Chapter 2 - The Unlocked Door
~1,050 words
I stared at the photograph of my three-year-old daughter’s name, written in Jake’s sloppy, unmistakable scrawl. The heat inside the luxury SUV suddenly felt suffocating. My hands trembled so violently that the glossy paper slipped from my fingers, landing on the leather seat between Luca Castellano and me.
“Why?” The word scraped raw against my throat. “Jake doesn’t care about Emma. He walked out when she was eighteen months old, took the seventy thousand dollars my grandmother left me, and never looked back. Why is he tracking my baby?”
Luca didn’t reach for the photo. His dark brown eyes remained locked on my face, reading my panic with a terrifying, absolute calm.
“Because Jake didn’t just steal your inheritance, Ava,” Luca said, his voice dropping into a low, smooth cadence that made the hairs on my arms stand up. “He used it to buy into a high-stakes shipment coming through the Port of Seattle. A shipment belonging to the Moretti family.”
My breath caught. Even civilians knew the Morettis. They were the brutal, chaotic rivals to the Castellano syndicate.
“Jake lost the shipment,” Luca continued, his gaze flicking briefly to the rain pounding against the tinted glass. “He was supposed to vanish. But three days ago, my men spotted him crawling back into the city. He owes the Morettis over two million dollars. He is a dead man walking, and desperate men do not return to the city that wants to kill them unless they have leverage.”
“Emma is not leverage,” I gasped, pressing myself back against the door. “She’s a little girl.”
“To you, she is everything,” Luca said, his tone softening just a fraction, a surprising shift that disarmed me. “To a man like Jake, she is a bargaining chip. But not for ransom, Ava. Jake knows you don’t have any money left.”
“Then what does he want?”
“Answer one question, open two,” Luca murmured, leaning slightly closer. “Jake isn’t trying to trade your daughter to the Morettis. He believes Emma has something that belongs to him. Something he needs to buy his life back.”
I shook my head frantically. “She has nothing! We have nothing. We live in a one-bedroom apartment over a laundromat!”
Luca’s expression darkened. He pressed a button on the console. The glass partition separating us from the driver slid down. “Dante, change of plans. We aren’t going to the penthouse. We go to the babysitter’s address. Now.”
“Yes, Boss,” the massive driver replied. The SUV immediately swerved, the tires gripping the wet asphalt as we accelerated sharply.
Panic, cold and suffocating, seized my chest. “You’re scaring me. Why are we going to Mrs. Chen’s?”
“Because,” Luca said, pulling a sleek black handgun from a hidden shoulder holster and checking the magazine with terrifying efficiency, “if my men found Jake outside your diner tonight, it means he was watching you. He was waiting for you to start your shift.”
The realization hit me like a physical blow to the stomach.
Jake knew my schedule. He knew I worked until midnight. Which meant he knew exactly when Emma would be separated from me.
“Drive faster!” I screamed at the partition, my swollen ankle completely forgotten.
Luca reached across the seat. His large, scarred hand wrapped over my trembling fingers. The contact was shocking—warm, calloused, and grounding. “We will get her, Ava. I do not make promises I cannot keep.”
For a second, I looked at this feared, ruthless mafia boss, and instead of a criminal, I saw the only shield standing between my daughter and a monster.
The SUV tore through the neon-lit streets of Seattle, finally slamming to a halt outside a row of faded brick apartments in the International District.
I didn’t wait for Luca’s security. I shoved the door open and hit the pavement. Pain exploded up my injured leg, but adrenaline masked it. I threw all my weight forward, hobbling desperately toward the concrete stairs.
Luca was right beside me. He didn’t try to carry me again; he knew a mother’s panic couldn’t be contained. Dante and another heavily armed guard flanked us as we rushed up to the second floor.
We reached apartment 2B.
My heart completely stopped.
The heavy wooden door was cracked open. Deep gouge marks scarred the wood near the deadbolt. Someone had taken a crowbar to the lock.
“Emma!” I shrieked, pushing past Luca and throwing the door wide open.
The small, cozy apartment was a disaster. The television was smashed. Books and papers were scattered across the cheap linoleum floor.
“Clear the rooms,” Luca commanded. His men swept through the tiny apartment like silent, lethal shadows.
“Emma! Mrs. Chen!” I sobbed, tearing into the small living room.
I dropped to my knees, ignoring the agonizing spike of pain in my ankle.
Resting in the center of the overturned coffee table was a small, worn velvet box.
My breath hitched.
It was my grandmother’s jewelry box. The one Jake had emptied eighteen months ago when he stole my inheritance.
But it wasn't empty now.
I reached out with shaking hands and opened the velvet lid.
Inside sat a tarnished silver locket. It was heavy, antique, and engraved with a crest I didn't recognize.
“Clear,” Dante called out from the back bedroom. “The apartment is empty, Boss.”
“No,” I wept, clutching the locket to my chest. “They took her. He took my baby.”
Luca knelt beside me on the ruined floor. He looked at the tarnished silver locket in my hand. His entire body went rigid. The color drained from his face, leaving his olive skin pale and taut.
“Ava,” Luca whispered, staring at the necklace with an expression of pure, unadulterated shock. “Where did you get that locket?”
“It was my grandmother’s,” I choked out.
“No, it isn’t,” Luca said, his voice turning to ice. “That locket belongs to the Castellano family. It was stolen off my mother’s neck the night she was murdered twenty years ago.”
Before I could process the massive reversal—that my family history was somehow tied to the trauma of Seattle’s most feared mafia boss—a weak, muffled sound came from the kitchen.
A soft, muffled thump.
Luca instantly raised his weapon, stepping in front of me.
He kicked open the narrow pantry door.
Curled in the darkest corner, terrified and clutching a frying pan, was Mrs. Chen. And tucked safely behind her, clutching her favorite stuffed rabbit, was my three-year-old daughter.
“Emma!” I screamed, scrambling across the floor.
But as I pulled my crying daughter into my arms, Emma looked over my shoulder at the open door.
“Mommy,” Emma whimpered, her tiny fingers pointing at the hallway. “The lady was looking for you.”
I froze.
I looked up at Luca.
May you like
“Lady?” Luca repeated, his eyes narrowing.
It wasn't Jake who had broken down the door.
