Chapter 7
Nobody moved.
The radio crackled again.
“Front gate. Five minutes.”
Then silence.
Sophie sat up.
“What did he say?”
Luca crossed the room in three steps and turned off the radio.
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
“That’s not true.”
Her voice was small but steady.
Luca closed his eyes for half a second.
Then he looked at me.
I knew that look.
Not an order.
A question.
What do we tell her?
I moved to the bed and sat beside Sophie.
“There may be someone outside who wants to scare us.”
“Why?”
“Because scared people make bad decisions.”
She looked at Luca.
“Are you scared?”
“Yes.”
The answer surprised all of us.
Luca continued.
“But being scared doesn’t mean we do what bad people tell us.”
Sophie looked at me.
“Are you going to the gate?”
“No,” Luca said.
I said nothing.
His head turned sharply.
“Mia.”
“What?”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“I didn’t say I was.”
“You thought it.”
“Can you read minds now?”
“Yours is not difficult.”
Under any other circumstances, I might have argued.
Instead, I looked at Marco.
“What happens if nobody goes?”
Marco’s face was tight.
“We don’t know.”
Angelo pressed a towel against his bleeding arm.
“They want movement.”
Luca turned to him.
“You know that how?”
“Because Cross worked like this.”
“You hired him.”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me how he worked.”
Angelo’s mouth tightened.
“He created pressure. Forced people into visible positions. Once someone moved, he redirected.”
“Redirected where?”
“Depends on the job.”
Marco swore softly.
“He could be watching the front gate.”
“Or the back,” Angelo said. “Or nothing. The point is to make you defend the wrong place.”
Luca looked toward Sophie.
“What place would he want undefended?”
The answer came to me first.
“Garage.”
Everyone looked at me.
“Cross’s body,” I said. “If someone put him there, there might be evidence they need back.”
Marco’s eyes narrowed.
“Possible.”
Luca pointed at him.
“Double the garage team. Quietly.”
Marco nodded.
“And check your men.”
The accusation landed hard.
Marco’s face hardened.
“I know my people.”
“So did I.”
Luca glanced toward the door.
“Apparently that doesn’t mean much tonight.”
Marco absorbed the insult.
Then nodded once.
“Fair.”
He left.
Angelo sat in the nearest chair.
Blood had soaked through the towel.
“You need a doctor,” I said.
He smiled faintly.
“So does everyone in this house.”
Luca looked at me.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Take care of him.”
I stared.
“I was going to get another towel.”
“I know.”
Angelo almost laughed.
“This is becoming very interesting.”
Luca’s eyes cut toward him.
“It stops being interesting if you keep talking.”
Angelo lifted one hand.
“Understood.”
Sophie looked between them.
“Grandpa Angelo?”
The room changed.
I had forgotten.
To Sophie, Angelo wasn’t a powerful investor or a possible conspirator.
He was Vanessa’s father.
A man who had brought birthday presents and taken her for ice cream.
He looked at her.
His face softened.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Did Vanessa try to hurt Daddy?”
Angelo’s expression broke.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
“I don’t know everything she tried to do.”
“Is she bad?”
He stared at his hands.
“People can do bad things without being only one thing.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He looked almost startled.
Luca glanced at me.
I knew exactly where Sophie had learned that.
Angelo sighed.
“She did bad things.”
Sophie nodded.
Then she asked the question none of us expected.
“Did you teach her?”
Silence.
Angelo looked as if she had struck him.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
His mouth opened.
Closed.
“No,” he said finally. “I’m not sure.”
Luca looked at him differently after that.
Not kinder.
But less certain.
My phone buzzed on the table.
Everyone froze.
I picked it up.
Unknown number.
A photograph message.
I opened it.
My stomach dropped.
Ethan.
He was sitting in a chair.
Hands tied behind him.
A strip of duct tape across his mouth.
There was blood above one eyebrow.
The timestamp showed two minutes earlier.
Under the photograph:
YOU HAVE FOUR MINUTES NOW.
I stopped breathing.
Luca took the phone from my hand.
His face darkened.
“Marco!”
No answer.
He called directly.
“Where is Ethan Carter?”
A pause.
Then Luca’s expression changed.
“What do you mean the apartment was empty?”
My heart slammed.
I stood too fast.
Pain exploded through my leg.
I almost fell.
Luca caught me.
“Easy.”
“They have him.”
“I know.”
“I’m going to the gate.”
“No.”
“They have my brother.”
