Chapter 5 - THE SECOND CHILD
“Mia.”
The name tore from my throat like shattered glass.
I rushed to the bank of security monitors, my hands slapping against the cold screens. On camera four, Matteo’s mother—Constanza—stepped into the black SUV.
“Did you hear her?” I spun around to Matteo. He was pale, sweat shining on his forehead, but he was pushing himself up into a sitting position on the cot. “She has our daughter, Matteo. She’s taking her to Italy tonight.”
Matteo’s eyes were dark pools of lethal intent. He swung his legs over the side of the cot, wincing as the fresh stitches in his side pulled tight.
“She won’t make it to the airstrip,” he said softly. It wasn’t a threat. It was a blood oath.
He reached under the mattress of the cot and pulled out a heavy black tactical belt, loaded with extra magazines and a wicked-looking hunting knife.
“You can’t fight like this,” I said, stepping in front of him. “You’ve lost too much blood.”
“Watch me,” he growled, buckling the belt around his waist. He looked at Nico, who was huddled in the corner of the panic room, clutching a thermal blanket.
Matteo’s face softened instantly. He knelt, despite his wounds, and pulled his son into a fierce hug.
“Papa’s going to get your sister,” Matteo whispered into Nico’s hair. “You’re going to be brave for me, okay? You stay with Mommy.”
Nico nodded, tears streaming down his face. “Bring her home, Papa.”
“I will.” Matteo stood up and looked at me. “There’s a secondary tunnel that leads to the old boathouse on the lake. There’s an SUV parked there. You take Nico. You drive away and you don’t look back until I call you.”
“No.”
The word left my mouth before I even thought about it.
Matteo blinked, clearly unused to being defied. “Elena—”
“Don’t ‘Elena’ me,” I snapped, stepping into his space. The timid waitress from Seattle was gone, burned away by the adrenaline and the fierce, protective rage of a mother who had just found out half her soul had been stolen. “She is my daughter. I carried her. Constanza stole her from my arms while I was bleeding in the ashes of this house. I am going with you.”
“It’s a suicide mission,” Matteo said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “My mother has the entire syndicate guard with her. I need to know you and Nico are safe.”
“I’ll be safe when my family is whole,” I said, my voice steady. I walked over to the weapons rack on the wall. I picked up a sleek, black 9mm pistol. I checked the chamber, popped the magazine, verified it was full, and slammed it back in with a satisfying click.
Matteo watched me, a mixture of shock and deep, primal pride warring on his face.
“You always were the most dangerous thing in this house,” he murmured.
He pulled a secure satellite phone from the desk. He dialed a number from memory.
“Luca,” Matteo barked into the phone. “It’s me. My mother ordered a hit on me. She’s taken control. I need you at the boathouse in five minutes to take Nico to the safehouse. Trust no one else.”
He hung up.
We moved fast. The tunnel to the boathouse was damp and smelled of mildew and old secrets. I held Nico’s hand tightly, my other hand gripping the pistol.
Memories were flashing in my periphery like lightning in a storm.
A lavish wedding.
Matteo kissing my stomach.
Constanza glaring at me over a crystal wine glass, whispering to Evelyn Vance.
By the time we reached the heavy wooden door of the boathouse, my head was throbbing.
Matteo pushed the door open.
Standing by a black SUV was a towering man with tattoos wrapping up his neck. Luca.
But as the moonlight hit him, my breath hitched.
I recognized the tattoo on his wrist. A jagged, black serpent eating its own tail.
Fire roaring around me. Smoke filling my lungs. Strong hands dragging me out of the burning nursery. A wrist with a serpent tattoo.
I raised my gun, aiming it straight at Luca’s chest.
“Mommy, what are you doing?!” Nico screamed.
Matteo froze, his hand dropping to his own weapon. “Elena, what is it?”
“He was there,” I breathed, my hands shaking. “The night of the fire. He was the one who dragged me out.”
Luca didn’t reach for his weapon. He slowly raised his hands, his eyes filled with a deep, haunting sorrow.
“I was,” Luca said, his voice thick with gravel. “Constanza ordered me to kill you, Elena. She told me to lock you in the nursery and light the match. She wanted you and the twins dead so Matteo would marry the Don’s daughter in Chicago.”
Matteo let out a sound that was half-roar, half-sob. He leveled his gun at Luca’s head.
“You burned my wife?” Matteo roared.
“No, Boss!” Luca shouted, dropping to his knees. “I didn’t light the fire! Evelyn Vance did! I disobeyed orders. I went in to save them. I grabbed Nico, but the beam collapsed. I went back for Elena, but she was unconscious. Constanza’s men were waiting outside. If I brought her out alive, they would have finished the job.”
“So what did you do?” I demanded, tears blurring my vision.
“I gave the baby girl to Evelyn—Constanza demanded proof of a body. Then I paid a trafficker to take you to Seattle,” Luca confessed, staring at the concrete floor. “I paid a dirty doctor to induce amnesia with electroshock. It was the only way to make you forget who you were. If you remembered, you would have come back, and Constanza would have killed you.”
Silence descended on the boathouse, broken only by the lapping of the lake water.
Luca had tortured me to save me.
Matteo lowered his gun, his chest heaving. “Where is my daughter, Luca?”
“The shipping yards. Pier 44. Constanza is loading her onto a freighter bound for Sicily tonight.”
Suddenly, the satellite phone in Matteo’s hand buzzed.
He answered it, putting it on speaker.
“Matteo,” Constanza’s voice was velvet over razor wire. “I see your tracker just went offline in the boathouse. You survived. How unfortunate.”
“Let Mia go, Mother,” Matteo said, his voice deadly calm. “And I will let you live.”
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Constanza laughed. “Oh, my sweet boy. You misunderstand the stakes. If you want the girl, bring me the imposter. Bring me Elena. Alone. Pier 44. You have thirty minutes. If I see your face, or your men… I will drop your daughter into the harbor in a locked crate.”
The line went dead.
