Chapter 8
“No.”
Dominic said it before anyone else could breathe.
His voice was flat.
Absolute.
“No.”
Agent Reeves turned toward me.
“Anna, you are not going inside.”
I was glad she said it.
I needed someone to say it.
Because part of me had already moved toward the sound of Sofia crying.
Not because I was brave.
Because I was a mother.
And Isabella knew exactly where to cut.
The speaker crackled again.
“Five minutes, Dominic. Anna comes to the east door alone, or Sofia pays for your pride.”
Ethan made a broken sound.
“Dad, please.”
Dominic did not look away from the terminal.
“I said no.”
I stared at him.
“What if she hurts Sofia?”
He turned on me.
“What if she hurts you? What if Lily watches her mother die because Isabella knows how to twist good people into traps?”
Lily clung to Rosa.
“Mommy can’t go.”
I closed my eyes.
That decided it.
Not fear.
Not Dominic’s order.
Lily’s voice.
I knelt in front of her.
“I’m not leaving you.”
She threw her arms around my neck.
Agent Reeves was already talking to her team.
“She asked for Anna because she’s losing control,” she said. “That means we push.”
Dominic’s eyes stayed on the building.
“She knows Sofia likes Anna?”
I frowned.
“I’ve only met Sofia a few times.”
“Children talk,” Rosa whispered. “Sofia liked you. She said you were nice because you never looked scared of her father.”
I almost laughed from terror.
“I was always scared of her father.”
Rosa touched my arm.
“Children see underneath.”
Agent Reeves received something through her earpiece.
“We have eyes through the east window. Isabella is armed. Sofia is with her. Falcone is in the main hall. Six men confirmed.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“Can you take the shot?”
“Not clean.”
Another crackle.
This time, the voice was smaller.
Sofia.
“Uncle Dom?”
Ethan began sobbing.
Dominic’s face shattered.
“Sofia!”
“She can’t hear you,” Agent Reeves said softly.
Isabella’s voice returned.
“She keeps asking why everyone is mad. Isn’t that sweet? Children are so trusting before adults ruin them.”
Dominic gripped the barrier until his knuckles whitened.
“You are her mother,” he said, though the speaker would not carry it back.
Isabella kept talking.
“I spent ten years watching men bow to you, Dominic. Ten years watching Vincent beg for scraps from your table while you called it family. Falcone offered us a kingdom.”
Dominic’s voice was barely audible.
“You traded your child for power.”
“No,” Isabella said, as if answering a thought. “I traded your child. Mine was insurance.”
Ethan looked confused through tears.
I understood.
The plan had never been to kill Sofia.
Sofia was leverage.
Ethan was the sacrifice.
My stomach turned.
Agent Reeves looked at Dominic.
“She’s confessing on open channel.”
Dominic did not care.
His eyes were on the terminal.
“Get Sofia out.”
Reeves nodded to a tactical commander.
Everything moved at once.
Agents shifted.
A drone lifted quietly behind us.
Marco spoke with two federal officers, pointing to an old service tunnel entrance on the map.
Then Lily tugged my coat.
“Mommy.”
“What, baby?”
“The cake lady is lying.”
I froze.
“What cake lady?”
“The mean mommy.”
I glanced at Dominic.
He crouched immediately.
“What is she lying about?”
Lily pointed at the terminal.
“She said five minutes. But the cake man said hurry when the bells ring three times.”
Agent Reeves spun toward us.
“What?”
Lily looked scared by the attention.
I wrapped my arm around her.
“Say it again, sweetheart.”
“At the party. The cake man was on the phone. He said, ‘When the bells ring three times, hurry.’”
The bell tower.
Agent Reeves looked at the time.
A church bell rang in the distance.
Once.
Everyone froze.
Then again.
Twice.
Dominic’s face changed.
“Bomb?”
Agent Reeves shouted orders.
“Move! Move now!”
Third bell.
The world erupted.
Not the terminal.
The street behind us.
One of the parked vans exploded into fire.
Heat slammed into us.
I fell over Lily, covering her body with mine.
Glass rained across the pavement.
People screamed.
Ethan shouted for Dominic.
Smoke swallowed everything.
My ears rang.
For a moment, I could not see.
Then hands grabbed me.
Dominic.
He pulled me and Lily behind the SUV.
His forehead was bleeding.
Ethan was with Marco, coughing but alive.
Rosa was on the ground.
I screamed.
Dominic turned.
Marco reached her first.
“She’s alive!”
Relief almost knocked me flat.
The explosion had been a distraction.
Falcone’s men opened fire from the side street.
Agents returned fire.
The terminal doors burst open.
Two men dragged Vincent out, using him as a shield.
His face was bloody.
He could barely stand.
Behind them, Isabella appeared with Sofia clutched against her.
Sofia was crying.
Her hair was tangled.
Her pink coat was dirty.
But she was alive.
Dominic stepped out from behind cover.
Agent Reeves screamed, “Moretti, down!”
He ignored her.
“Isabella!”
She pointed a gun at Sofia’s side.
“Stay back!”
Dominic lifted both hands.
“No one shoots.”
Falcone emerged behind Isabella, smiling like this was a dinner party.
Lucian Falcone was older than Dominic, thinner, with white hair and dead eyes.
“Beautiful family reunion,” he called.
Dominic’s voice was ice.
“Let the girl go.”
Falcone laughed.
“Which one? There are so many children involved now. Yours. Vincent’s. The little witness.”
His eyes found Lily.
I pulled her tighter.
Dominic saw it.
Something in him changed.
Not rage.
Resolve.
He looked at Isabella.
“Sofia is looking at you.”
Isabella’s hand shook.
“Shut up.”
“She will remember this.”
“Shut up!”
“She will remember whether her mother saved her.”
For one second, Isabella looked down.
Sofia sobbed, “Mommy, please.”
That was all it took.
Vincent, barely standing, drove his shoulder backward into the man holding him.
At the same moment, Isabella pushed Sofia away from her body.
“Run!”
Sofia ran.
Dominic ran too.
Gunfire cracked.
Agent Reeves tackled Falcone from the side.
Marco dropped one of the gunmen.
I saw Sofia trip.
Ethan broke free from Marco and sprinted toward her.
“No!” I screamed.
But he reached her first.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her behind a concrete barrier.
Dominic covered them both with his body as bullets struck the stone around them.
Then federal agents surged forward.
Falcone went down.
Isabella dropped her gun.
May you like
Vincent collapsed.
And Sofia screamed for her father.
