Chapter 4 - THE GHOST IN THE LOCKER
CRACK.
The glass of the penthouse window shattered. The nanny screamed as a bullet grazed her shoulder, throwing her to the marble floor.
“Get down!” Vincent roared, lunging forward and tackling me to the ground.
We hit the floor hard. Another bullet ripped through the air, embedding itself in the oak desk exactly where my head had been a second before.
“Stay down!” Vincent yelled to the bleeding nanny. He dragged me behind the heavy kitchen island, his body shielding mine.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I looked toward the hallway. “Matteo!”
“He’s safe, the nursery is reinforced steel and bulletproof glass,” Vincent said, his eyes scanning the darkness outside the broken window. He pulled a radio from his belt. “Sniper on the north ridge. Take him out.”
Ten seconds later, a distant pop echoed across the city skyline.
“Target neutralized, Boss,” a voice crackled on the radio.
Vincent let out a harsh breath, his eyes meeting mine. “You’re bleeding.”
I touched my cheek. A piece of flying glass had cut me. It was a tiny scratch, but Vincent looked at it like someone had ripped out his heart. He reached up, his thumb gently wiping away the drop of blood.
“I failed to protect you once, Claire,” he whispered, his face inches from mine. “Never again.”
The raw devotion in his eyes made my breath catch. I didn't just love this man in my past. I loved him right now, in this second, with a terrifying certainty.
We crawled over to the nanny, who was clutching her bleeding shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “Julian hired me. He told me to watch the baby. To make sure Matteo never bonded with anyone. He wanted the boy isolated. Broken.”
Vincent’s face hardened into stone. “Where is my daughter?”
“I don’t know!” the nanny cried. “But Julian keeps a ledger. A black book. It has the locations of all his off-the-books properties. He bragged about it once. He said the only thing that could ruin him was locked away where no one would ever look.”
I looked at Vincent. The key in his hand. Locker 417.
“We have to go to Grand Central,” I said.
Vincent ordered his men to secure the penthouse and treat the nanny. Within minutes, we were in a different car, speeding through the underground tunnels toward the train station.
The station was eerily quiet at 2:00 AM. Vincent held my hand tightly as we navigated the lower levels, the key heavy in his palm.
We found the bank of vintage lockers tucked away in a dusty maintenance corridor.
Locker 417.
My hand trembled as I took the key from Vincent. I slid it into the lock. It turned with a heavy, satisfying click.
I pulled the metal door open.
Inside sat a heavy black ledger. And sitting on top of it was a small, folded piece of pale blue fabric.
I reached for the fabric, my chest tightening. I shook it out.
It was a baby’s hospital hat. The kind they put on newborns. But this one had a name stitched roughly into the brim with dark thread.
Mia.
“Mia,” Vincent choked out, touching the letters. “You named her.”
“I remember,” I whispered, tears spilling over my cheeks. A memory slammed into me—holding a tiny, screaming girl in the dark, furiously stitching her name into a hat before footsteps echoed in the hall. “I named her Mia. I hid this book so Julian couldn’t use it against you.”
Vincent pulled the heavy ledger out. He flipped it open. The pages were filled with bank accounts, payoffs, and addresses.
“Got you, you bastard,” Vincent growled.
Suddenly, a heavy metal gate slammed down at the end of the corridor, trapping us.
A slow, mocking applause echoed from the shadows.
May you like
Julian stepped into the dim light, surrounded by six heavily armed men. And in his arms, wrapped in a dark blanket, was a baby.
“I’ll take that book now, Vincent,” Julian smiled. “Unless you want little Mia to grow up as an orphan.”
