Chapter 4 - The Man Who Pretended to Be Safe
David’s image filled the security monitor.
His lower lip was split, and one side of his face was bruised, but he was conscious. A chain ran around his chest, securing him to the chair.
Behind him stood a wall of corrugated steel and a row of tall windows darkened by rain.
Theo had been taken upstairs before the video began, but I could still feel his fear lingering in the underground command room.
“Can you trace it?” Luca asked.
Marco worked at a computer beside two technicians.
“The transmission is bouncing through multiple servers.”
“Can you trace the car?”
“Stolen three days ago.”
I stared at David.
A man who had never raised his voice in front of Theo was now tied to a chair because he had made the mistake of loving us.
“I should go alone,” I said.
Luca did not turn.
“No.”
“That is what Rafael demanded.”
“He wants you frightened enough to obey.”
“He has David.”
“And he wants the records.”
“He doesn’t know they may already be under his control.”
Luca finally faced me.
“If Rafael had the documents, he would have destroyed them.”
“Unless he couldn’t open the vault.”
“Why not?”
“The account requires two authorization codes. Margaret had one. I have the other.”
Marco glanced up.
“Do you know her code?”
“No.”
“Then Rafael may have spent six years trying to obtain yours.”
The screen flickered.
David raised his head.
A speaker activated.
“Emily?”
I moved toward the microphone.
“David, I’m here.”
He closed his eyes with relief.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’ve had better evenings.”
“I’m sorry.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
A voice outside the camera frame said, “Tell her the rest.”
David looked toward someone we could not see.
Then back at the camera.
“They want you to bring a key and a twelve-digit number.”
“My code.”
“Don’t come.”
A hand struck the side of his head.
I gasped.
Luca leaned into the microphone.
“Rafael, you wanted my attention. You have it.”
Rafael stepped into view.
He was older than I remembered, with silver hair and a narrow face that seemed almost kind until one looked at his eyes.
“Luca.”
“Release the teacher.”
“Why? Has he not been useful to your wife?”
“He has nothing to do with this.”
“He chose a woman with no past and never wondered why.”
David laughed weakly. “Actually, I wondered constantly.”
Rafael looked down at him.
“You see? Curious. Curiosity becomes expensive.”
I gripped the desk.
“What happened to Margaret?”
Rafael smiled at the camera.
“The real Margaret refused to cooperate.”
“You killed her.”
“She made an unfortunate choice.”
“Who has been contacting me?”
“A talented woman on my staff. Your grief made impersonation easier.”
“You knew where I was the entire time.”
“Not at first. But once you accessed Margaret’s old emergency account, you became remarkably easy to guide.”
Luca’s voice turned quiet.
“Why leave her alive?”
“Because your father’s documents were encrypted. Emily possessed one key. Margaret possessed another. I had hoped your wife would eventually find a way to recover Margaret’s code.”
“I didn’t.”
“No. You became a waitress.”
His contempt brought back every cold dinner table at the DeMarco estate, every man who had assumed I was decorative because I spoke softly.
“You underestimated me once,” I said. “You put the bomb beneath the passenger side because you believed Luca always drove.”
Rafael’s smile disappeared.
Luca looked at me.
I continued.
“But we changed seats that morning. I was nauseated. Luca drove so I could recline.”
Rafael stepped closer to the camera.
“A fortunate accident.”
“No. Your first failure.”
“Bring the key and code tomorrow. Midnight.”
“Where?”
“You will receive a location one hour before.”
Luca said, “She won’t come.”
Rafael smiled again.
“Then Mr. Cole dies.”
The transmission ended.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Then Luca turned to Marco.
“Find the warehouse.”
“We need more visual data.”
“The windows, steel walls, anything.”
The technicians began analyzing the recording.
I walked toward the exit.
Luca followed.
“Where are you going?”
“To see Theo.”
“We are not finished.”
“I am not planning David’s rescue while my son is alone upstairs wondering whether the house will explode again.”
“He is with Teresa.”
“He needs me.”
Luca caught my arm.
I looked down at his hand.
He released me immediately.
“Emily.”
“What?”
His anger had faded. Something more difficult replaced it.
“Is David the father of your possible child?”
“Yes.”
The single word hung between us.
Luca nodded once.
“You love him?”
I should have answered quickly.
David deserved that certainty.
But love had become complicated long before I met him.
“I care about him.”
“That was not the question.”
“You lost the right to ask.”
“I lost many things without being asked.”
“You think I didn’t?”
“You had Theo.”
“And I raised him alone while looking over my shoulder every day.”
“You chose that.”
“I chose his life.”
“And decided mine was expendable.”
I stared at him.
“Your life was never expendable. That was the problem. I knew you would search for us. I knew you would start a war. I knew you would burn half the city before allowing anyone to threaten your child.”
“I would have protected him.”
“You would have made him a target the moment you publicly claimed him.”
“He became a target anyway.”
“Six years later. Six years in which he learned to ride a bicycle, went to preschool, made friends, and slept without guards outside his bedroom.”
“And six years in which I knew none of it.”
His voice was not loud.
That made it hurt more.
He stepped back.
“What was his first word?”
I swallowed.
“Light.”
