Chapter 5 - The Child They Took
I picked up Emma’s red shoe and forgot how to breathe.
Alessandro reached the corridor seconds later.
He saw my face.
Then the shoe.
Everything inside him changed.
“Marco.”
The security chief appeared.
“Lock every gate.”
“They already are.”
“Cameras?”
“Offline for ninety-three seconds during the outage.”
“Vehicles?”
“Checking.”
I grabbed Alessandro’s sleeve.
“Find my daughter.”
He looked at me.
Not through me.
At me.
“I will.”
“No.”
My voice shook.
“You don’t get to promise unless you mean it.”
His expression hardened.
“I mean it.”
Gabriel appeared.
“Paolo did this.”
Alessandro turned.
“You don’t know that.”
“He called thirty seconds before the power failed.”
“Which is exactly why we should assume someone wants us to think he did.”
That stopped everyone.
Emma had taught him something.
Look at the face, not the chair.
Look at what people wanted you to see.
The phone received another message.
An address.
An abandoned Moretti warehouse near Waukegan.
Then:
ONE HOUR.
I started toward the stairs.
Alessandro blocked me with the wheelchair.
“You’re staying.”
“That is my daughter.”
“And walking into a kidnapping site won’t help her.”
“I’m going.”
“No.”
I leaned down until we were eye level.
“You can fire me tomorrow.”
His eyes flashed.
“But tonight, move.”
He stared at me.
Then rolled aside.
“Fine.”
Gabriel almost smiled.
Alessandro pointed at him.
“You stay.”
The smile vanished.
“Absolutely not.”
“I don’t know whether I can trust you.”
Gabriel took the blow.
Then said quietly, “You can trust me with Emma.”
Alessandro looked at him for a long time.
Finally, “Drive.”
The warehouse was dark except for one light.
Security teams surrounded the area without approaching.
The instructions demanded Alessandro alone.
He went in with a transmitter hidden beneath his shirt.
I waited inside a vehicle with Gabriel.
Every second felt like a year.
Then Alessandro’s voice came through.
“Emma?”
Silence.
Metal scraped.
A man spoke.
“Still giving orders from the chair.”
Paolo.
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Alessandro said, “Where is she?”
“Safe.”
“If she’s hurt—”
“She isn’t.”
“Then bring her out.”
Paolo laughed.
“You really have changed.”
“What do you want?”
“The ledger.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“What ledger?” I whispered.
He shook his head.
Paolo continued.
“Your father’s original ledger. The one Vittorio never found.”
“I don’t have it.”
“Then the girl disappears.”
My heart stopped.
I grabbed the door.
Gabriel caught my arm.
“Wait.”
“That’s my child.”
“Listen.”
Inside the warehouse, Alessandro said something unexpected.
“Emma hates the dark.”
Silence.
“She cries when she’s frightened.”
Nothing.
“You haven’t shown me she’s here.”
Gabriel’s eyes widened.
Alessandro continued.
“You took the wrong child.”
Paolo swore.
Then Marco’s voice exploded through our receiver.
“Move!”
Security teams rushed the building.
Gabriel and I followed.
The warehouse was empty except for Alessandro and a speaker.
No Paolo.
No Emma.
A trap.
I thought I would collapse.
Then my phone rang.
Rosa.
I answered.
“Claire?”
“Where is Emma?”
Rosa was crying.
“With me.”
My knees gave out.
Gabriel caught me.
“What?”
Rosa sobbed.
“I took her into the old wine room when the lights failed. Mr. Moretti told staff last week that it was the emergency shelter. I didn’t have my phone.”
Emma had never been kidnapped.
Someone had planted the shoe.
Someone had sent us away from the estate.
Alessandro’s face went white.
“The house.”
We raced back.
The west-wing office had been broken into.
The safe behind Alessandro’s bookshelf stood open.
Nothing appeared missing.
Because whoever entered had not found what they wanted.
“The ledger,” Gabriel said.
Alessandro looked at him.
“What is it?”
Gabriel sat heavily.
“My father used to talk about one.”
“What did he say?”
“That your father kept records nobody knew about. Payments. Judges. Police. Politicians. Every alliance.”
Alessandro’s expression turned disgusted.
“My father kept many sins.”
“If Paolo believes the ledger exists, he’ll keep coming.”
“For what?”
“To own everyone your father once owned.”
I looked toward the desk.
Emma had been drawing there earlier.
Her crayons remained scattered.
One red crayon lay beside an old photograph of Alessandro’s father.
Something about it bothered me.
“Why is that picture crooked?”
Alessandro looked.
“It always is.”
I touched the frame.
Heavy.
Too heavy.
I turned it over.
The backing had been cut and resealed.
Inside was a brass key.
Gabriel whispered, “Jesus.”
Attached to the key was a paper label.
M.M.
Alessandro’s father had been Matteo Moretti.
We spent the next day searching.
The key fit nothing in the office.
Not the desk.
Not the safe.
Not the cabinets.
Then Emma solved it.
Again.
She wandered into the library while we searched and pointed at an antique wooden model of a ship.
“Tiny door.”
There was a brass compartment built into its base.
The key fit.
Inside was a flash drive.
Not a ledger.
Something better.
Matteo Moretti had digitized everything.
Names.
Accounts.
Photographs.
Payments.
And one folder labeled:
ALESSANDRO.
He opened it.
The first file was dated three months before the ambush.
A recording.
Matteo’s voice spoke from beyond the grave.
“If you are hearing this, then someone has finally moved against my son.”
Alessandro stopped breathing.
The recording continued.
“The danger will not come from our enemies.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“It will come from the person Alessandro trusts enough to stand behind his chair.”
Then the recording ended.
There was another file.
A photograph.
Alessandro opened it.
The image showed the roadside where he had been ambushed two years earlier.
Taken ten minutes before the shooting.
A man stood beside the guardrail.
Watching.
Waiting.
Gabriel leaned closer.
May you like
His face collapsed.
Because the man in the photograph was him.
