The Price of Protection and the Dancer Who Refused to Bend
I clicked on the database icon, and a long list of names and photographs appeared.
I began to read through the profiles, taking notes on the associates’ families.
After an hour, a red notification icon began to flash in the corner of the screen.
It was an encrypted file transfer from an external server.
I clicked the flashing icon, expecting another associate profile.
The screen loaded a digitized intelligence report on rival operations.
I scrolled down past the financial ledgers and logistics maps.
At the bottom of the document was a photograph of a man entering a warehouse on the South Side.
The name beneath the photo read ‘Marcus Vance’.
But the face in the picture belonged to James Donovan.
I stared at the glowing screen, my fingers freezing over the trackpad.
The man in the photo had the same crooked nose and slight smirk I had spent two years trying to forget.
It was James.
He was wearing a dark wool coat, walking into a brick warehouse with two men in heavy jackets.
The caption beneath the image labeled him as Marcus Vance, an operative for the Moretti family.