Chapter 4 - THE CHILD'S DRAWING
The floor vanished beneath Elena’s feet.
"What?" The word tore from her throat, raw and ragged. "What do you mean he’s gone? Who took him?"
Silas didn't answer immediately. He was already moving, his hands flying across a keyboard hidden in the desk drawer, bringing up a bank of security monitors on the wall. "The babysitter was knocked unconscious. She just woke up. Front door was breached."
"No. No, no, no," Elena choked out, the air leaving her lungs. Toby. Her sweet, six-year-old boy who loved dinosaurs and slept with a nightlight because he was afraid of the dark. The only pure thing in her ruined life.
She lunged at Silas, grabbing the lapels of his ruined tuxedo. "You did this! You brought this on us! Tell your men to find him! If they hurt him, I swear to God, I will kill you myself!"
She expected Silas to throw her off, to have her restrained. But he didn't. He looked down at her hands gripping his jacket, then up into her tear-streaked face. For a fraction of a second, Elena saw something behind his dead-end eyes.
Guilt.
"Victor," Silas barked, gently prying Elena’s hands away. "Lock down the city. Every port, every toll booth, every Bratva safe house. Nobody breathes without my permission."
"Silas, if the Russians took her kid—" Victor started.
"It wasn't the Russians," Silas cut him off, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "The Russians don't sneak in and take children. They leave bodies. This is internal. Someone is trying to force my hand."
Elena couldn't breathe. She backed away, her hands pressed to her mouth, trying to stifle the sob clawing at her throat. "Why him? Why Toby? He’s six years old!"
"Because you saved my life," Silas said grimly. "Whoever wanted me dead knows you ruined it. They took your son to punish you, and to leverage me."
He stepped toward her, gripping her shoulders. His hands were large and surprisingly warm. "I will get him back, Elena. I swear to you on my life, I will get him back."
Twenty minutes later, Elena was sitting in the back of Silas's armored SUV, flanked by heavily armed guards. They were speeding toward her apartment. She needed to see the scene. She needed to find a clue, anything her trained eyes could catch that the police or the mobsters missed.
They arrived at the dingy, brick apartment building in the narrows. The door to her unit was splintered off its hinges. Inside, it was a nightmare.
Chairs were overturned. The babysitter, a terrified teenager named Sarah, was sitting on the sofa holding an ice pack to her head, weeping to one of Silas’s lieutenants.
Elena rushed past them, straight into Toby’s bedroom.
His dinosaur bedsheets were rumpled. His favorite stuffed triceratops lay abandoned on the floor.
Elena collapsed to her knees, burying her face in the stuffed animal, inhaling the scent of baby shampoo and graham crackers. A jagged sob finally broke free.
Silas stood in the doorway, his massive frame filling the frame. He watched her, his jaw locked tight.
"Look," Silas said softly.
Elena lifted her head. Silas was pointing to Toby’s small wooden desk in the corner.
Scattered across the desk were Toby’s crayons and a stack of construction paper. But one piece of paper was pinned to the corkboard above the desk with a heavy, silver throwing knife.
Elena scrambled up and ran to the desk.
It was a drawing Toby had made. A crude, child’s rendering in black crayon. It showed a tall man in a dark coat. But the most terrifying detail was on the man’s hand.
Toby had drawn a very specific, winding green snake wrapping around the man's wrist and ending at the back of his hand.
Underneath the drawing, written in Toby’s wobbly, kindergarten handwriting, were the words: The Scary Man wants the book.
Elena stared at it in horror. "A snake tattoo. And a book?"
Silas stepped up behind her. When he saw the drawing, his breath hitched. It was a microscopic sound, but Elena heard it.
"You know who this is," Elena said, spinning around to face him.
Silas’s face had turned to stone. He reached up and slowly unbuttoned the cuff of his own left sleeve. He rolled the crisp white fabric back.
Winding around Silas’s muscular forearm, perfectly matching the child’s crude drawing, was an emerald green serpent tattoo.
Elena stumbled back, bumping into the desk. "You... you took him?"
"No," Silas said, his voice hollow. "I didn't take him."
"Then who has that tattoo?" she screamed.
Silas looked away, staring at the drawing of the snake.
"My older brother," Silas said quietly. "Julian."
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Elena froze. "You said you ran the syndicate. I thought you were the only Vance left."
"I am," Silas said, turning his dark eyes back to her. "Julian died in a warehouse fire seven years ago. I identified the body myself."
