Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN IN THE VAN“Let me see her.”
My voice sounded unfamiliar.
Jake turned the phone toward my mother.
Her head rested against the metal wall of the van. Her hospital blanket had fallen to the floor. Tape covered her mouth, and one hand hung loosely beside the wheelchair.
A clear tube remained attached to the port near her collarbone.
“Mom!”
She did not move.
Jake turned the camera back.
“She’s sedated.”
“What did you give her?”
“Nothing dangerous.”
“She has cancer, you idiot!”
His face hardened.
“I wouldn’t have had to do this if you had come home.”
Dante approached, but I raised my hand.
For once, he stopped.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“You.”
“Where?”
“You leave the hospital alone. No police. No Moretti.”
“Let her go first.”
“You don’t make the rules.”
I fought to keep my breathing steady.
Dr. Chen stood near the door, already signaling silently to hospital security.
Jake noticed movement behind me.
“Turn around.”
“What?”
“Show me the room.”
I rotated the phone slowly.
Dante stepped out of view before the camera reached him.
Jake watched carefully.
“Put on your clothes. Take the service elevator to the parking garage. You have ten minutes.”
“How do I know you won’t hurt her?”
“You know I love your mother.”
The lie was almost worse than the kidnapping.
“Eight minutes,” he said.
The screen went dark.
My hands shook so badly I nearly dropped the phone.
“We need the police,” Dr. Chen said.
“No police,” I answered.
“That is exactly what kidnappers demand.”
“He’ll hurt her.”
Dante reentered my line of sight.
“He may hurt her regardless.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“Give him what he thinks he wants.”
I stared at him.
“You want me to go?”
“I want him to believe you are going alone.”
Dr. Chen shook her head.
“She has two fractured ribs.”
“I’m aware.”
“Then act like it.”
Dante looked at her.
“I have no intention of placing her in danger.”
“I’m already in danger,” I said. “My mother is in a van with the man who killed my baby.”
The words left my mouth.
The room went silent.
I had never said them aloud.
Not even to myself.
Dante’s face changed.
“Did he?”
“I don’t know. Dr. Chen said the assault may have contributed.”
“Where did he strike you?”
“My stomach.”
Dante closed his eyes for one brief second.
When they opened, the man who had carried me from Marello’s was gone.
Something colder stood in his place.
“Jake will be taken alive,” he said.
It sounded like a promise made against his own instincts.
Dante’s team entered the room.
The burned-jaw man was introduced as Luca Santoro. A woman named Rosa arrived carrying plain clothes and a small black case. She had silver threaded through her dark hair and the posture of someone who slept with one eye open.
“Former Chicago police,” Dante explained. “She will remain beside Emma.”
“Former?” I asked.
Rosa handed me jeans.
“I disliked following stupid orders.”
Despite everything, I liked her immediately.
The plan was simple because there was no time for anything complicated.
I would follow Jake’s instructions.
A tracking device would be hidden in my shoe.
Rosa would remain thirty seconds behind.
Dante’s men would monitor exits and traffic cameras.
The actual police would be informed only after my mother’s location was confirmed.
“You expect me to trust you,” I said while Rosa helped me dress.
“No,” Dante answered. “I expect you to judge what I do.”
It was a better answer than trust me.
We reached the parking garage with three minutes remaining.
Concrete pillars stretched into shadow. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.
My phone rang.
“Keep walking,” Jake said.
“Where are you?”
“Level four. East stairwell.”
I moved toward the stairs.
My ribs burned with every step.
Rosa remained out of sight.
Dante was nowhere visible, but I felt his presence in the garage—the sense that every dark corner had eyes.
When I reached level four, a gray sedan waited with its engine running.
Jake stood beside it.
My mother was not there.
“Where is she?”
“Get in.”
“Show me my mother.”
He approached.
I forced myself not to retreat.
“You embarrassed me tonight.”
“You kidnapped a woman receiving chemotherapy.”
“You turned Moretti against me.”
“You did that yourself.”
His hand shot out and gripped my wrist.
Pain climbed my arm.
“Let go.”
“You think he cares about you?” Jake whispered. “Men like Moretti don’t rescue women. They collect them.”
“At least he asked before touching me.”
Jake’s face twisted.
He raised his hand.
A voice came from the shadows.
“Finish that movement.”
Dante stepped from behind a pillar.
Jake froze.
Luca appeared near the ramp.
Rosa blocked the stairs.
Jake pulled a pistol from beneath his jacket and pressed it against my ribs.
The barrel struck the fracture.
White pain blinded me.
Dante stopped moving.
“Tell your people to back away,” Jake said.
Dante lifted one hand.
Everyone remained still.
“Where is Eleanor?” he asked.
“Safe.”
“That word means very little from you.”
Jake dragged me toward the sedan.
My body wanted to panic.
But panic was what he expected.
For two years, I had studied Jake’s anger in order to survive it.
He always watched faces.
He rarely watched hands.
I reached into my pocket and closed my fingers around the small metal cylinder Rosa had given me.
Press the top, she had said.
Aim for the eyes.
I pressed.
Pepper spray struck Jake’s face.
He screamed.
The gun moved away.
I drove my elbow backward, hitting his throat.
The motion tore through my ribs, but I did not stop.
Dante crossed the distance between us.
He knocked the weapon away and forced Jake to the ground.
Luca secured his arms.
Jake coughed and cursed beneath them.
“Where is she?” Dante demanded.
Jake laughed through watering eyes.
“You should ask your uncle.”
Dante went still.
“What did you say?”
“You think this is about some pathetic waitress?”
He looked at me.
“Tell him, Emma. Tell him what your father used to do.”
“My father was a mechanic.”
Jake smiled.
“No. Your father worked for the federal government.”
Dante’s attention shifted toward me.
I shook my head.
“He’s lying.”
“Am I?” Jake asked. “Why do you think Liam was framed? Why do you think your mother’s treatments were paid through the Moretti Foundation?”
“What?”
My mother’s financial aid came from a charitable fund.
I had never looked closely at the name.
Dante’s face darkened.
“What did Vittorio tell you?”
Jake’s smile widened.
“Enough to know you’ve been protecting the daughter of the man who tried to destroy your family.”
A phone rang inside the sedan.
Not mine.
Jake’s.
Luca retrieved it from his jacket.
A video call was already active.
Vittorio Moretti appeared on the screen.
He was older than Dante, with silver hair and a pleasant, almost grandfatherly face.
Behind him sat my mother.
Her eyes were open now.
Terrified.
“Good evening, nephew,” Vittorio said.
Dante stared at him.
“Release her.”
“I will. After you bring me Emma Foster.”
My mother struggled against the restraints.
Vittorio smiled.
“You have one hour.”
The screen shifted, revealing the interior of Marello’s empty private dining room.
The flickering chandelier hung above them.
My mother was inside the restaurant where I had collapsed.
Where Marco had called Jake.
Where everything had begun.
Then Marco stepped into view with a gun pressed against the back of my mother’s head.
May you like
His voice broke as he looked into the camera.
“I’m sorry, Emma.”
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