Chapter 6 - The Man in the Shadows
“Leo!” I yelled, tearing open the adjoining door.
The room next door was empty. The hospital bed was unmade. The window was closed. I sprinted into the hallway, looking frantically in both directions. Nurses were charting at the station, doctors were walking calmly with clipboards. Everything was normal.
Too normal.
“Where did he go?” I demanded, grabbing a passing orderly. “A three-year-old boy in a suit! Did you see him?”
The orderly looked startled. “Uh, yeah, a woman just carried him toward the service elevators. She said he was throwing a tantrum and needed to go home.”
“What did she look like?”
“Blonde. Wearing a… a wedding dress? She had a coat over it, but I saw the white skirt.”
Florence.
She hadn't gone to the airport. She had followed me here. Arthur was a distraction.
I ran to the service elevators just in time to see the digital floor indicator drop to 'B'—the basement parking garage. I slammed my hand against the stairwell door and took the steps two at a time, ignoring the burning in my chest.
When I burst into the dim, concrete parking garage, I heard the squeal of tires.
A black sedan was peeling out of a parking spot near the exit ramp. Through the tinted back window, I saw a small hand press against the glass.
“Stop!” I screamed, running after the car.
It accelerated, blowing past the toll gate and disappearing into the rainy night.
I stopped, my knees buckling slightly as I gasped for air. My grandson was in that car. Florence had taken him.
My phone buzzed in my hand.
I looked at the screen. It was an unknown number. I answered it immediately.
“If you call the police, Jonathan, I will drop Leo off at a CPS facility under a Jane Doe name, and it will take you months to untangle him from the system,” Florence’s voice echoed through the speaker. She didn't sound frantic. She sounded completely in control.
“If you hurt one hair on his head, Florence, I will spend every cent I have left hunting you down,” I breathed into the receiver.
“Oh, spare me the tough-guy routine,” she laughed dryly. “I don’t want the kid. He’s annoying. But I just checked my offshore account, Jonathan. The wire transfer for the building sale is pending. It says it requires biometric authorization.”
“It’s frozen,” I said. “And it stays frozen.”
“Then we have a problem. Because Arthur is currently panicking, realizing I betrayed him, and you are currently panicking because I have your grandson. I’m the only one holding the cards.”
“What do you want?”
“The building is a lost cause now that you flagged it,” she said smoothly. “But the irrevocable trust. The liquid cash. It’s sitting in your personal vault at the house. Thirty million dollars in untraceable bearer bonds and gold.”
My stomach dropped. She knew everything.
“I need your thumbprint to open the vault,” she said. “Meet me at your house. No cops. No Arthur. Just you. You open the vault, you take the kid, I take the bonds. We never see each other again.”
“How do I know Leo is safe?”
“Grandpa?” a small, frightened voice came through the phone.
“Leo! I’m here, buddy. Be brave. Grandpa is coming,” I said, tears pricking my eyes.
The phone clicked, and Florence was back. “Thirty minutes, Jonathan. Or I leave the country with a new son.”
She hung up.
I ran back up to Christina’s room. She was trying to pull her IV out.
“She has him,” Christina sobbed, seeing my face. “Dad, she took him.”
“I’m getting him back,” I said, grabbing her hand to stop her from hurting herself. “Stay here. Lock the door. Do not let Arthur in if he comes back.”
“Dad, you can’t give her the bonds. It’s your entire retirement. It’s everything.”
“I don’t care about the money, Christina. I never cared about the money.” I looked at my daughter, seeing the terrified mother beneath the bruises. “I’m bringing our boy home.”
May you like
I left the hospital and drove toward my estate, knowing I was walking into a trap. But Florence had made one fatal miscalculation.
She thought I was just an old man in love. She forgot I was the man who built an empire.
