding a better apartment.
Then one morning, he disappeared.
No fight.
No explanation.
No goodbye.
His phone stopped working. The auto shop claimed he had quit. His apartment had been emptied.
For seventeen months, I had told myself the simplest explanation was the correct one.
He had been scared.
He had abandoned us.
But now Roman Callahan was standing only feet away, describing another Caleb who had vanished into danger at almost exactly the same time.
I looked at Roman.
Dark hair. Strong jaw. The same faint crease beside his mouth that sometimes appeared when Lily smiled.
I had never noticed it before.
Maybe because I’d never had a reason to look.
Roman turned from the window.
His eyes moved from me to Lily.
Something changed in his expression.
He walked slowly toward the couch and studied my daughter’s sleeping face.
Then his gaze stopped on her clenched little fist.
When Roman finally spoke, his voice was almost frighteningly calm.
“What was her father’s last name?”
May you like
My mouth went dry.
Because suddenly I understood that answering one simple question might change everything I believed about the man who disappeared—and everything Roman believed about the brother he had lost.