“And if you walk out there, they may have you too.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
The words stopped me.
His hands were still on my arms.
His face was inches from mine.
“I care,” he repeated. “So we do this smart.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand exactly.”
“No, you don’t.”
My voice broke.
“He was ten when I left home. Ten. I promised him I would never let anybody use him to control me again.”
Luca’s grip softened.
“You didn’t cause this.”
“I stayed here.”
“Because I asked you to.”
“I should have gone home.”
“And then maybe they take both of you.”
I shook my head.
Tears burned my eyes.
I hated them.
I had not cried in front of Vanessa.
I had not cried while stitching myself badly at two in the morning.
I would not cry now.
Then Sophie slipped off the bed and hugged my waist.
That did it.
One tear fell.
I wiped it away angrily.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t,” Luca said.
My phone buzzed again.
Three minutes.
A new message:
MIA WALKS OUT ALONE OR ETHAN LOSES A FINGER.
I nearly vomited.
Luca read it.
His face became terrifyingly calm.
Then Marco burst into the room.
“We traced the number.”
“Where?”
“Burner. Cell tower northeast.”
“That’s useless.”
“Not entirely. The image metadata survived.”
I stared at him.
“Where is he?”
Marco looked at me.
“Industrial district. Old Bellini freight warehouse near Route 17.”
Angelo stood so quickly his chair hit the wall.
“No.”
Luca turned.
“You know it.”
Angelo’s face had gone pale.
“That building was supposed to be empty.”
“Supposed to be?” Marco asked.
“It closed eight months ago.”
“Who has keys?”
Angelo looked away.
“Vanessa did.”
My chest tightened.
Marco was already on the radio.
“Send tactical. Quiet approach. No lights.”
Luca grabbed his jacket.
I grabbed my shoes.
He looked at me.
“No.”
“Don’t start.”
“You are not coming.”
“That’s my brother.”
“And that’s exactly why you’re not coming.”
“He will panic if strangers rush in.”
“He’s tied to a chair, Mia.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
My voice rose.
Sophie flinched.
I stopped.
Luca saw it.
So did I.
He took a breath.
Then another.
“Fine.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“You come in the second car. You stay with Marco until the building is secure.”
Marco opened his mouth.
Luca cut him off.
“That’s the compromise.”
It wasn’t much of one.
But it was enough.
Sophie grabbed his hand.
“You’re leaving?”
Luca crouched.
“I have to help Ethan.”
“Will you come back?”
His face changed.
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
He hesitated.
Then kissed her forehead.
“I promise I will do everything I can.”
It was not the answer she wanted.
But it was honest.
He looked at Angelo.
“You stay with Sophie.”
Angelo stared.
“You trust me with her?”
“No.”
Luca nodded toward two armed guards entering the room.
“I trust them.”
Then he looked at me.
“Let’s go.”
We left the mansion through the secured underground garage.
Two SUVs.
No lights until the road.
I sat in the second vehicle beside Marco.
My phone remained in my hand.
One minute.
Then the timer ended.
Nothing happened.
No message.
No new photograph.
That scared me more.
Twenty minutes later, the old Bellini warehouse appeared beyond a line of dead factories.
Dark.
Huge.
One security light above a loading bay.
Marco held up a hand.
We stopped two hundred yards away.
Tactical officers moved ahead.
Luca was in the first team despite every officer telling him not to be.
Of course he was.
The radio whispered.
“North entrance clear.”
“South clear.”
“Movement second floor.”
My entire body went cold.
Marco turned to me.
“Stay here.”
I nodded.
He left.
I waited ten seconds.
Then twenty.
Then a gunshot cracked through the warehouse.
I forgot every promise I had made.
I opened the door and ran.
My injured leg screamed.
I kept running.
Another gunshot.
Shouting.
I reached the loading bay.
An officer grabbed me.
“M’am, back!”
“My brother is inside!”
“Back!”
Then I heard it.
“MIA!”
Ethan.
I tore free.
I ran toward the sound.
Around a stack of pallets.
Through a metal door.
And stopped.
Ethan was tied to a chair exactly like the photograph.
Alive.
Across the room, Vanessa Bellini stood behind him.
A gun pressed against his neck.
Her hair was messy.
Her face was bruised from the transport crash.
But she was smiling.
Luca stood twenty feet away with his hands visible.
His weapon lay on the floor.
“Mia,” he said without looking at me. “Go back.”
Vanessa laughed.
“No.”
May you like
She looked directly at me.
“She finally came where she belongs.”
