The SUV takes a corner hard enough to make Norah grab the door handle. Behind them, headlights flash—there, then not there, then there again. Playing cat and mouse through Baltimore's empty streets.
"How many?" Norah hears herself ask, surprised her voice works.
"Two cars. Maybe three." Dante's tone is conversational, like he's commenting on the weather. But his knuckles are white on the steering wheel. "They're good. Not great, but good enough."
He takes another turn, this one so sharp Norah's seatbelt locks. They're in Fells Point now, the historic district where cobblestone streets and old rowhouses press close. At midnight on a Tuesday, it's deserted.
Perfect for a chase no one will witness.
"Who are they?" Norah twists in her seat, trying to see the pursuing cars, but Dante's hand shoots out and pushes her head down.
"Don't." Not harsh, just firm. "If they get a clear look at you, they'll call it in. Right now they're just confirming. Stay down."
Norah stays down.
Her view shrinks to the footwell and Dante's hand on her shoulder, holding her in place. She can feel his pulse through his palm—fast but steady. A man who's done this before.
The SUV makes three more turns in quick succession. Left, right, right again. Norah's stomach lurches. She's never been carsick in her life, but there's a first time for everything.
"Almost there," Dante murmurs.
Then he slams the brakes.
Norah would've hit the dashboard if not for his hand and the seatbelt. The SUV skids to a stop in what sounds like gravel. Engine still running.
"Stay quiet," Dante says.
She hears it then. The pursuing cars, engines growling as they pass. One. Two. Three seconds of held breath.
Then silence.
"They're gone." Dante releases her shoulder. "You can sit up."
Norah does, slowly. They're parked in an alley behind what looks like a closed restaurant, surrounded by dumpsters and the smell of old fryer oil. Not exactly scenic.
"What just happened?" she asks.
"They lost us." Dante is already pulling out his phone, fingers flying over the screen. "Or they're regrouping. Either way, we don't have much time."
"Time for what?"
He looks at her then. Really looks at her, like he's seeing her for the first time instead of just a problem to be solved.
"I need to show you something," he says. "Before you decide."
"Decide what?"
"Whether you trust me."
Norah almost laughs. It comes out as something closer to a sob. "Trust you? I don't even know you. You showed up in a chapel with a gun and dragged me out of the hospital—"
"I didn't drag you." Dante's voice goes sharp. "You chose to come."
"Because you said people were coming to take me!"
"They were." He turns in his seat to face her fully. "They are. And they'll keep coming until they get what they want."
"Which is what? Me?" Norah shakes her head. "I'm a hospital chaplain. I make thirty-eight thousand dollars a year. I live in a studio apartment in Hampden. I don't have anything anyone would want."
"You have your father's name."
"My father was a thief!"
"Your father was a witness." Dante's jaw tightens. "There's a difference."
He taps his phone screen a few times, then hands it to her.
The screen shows a photo. Norah's apartment building. Taken from across the street, zoomed in on her living room window. She can see her couch, her bookshelf, the lamp she bought at Target last year.
"When was this taken?" Her voice sounds hollow.
"Three days ago."
He swipes. Another photo. Her walking out of Sacred Heart, coffee cup in hand, heading to her car. The timestamp says 7:23 AM. Yesterday morning.
Swipe. Her at the grocery store, reaching for a bunch of bananas.
Swipe. Her at Mass on Sunday, sitting in the third pew from the back like always.
Swipe. Her coworker Lisa, laughing at something Norah said in the hospital cafeteria.
"Stop." Norah's hands are shaking. "Please stop."
Dante takes the phone back. His expression is unreadable.
"The Calabria family has been watching you for three months," he says quietly. "Maybe longer. These are just the photos I could access. There are more."
Norah's breath catches in her throat.
"Why?" The question comes out as a whisper. "What do they want from me?"
"Your father witnessed a murder eighteen years ago. Vincent Calabria shot and killed his own nephew—Isabelle Calabria's eighteen-year-old son—to consolidate power in the family. Your father was there. He saw it happen. And instead of staying quiet like he was supposed to, he kept evidence."
Norah's mind is racing. "Evidence of what?"
"The murder. Financial records. Testimony he planned to give to the FBI before he died." Dante's voice is matter-of-fact, like he's reading a grocery list. "When Vincent died last year, the Calabrias thought the evidence died with him. Then they found out your father had it. And when your father died before they could get to him..."
"The debt passed to me." Norah finishes the sentence, feeling sick.
"Blood debt," Dante confirms. "In their world, debts don't die. They transfer. Parent to child. Generation to generation. You're Vincent Chamberlain's only living heir. That makes you responsible for what he took."
"What did he take?"
"Insurance." Dante's smile is grim. "A USB drive with enough evidence to put half the Calabria family in prison for life. Your father hid it somewhere before he died. They think you know where."
"I don't." Norah's voice is rising. "I have no idea what you're talking about. My father died three years ago. If he had evidence of a murder, I never saw it. I never—"
"It doesn't matter if you know or not," Dante cuts her off. "They think you do. Or they think you can find it. Either way, they're coming for you."
The SUV suddenly feels too small. The air too thin.
"So what?" Norah's laugh is bitter. "They're just going to... what? Kidnap me? Torture me until I give them something I don't have?"
"No." Dante's voice is very quiet. "They're going to kill you. And they're going to make it look like an accident so the FBI doesn't start asking questions."
The words hang in the air between them.
Norah stares at him. At this stranger who's upended her entire life in the span of thirty minutes. Who's sitting there calmly telling her she's marked for death.
"This is insane," she whispers.
"Yes," Dante agrees. "It is."
"I don't believe you."
"You don't have to believe me." He starts the engine again. "But you need to make a choice."
"What choice?"
Dante pulls something from the center console. An envelope. He hands it to her.
"Open it."
Norah's hands are still shaking, but she manages to tear the envelope open. Inside is a photograph. Old, faded. It shows two men standing on a dock. One of them is her father—younger, maybe forty, but definitely him. She'd recognize that face anywhere.
The other man is older. Silver-haired, distinguished. Smiling at the camera with his arm around her father's shoulders.
"Who is that?" Norah asks.
"Vincent Calabria." Dante's voice is flat. "Isabelle's brother-in-law. The man your father watched commit murder. The man whose family now wants you dead."
Norah turns the photo over. There's writing on the back, in handwriting she recognizes. Her father's blocky print.
V.C. and me, summer 1999. Before everything went to hell.
"Where did you get this?" she whispers.
"Your father's storage unit. The one in Glen Burnie you didn't know he had." Dante's watching her carefully. "The Calabrias found it last week. Cleaned it out. Took everything except this photo, because they already knew what your father looked like."
Norah stares at the photo. At her father's young face, his easy smile. Before the embezzlement charges. Before the federal investigation. Before everything fell apart.
"He worked for them," she says slowly. "Didn't he?"
"For twenty years." Dante nods. "Shipping logistics. Import-export. All legitimate on paper. All dirty underneath. He made the Calabrias a lot of money. Right up until he witnessed Vincent murder his own nephew and decided to keep evidence instead of keeping quiet."
"Why?"
"Insurance, like I said. He thought it would protect him. Thought they wouldn't dare touch him if he had leverage."
"He was wrong," Norah says flatly.
"He died before they could get to him," Dante corrects. "Heart attack. Genuinely random. Bad timing for everyone involved."
Norah looks up from the photo. "And now they want me because they think I know where the evidence is."
"Yes."
"But I don't."
"I believe you."
"Then why are they still after me?"
Dante's expression shifts. Something darker moves behind his eyes.
Should he tell her the truth? The whole truth? Or spare her what's still to come?
Either way, time is running out..