Chapter 3 - Ten Minutes
The instructions arrived thirty seconds later.
One address.
One demand.
Come alone.
Rachel read the message over Luca’s shoulder.
“No.”
Luca looked at her.
“You are not going alone.”
“That’s what he asked for.”
“He also kidnapped a three-year-old.”
“I noticed.”
Rachel grabbed his wrist.
“You have a heart condition.”
“My daughter has a gunman standing next to her.”
“And what happens if you drop dead before you get there?”
The question hit him.
He looked at Marco.
“Trace the message.”
“Working on it.”
“Vehicle?”
“Downstairs.”
Rachel stepped between them.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“And that is why you’re staying here.”
Rachel’s face turned cold.
“You disappeared for three years. You don’t get to start giving me parenting orders tonight.”
Luca almost answered.
Almost.
Then stopped.
She was right.
“I need you alive,” he said instead.
“So does Emma.”
Marco’s phone rang.
He listened.
His expression changed.
“What?”
“The address is a dry-cleaning warehouse in Queens.”
“Owned by?”
“Shell company.”
“Sokolov?”
“Looks like it.”
Luca headed for the door.
Marco followed.
“You can’t actually plan to go alone.”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I plan to make him believe I did.”
Marco smiled faintly.
“That sounds more like you.”
Rachel caught Luca before he left.
He turned.
For a second, they simply looked at each other.
Three years lived between them.
Anger.
Fear.
A love neither had ever properly buried.
“Bring her home,” Rachel whispered.
Luca nodded.
Then Rachel pressed something into his hand.
A tiny plastic bracelet.
Green beads.
“Emma made it at preschool.”
Luca stared at it.
“She said she wanted to give it to her father if she ever met him.”
His throat tightened.
Rachel closed his fingers around it.
“You don’t get to die before she can.”
Twenty minutes later, Luca arrived outside the warehouse.
Marco’s men stayed two blocks away.
Luca walked alone.
His shoulder burned.
His heartbeat felt wrong.
Too fast.
Too heavy.
He entered.
The warehouse was empty except for one folding chair beneath a hanging light.
A phone rested on it.
It rang.
Luca picked it up.
Sokolov’s voice came through.
“You never did understand obedience.”
“Where is Emma?”
“Not there.”
“I know.”
“You still brought men.”
Luca scanned the darkness.
“You expected me not to?”
“No.”
Sokolov chuckled.
“I expected exactly this.”
Then the warehouse lights snapped on.
Luca saw wires.
Boxes.
Fuel cans.
His stomach dropped.
“Marco, pull back!”
The tiny receiver in his ear crackled.
“What?”
“Get everyone away!”
A timer on the far wall turned red.
00:08.
00:07.
Luca ran.
The warehouse erupted behind him.
The blast threw him across the pavement.
His wounded shoulder hit first.
Pain swallowed everything.
His ears rang.
Smoke rolled through the night.
“Luca!”
Marco reached him.
Luca pushed himself up.
“I’m fine.”
“You are definitely not fine.”
“Emma.”
Marco stared toward the burning warehouse.
“This was a trap.”
“No.”
Luca forced air into his lungs.
“This was a message.”
His phone vibrated.
A photograph appeared.
Emma sat in a small room.
Mr. Buttons was clutched against her chest.
She looked frightened but unharmed.
Beneath it were six words.
YOU HAVE UNTIL MIDNIGHT TO CHOOSE.
Then another message arrived.
A bank account.
A shipping terminal code.
And a name.
Marco leaned over his shoulder.
His face drained of color.
Because the name was not Sokolov’s.
It belonged to one of Luca’s own men.
Anthony DeSantis.
May you like
Marco’s younger brother.
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