Chapter 4 - A Debt Written in Blood
Chloe dropped the phone.
Vincent caught it before it hit the floor.
“That’s her.”
He studied the photograph.
“You’re certain?”
“I know my mother.”
Salvatore stepped forward.
Vincent blocked him.
“Stay where you are.”
Salvatore’s eyes narrowed.
“You think I sent it?”
“I think everyone in this house is lying.”
Chloe barely heard them.
Maria Bennett.
Alive.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
The small scar beside her eyebrow.
The crooked left pinkie she had broken as a teenager.
Chloe remembered holding that hand as a child.
“She’s alive.”
Hope was dangerous.
Chloe knew that.
Hope made people careless.
But for the first time since she was eleven, she could barely breathe around it.
Vincent enlarged the image.
“There.”
Behind Maria was a faded blue sign.
St. Catherine’s.
“We go now,” Chloe said.
“No.”
She turned on Vincent.
“That’s my mother.”
“And someone wants you to react exactly like this.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
Vincent paused.
The question seemed to surprise both of them.
Then he answered simply.
“Because I locked the door.”
Chloe stared at him.
“What?”
“You asked me to keep him from taking you. I agreed. That doesn’t end because the threat changed.”
Something inside her shifted.
Not trust.
Not yet.
But the beginning of it.
Vincent organized the trip in minutes.
No convoy.
No obvious Moretti vehicles.
Marco drove.
Vincent sat beside Chloe.
Salvatore remained behind under guard.
St. Catherine’s had been abandoned for years.
They entered through a service corridor.
Room 317 was on the third floor.
The door stood open.
Inside was Derek.
Alone.
Tied to a chair.
Alive.
Chloe stopped.
“Where’s my mother?”
Derek raised his head.
His face was bruised.
“Chloe?”
Vincent searched the room.
“No one.”
Chloe approached Derek.
“Was she here?”
He laughed weakly.
“You still don’t understand.”
“What?”
“They’re using both of us.”
“Who?”
Derek looked toward Vincent.
“Him.”
Vincent remained calm.
“Try again.”
Derek shook his head.
“Not you. Your family.”
Chloe crouched.
“Derek, where is my mother?”
“I don’t know.”
“You saw her.”
“On a screen.”
Chloe’s hope collapsed.
“The picture was staged?”
“No. It was live.”
She grabbed his shirt.
“Then where is she?”
“I don’t know!”
Vincent noticed something beneath Derek’s chair.
A wire.
“Move.”
He pulled Chloe backward.
Marco cut Derek loose and checked the device.
Not a bomb.
A recorder.
Vincent pressed play.
Maria’s voice filled the room.
“Chloe, if you hear this, I failed to keep you outside their world.”
Chloe stopped breathing.
Her mother continued.
“Do not trust Salvatore Moretti.”
Vincent looked at Marco.
The recording continued.
“And do not trust Derek Vale.”
Derek closed his eyes.
Chloe stared at him.
Maria’s final sentence played.
“Most of all, do not let Vincent discover what happened on October seventeenth.”
The recording clicked off.
Vincent looked at Chloe.
“October seventeenth is the night my mother died.”
A metallic sound came from the corridor.
Marco raised his gun.
The lights went out.
May you like
Someone whispered Chloe’s name from the darkness.
And this time, the voice belonged to Maria Bennett.
