Chapter 4 - THE CHILD'S DRAWING
The silver bracelet sat in my lap like a live grenade.
I stared at the tiny sapphire beads, my brain completely short-circuiting. The air in the SUV suddenly felt too thin to breathe.
"You," I choked out, my hands trembling as I picked up the bracelet. The metal was cold. "You gave my daughter to Julian?"
"I gave him a location," Keller corrected, his voice infuriatingly calm as he navigated the black SUV onto the FDR Drive. "What he did with it was his business."
A primal, violent rage erupted inside me. It wasn't the trained, calculated anger of my past life. It was the raw, unhinged fury of a mother.
Without thinking, I lunged at him.
I didn't have a weapon, so I became one. I drove my elbow directly toward his throat, aiming to crush his windpipe.
Keller was faster. He blocked my strike with a brutal forearm parry, slamming my arm against the center console. He grabbed my wrist, twisting it just enough to send a shockwave of pain up my shoulder, pinning me back against the passenger door.
"Stop," Keller ordered, his eyes briefly leaving the road to glare at me. "If you make me crash this car, you will never see Mia again."
"You sold a seven-year-old girl to a psychopath!" I screamed, tears of pure hatred burning my eyes. "Julian will kill her just to hurt me!"
"Julian won't touch a hair on her head," Keller snapped, finally releasing my wrist. He gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. "He needs her alive. Just like he needs you alive."
I pulled myself back into the seat, rubbing my bruised wrist, my chest heaving.
Answer One: Keller wasn't a hero. He was a mercenary who had orchestrated Mia's kidnapping to force me out of hiding.
Open Two: Why? Why did Julian need me alive? And why was Keller, a man who already had millions working for Rourke, doing Julian's dirty work?
"Why did you pull a gun on Victor?" I asked, my voice shaking with venom. "If you’re working for Julian, why didn't you just let Rourke hand me over?"
Keller checked the rearview mirror. His eyes were dark, haunted by something I couldn't place.
"Because Rourke wasn't going to hand you over," Keller said. "Rourke realized Julian set a trap at the docks. He was going to use you as a human shield to get his fifty million, and then he was going to execute you both."
"So you saved me to deliver me yourself."
"I saved you because Julian promised me something in return," Keller said quietly.
He reached into the visor above him and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He handed it to me.
I took it hesitantly. It was a piece of cheap construction paper, folded into quarters.
I opened it.
It was a child's drawing, done in heavy, chaotic crayon strokes. It showed a tall, black tower next to a jagged blue ocean. A lighthouse.
It was Mia’s drawing. She always drew her 's' backward. The word HOUS was scribbled at the top.
But it wasn't the drawing that made my blood run cold. It was the dark, reddish-brown stain on the bottom corner.
Blood.
Dried blood.
"Julian gave that to me yesterday," Keller said. "As proof of life."
"Whose blood is this?" I whispered, my voice breaking.
"The foster mother you left her with," Keller replied bluntly. "She tried to stop Julian's men. She didn't succeed."
A sob tore out of my throat. Mrs. Higgins. A sweet, sixty-year-old woman in Connecticut who thought she was taking in a political refugee. I had brought death directly to her door.
The reversal hit me with sickening clarity. Keller hadn't kidnapped Mia. Julian's men had. Keller was just the middleman, the locator. But Keller was holding a piece of the puzzle I couldn't see.
"What does Julian want from me?" I asked, wiping my face, forcing the mother’s grief down and bringing the survivor’s cold logic back to the surface. "He has his freedom. He has his cartel back. What could I possibly have that he wants?"
Keller looked at me. "You really don't know?"
"Know what?"
"Eleven months ago, before you faked your death in that car fire in Chicago," Keller said, "you cleaned out Julian's personal safe. You took his ledger. The real one."
My stomach plummeted.
The ledger. The physical black book Julian used to blackmail politicians, judges, and rival cartel bosses. The insurance policy that kept him untouchable.
"I burned it," I lied instinctively.
"No, you didn't," Keller said, his voice hardening. "If you burned it, Julian would be dead already. He needs that book, Evelyn. And he knows you hid it."
Keller pulled the SUV off the highway, turning onto a dark, industrial road near the Queens waterfront.
"And that brings us to my price," Keller said, slowing the car down. "Julian gets you. Julian gets his ledger. And in exchange, Julian gives me the name of the man who murdered my sister."
I froze.
My sister.
Answer One: Keller's motivation was revenge. He was trading my daughter's life to solve his own family tragedy.
Open Two: Who was Keller's sister?
Before I could ask, the SUV’s headlights swept across a towering stack of shipping containers.
Suddenly, the windshield exploded in a shower of shattered glass.
Automatic gunfire ripped through the night.
Keller slammed on the brakes, throwing his arm across my chest to keep me down.
"Ambush!" Keller roared, drawing his weapon as the SUV fishtailed into a concrete barrier with a bone-jarring crunch.
My head slammed against the window. Ears ringing, vision blurring, I looked up through the spiderwebbed glass.
Standing in the headlights, holding a smoking assault rifle, was Victor Hale.
May you like
And he wasn't alone.
"You didn't think I'd let you walk away from Table 14, did you, Keller?" Victor’s voice echoed through a megaphone. "Get out of the car. Both of you."
