Chapter 1: The Promise in the Coffee Shop

The November rain in Chicago wasn’t romantic like in the movies. It was cold, biting, and carried the rusty metallic smell of the elevated train tracks. I, Elena Vance, was standing in a cramped coffee shop on the corner of Wacker Street, trying to dry my soaking wet trench coat.

The line stretched on endlessly. The coffee machine was broken. The noise was chaotic.

Standing before me was a man. He was tall, wearing a perfectly tailored charcoal suit, but his expensive Italian leather shoes were covered in mud. He wasn’t looking at his phone like everyone else. He stood still like a statue, his shoulders tense, constantly checking his watch.

When it was his turn to order, the cashier – a middle-aged woman named Betty with dyed purple hair – winked at me.

“Hey, darling,” Betty said loudly, her voice booming. “After being made to wait three times because the machine broke down, that handsome guy still patiently waited all day. Why don’t you get his number? You two look like a good match.”

The whole cafe chuckled. I blushed, awkwardly looking at the man.

He turned around.

It was a handsome, angular face, but with a hint of darkness. His gray-blue eyes looked at me, but there was no flirtation in them. They held an urgency, a desperate suppressed to the extreme.

He didn’t smile. He stepped closer to me. The scent of sandalwood perfume mingled with the faint smell of gunpowder (which I mistook for car exhaust at the time).

“What’s your name?” he asked, his voice deep and hoarse.

“Elena,” I replied, almost whispering.

He nodded, then extended his hand.

“Nice to meet you, Elena. I’m Jack.”

We looked at each other, shaking hands in a very… grown-up way. His hand was ice-cold, large, and rough. But strangely, when he grasped mine, he didn’t let go immediately. He squeezed, and I felt a hard, cold metal object pressed against my palm from inside his sleeve.

He leaned close to my ear, his hot breath fanning my neck.

“In ten minutes, I’ll have a wife.”

I was stunned, about to pull my hand away, thinking he was joking or subtly rejecting the cashier’s suggestion. But Jack looked deep into my eyes one last time, a look like a dying wish, then released my hand. He didn’t take the coffee. He turned his back, pushed open the door, and walked out into the pouring rain.

I opened my palm, shielding it with the hem of my coat.

It wasn’t a piece of paper with a phone number.

It was a silver locker key, engraved with a series of numbers: U-402.

Chapter 2: The Wedding of Handcuffs

I stood frozen, my heart pounding. His words echoed in my head. “In ten minutes, I’ll have a wife.”

Why would a man about to get married give a key to a stranger? Why did he look like he was running away?

Exactly eight minutes later.

The wailing sirens ripped through the noisy cafe. Not just one police car. Dozens.

Flashing red and blue lights swept across the windows. Black FBI SUVs and Chicago Police Department (CPD) patrol cars blocked the intersection.

I rushed to the window, peering through the rain.

Across the street, in front of the Federal Courthouse, Jack was standing there. He wasn’t running. He stood surrounded by dozens of guns pointed at him.

He slowly raised his hands, then clasped them behind his neck.

An FBI agent lunged forward, roughly shoving him face down into the hood of a police car.

Click.

The sound of metal clashing, though far away, I could clearly picture it. Handcuffs snapped onto his wrists.

Jack was spun around. For a brief moment, he looked towards the coffee shop. He smiled. A sad, relieved smile.

He raised his handcuffed hands to his chest. Two gleaming metal rings shone under the police headlights.

I was speechless.

“Get married.”

In the underworld, “Get married” is slang for being handcuffed. Two metal rings fasten the wrists together, “until death do us part” or until jail time.

Jack knew he was going to be arrested. He knew he had nowhere to run. The encounter in the café, that handshake… he was looking for a hiding place for what he was protecting. And I – a random, seemingly harmless girl – had become his reluctant “guardian.”

But what was this thing?

I looked down at the key in my hand. U-402.

Suddenly, the café door burst open. A man in a leather jacket walked in. He wasn’t very wet from the rain, indicating he had been waiting under the awning outside.

He didn’t order a drink. He glanced around the café, his eyes as sharp as razor blades. He looked at the cashier, then at me.

He approached me.

“Girl,” he said, his threatening tone unmistakable. “That man just now. What did he give you?”

A chill ran down my spine. This wasn’t the police. The police would storm in and order everyone to stand still. This guy is either an “accomplice,” or worse, an enemy of Jack.

“No… nothing at all,” I stammered, my hand gripping the keys in my pocket. “He was just… flirting.”

“I’m done.”

The man narrowed his eyes. He looked down at my hands in my pockets.

“Hold out your hands,” he growled, his right hand reaching inside his jacket where something bulged. A gun.

Chapter 3: The Chase at Union Station

I wasn’t a spy. I was an accountant. But my survival instincts were stronger than I thought.

