Chapter 3
I had spent my life surrounded by criminals.
Some wore gold rings.
Some wore uniforms.
Some wore expensive suits and sat on charity boards.
But nothing made a room colder than the mention of a missing child.
“A baby girl?” I asked.
Claire nodded weakly.
“They kept her in another room. I heard her crying before the alarms went off.”
“Did you see her face?”
“For a second.”
Her voice shook.
“She had a red birthmark near her left eye.”
Mason came back in, rain dripping from his jacket.
“We caught two. Third ran.”
I handed him the microdrive.
“Copy this twice. Air-gapped machine. No network.”
His eyes sharpened.
“What is it?”
“The reason my brother died.”
Mason did not ask again.
I looked at my doctor.
“Patch Claire up enough to move her.”
Claire tried to rise.
“No. I can tell you where the warehouse is.”
“You are not going back.”
“The baby is there.”
“That is why you are staying alive.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Don’t talk to me like I’m fragile.”
“You can barely sit.”
“I drove through a gate with your nephew in my lap.”
The doctor froze.
Mason muttered, “She has a point.”
I looked at Claire.
Even bruised, shaking, wrapped in a ruined coat, she was steady in a way most armed men were not.
“Fine,” I said. “You give directions from a secure car.”
She nodded.
“And Eli stays with me until you have someone I trust.”
“You don’t trust my men?”
“I trusted your convoy.”
The words hit clean.
I deserved them.
I put Eli back in her arms.
“We leave in five.”
Mason pulled me into the hall.
“Boss, if Vivienne is involved—”
“Do not say her name outside this hallway.”
“She knows the safe house locations.”
“I know.”
“She knows where Eli’s nursery staff live.”
“I know.”
“She knows everything.”
I turned on him.
“Then we move faster than she can speak.”
Within minutes, the safe house became motion.
Eli was strapped into a bulletproof carrier beside Claire.
Claire refused more pain medication because it made her drowsy.
I sat across from her in the armored SUV and watched her fight sleep like it was another attacker.
“You can rest,” I said.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because when I woke up in the warehouse, Eli was gone for three minutes.”
Her voice broke.
“I will never forget those three minutes.”
I had no answer.
The convoy rolled toward Hammond under hard rain.
Mason rode ahead.
My phone buzzed.
Vivienne.
I stared at her name.
Claire saw it.
“Answer.”
I did.
“Aunt Viv.”
“Gabriel, thank God,” she said. “Is Eli safe?”
Her voice sounded exactly as it always had.
Warm.
Worried.
Family.
“Yes.”
She exhaled.
“Oh, my darling boy. Bring him home. I’ll come to the safe house.”
“Not yet.”
A pause.
“Why?”
“We may still have a leak.”
Another pause.
Shorter.
Sharper.
“Then you should be careful who you trust.”
I looked at Claire.
“I am.”
Vivienne’s voice softened.
“That woman with him. Claire Bennett. She works in accounting, doesn’t she?”
My blood slowed.
I had not told her Claire was with him.
“Yes.”
“I heard Mason mention her earlier.”
Mason had not spoken to Vivienne.
Not tonight.
Not since the ambush.
I said nothing.
Vivienne continued.
“Poor thing. Shock can make people say strange things.”
There it was.
The first thread.
The soft lie before the rope tightened.
“I’ll call you later,” I said.
“Gabriel.”
“Yes?”
“Remember who raised you.”
I ended the call.
Claire whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“She is family.”
“So was my brother.”
The warehouse sat near the river, half-hidden behind shipping containers and broken lights.
My men moved in first.
No gunfire.
No shouting.
That made me more nervous.
When Mason called, his voice was tight.
“Boss. You need to come in.”
I stepped inside with Claire behind me, despite every order I had given and every order she ignored.
The room where she had been held still smelled like smoke and wet concrete.
A broken zip tie lay on the floor.
A fire extinguisher rested on its side.
Mason led us to the back office.
Inside was a crib.
Empty.
Claire gripped the doorframe.
“No.”
On the mattress lay a pink blanket.
And a note.
One baby buys time.
Two babies buy empires.
Under it was a photo.
The little girl Claire had seen.
Rose.
May you like
On the back, written in black ink, was one name.
Vivienne Kane.