“Hey!” “What are you doing?” I yelled, drawing everyone’s attention. “Get out of here, you pervert!”

The man froze. All eyes turned to us. He couldn’t fire here.

Taking advantage of the moment, I threw the hot coffee from the table next to me in his face.

“Ahhh!” He screamed in pain.

I dashed out the back door of the cafe, running into the garbage-strewn alley.

I ran for my life. I knew what U-402 was. It was the code for the lockers at Union Station, just two blocks away. Jack had chosen this location intentionally.

I blended into the crowded station. My heart was pounding. I found the locker area. Locker U-402.

I inserted the key.

The locker door swung open. Inside was a black sports backpack.

I zipped up the backpack.

Inside wasn’t… Money. Not drugs either.

It was a laptop and a thick file stamped “TOP SECRET – PROJECT BLACKBRIAR.”

I opened the file. The photos, the bank statements… all pointed to a massive corruption ring involving a state senator and… the Chicago Police Chief.

Jack wasn’t a criminal. Or maybe he was, but he was a whistleblower. He stole this evidence. He knew he’d be caught or killed by the corrupt police before he could hand it over. He needed to get rid of it.

“Found you, you little rat.”

A voice rang out right behind me.

I spun around. The man in the leather jacket from earlier was standing there, his face flushed red from the coffee burn, his gun drawn.

But he wasn’t alone. Standing beside him were two plainclothes police officers. I was stunned.

“Ms. Vance,” a police officer said. “Give me the bag. You’re holding evidence in a murder case.”

They were dirty cops. They worked for the guys on the file.

“Murder?” I recoiled, clutching my backpack tightly.

“That Jack just killed an undercover agent. He’s a terrorist.” “Give me the bag if you don’t want to be charged with complicity.”

I looked around. The station was crowded, but in this secluded corner, no one noticed.

“You’ll kill me,” I said, realizing the harsh truth. If I gave them the bag, I would be the only remaining witness. Jack had been arrested (and would likely “commit suicide” in jail tonight).

“Clever,” the man in the leather jacket sneered, loading his gun.

I looked at the phone in my hand. I looked at the laptop in the bag.

I had a choice.

“Okay,” I said, raising my hand. “I’ll give it.”

I threw the backpack toward them.

The man in the leather jacket snatched the bag, grinning triumphantly. “Good.”

But he didn’t know that, as I stepped back, I had managed to pull out the USB drive containing the data copy (which Jack had taped to the file cover) and clutched it tightly in my hand.

And I did one more thing. I pressed the “Live Stream” button. (Livestreaming on my Facebook from the moment they started threatening me.)

“You’re live on air with 5,000 viewers,” I held up my phone, pointing directly at the three perpetrators’ faces. “The whole of America is watching you.” And then I saw you guys admit you wanted to kill me.”

The three men’s faces turned pale. They looked at each other in panic. In the crowded Union Station, shooting someone who was livestreaming was a death sentence for their careers and lives.

Just then, the loudspeaker announced the arrival of the train. And a (real) station security team rushed over, hearing the commotion.

“Put down your guns!” the security team leader shouted.

Chapter Ending: The Last Vow

Three months later.

The Blackbriar scandal rocked America. The Senator resigned, the Police Chief was arrested.

Jack – whose real name was CIA Agent Julian Stone – was exonerated. He had been undercover and exposed. He knew he was being framed and would be arrested by corrupt police officers the moment he stepped out of the coffee shop. His “wedding” was accepting his arrest as a diversion, hoping I – a random variable – would get away with it. Proof.

I visited Jack at the military hospital. He was seriously injured during his detention but had survived.

Jack sat in a wheelchair, looking out the window. When he saw me, he smiled. This smile was warmer, more genuine.

“You kept your promise,” Jack said.

“You didn’t make me promise anything,” I laughed, placing a cup of coffee on the table. “You just said you were getting married.”

“That’s right,” Jack looked down at his scarred hands. “I thought it was the end. I had ‘married’ my fate. But you… you filed for divorce for me.”

I took his hand. This time, there was no key, no secret. Only the warmth of two people who had been through hell together.

“Next time,” I said. “If you want to propose to someone, use a diamond ring, not a locker key. It’s so unromantic.”

Jack laughed loudly.

“I’ll learn from this.” But I think she’s proven that she likes it.

“Adventures rather than jewelry.”

I looked out the window, where the Chicago sky had cleared of rain.

My life had completely changed after that handshake. I was no longer the shy accountant I once was. I realized that, sometimes, heroes don’t wear capes. They’re just people who dare to take a stranger’s hand in the rain, and hold on tight when the world crumbles.

And as for the “wedding”? Well, maybe we’ll have a different ending, one that’s longer than ten minutes.