“Not Mama?”
“No. He kept pointing at the lamp and saying ‘ight.’”
“When did he walk?”
“Fourteen months.”
“Was he afraid?”
“Of walking? No. Of the vacuum cleaner, yes.”
A faint smile appeared.
“Does he still fear it?”
“No. Now he fears thunderstorms.”
Luca glanced toward the ceiling as rain struck the house.
“He didn’t seem afraid in the car.”
“He was pretending.”
“Like you.”
“I had practice.”
We stood in the underground corridor, surrounded by concrete walls and years of things we had never been allowed to say.
Then Theo’s voice came from behind us.
“I’m not pretending now.”
He stood in striped pajamas, holding Teresa’s hand.
“Why are you out of bed?” I asked.
“I heard yelling.”
“We weren’t yelling.”
“You were doing quiet yelling.”
Teresa gave us an accusing look.
Theo walked toward Luca.
“Is David okay?”
I knelt.
“He is alive.”
“Are the bad men hurting him because of us?”
“No,” David’s situation was absolutely because of us, but I could not place that burden on a child. “They are hurting him because they are bad men.”
“Can Luca save him?”
Theo’s trust was immediate and dangerous.
Luca crouched beside us.
“We are going to try.”
“You have guards.”
“Yes.”
“And cars.”
“Yes.”
“And probably secret tunnels.”
“One or two.”
Theo turned to me. “He can save David.”
“We are working on it.”
“Then why do you look sad?”
I brushed his curls from his forehead.
“Because grown-up problems don’t always have easy answers.”
Theo looked at Luca.
“You said lawyers are like knights.”
“Sometimes.”
“Can lawyers save him?”
“Possibly.”
“Then use all of them.”
Luca nodded solemnly. “Good plan.”
Teresa led Theo back upstairs after he extracted another promise that Luca would visit before bedtime.
Once he was gone, Marco approached.
“We found a possible location.”
A satellite map appeared on his tablet.
“There are four abandoned industrial sites with matching windows,” he said. “Only one has active electricity and a cellular repeater nearby.”
“Where?” Luca asked.
“Old Bellweather Foundry, forty miles south.”
I looked at the countdown clock captured in the video.
“Then we go now.”
“It could be a decoy,” Marco said.
“It probably is,” Luca replied. “Rafael expects us to trace it.”
“Then what do we do?”
Luca studied the map.
“We let him believe it worked.”
He began issuing orders.
“Send two vehicles toward the foundry. Make them visible. Use the usual tactical team. At the same time, get me blueprints for the vault where the records are stored.”
I understood.
“You think David is near the vault.”
“Rafael needs your code. He will not risk transporting you across the city after he gets it.”
Marco nodded. “The vault is beneath the Harrington Trust building in Manhattan.”
“Who owns Harrington Trust?” Luca asked.
The technician typed rapidly.
“A holding company controlled by—”
“Rafael,” I finished.
Luca looked at me.
“He has been waiting in the same place for six years.”
My phone vibrated.
A message from an unknown number contained a photograph of David’s hand resting on the arm of the chair.
Beside it lay a knife.
COME ALONE, OR HE LOSES ONE PIECE AT A TIME.
I showed Luca.
His face went cold.
“I’m going with you,” he said.
“He will see you.”
“Not if he is looking at you.”
“What exactly are you proposing?”
“You enter the building. I enter below it.”
Marco frowned. “The underground plans show only one public access point.”
“Public access,” Luca repeated.
He took the tablet and enlarged the map.
“The Harrington building was constructed over an old rail mail tunnel. My father used it for shipments in the nineties.”
“You know the tunnel?”
“I sealed it fifteen years ago.”
“Can it be reopened?”
“Yes.”
Marco looked doubtful. “With explosives.”
“Quiet explosives.”
“That phrase is not reassuring,” I said.
Luca ignored me.
“We retrieve David, secure the documents, and take Rafael alive.”
Marco raised an eyebrow. “Alive?”
“I want every name he has bought. Every officer, agent, judge, and employee.”
I studied Luca.
The man I remembered would have ordered Rafael killed without hesitation.
“What changed?”
His eyes met mine.
“I have a son watching.”
An hour later, we gathered in the study.
Daniel Frost had been released and reassigned to Teresa’s security team. Anthony personally apologized to him, though the apology sounded painful.
Marco spread building plans across the desk.
“The vault opens with a physical key, Emily’s code, and Margaret’s code,” he said. “Rafael may have Margaret’s code, but the system logs both users. Once opened, the records can be transferred.”
“What happens if I enter the wrong number?” I asked.
“Three failed attempts trigger a permanent lock.”
Luca tapped the tunnel route.
“Emily goes through the main entrance at eleven fifty. She carries a duplicate key and a false code.”
“Rafael will test them.”
“Not before he shows her David.”
“And if he searches me?”
“He will.”
Marco placed a thin chain on the desk.
The pendant contained a tiny microphone and locator.
I stared at it.
“The last tracking device I carried ended with a bomb.”
Luca’s gaze darkened.
“This one was built by someone I trust.”
“Who?”
“Me.”
He picked up the necklace and stepped behind me.
His fingers brushed the back of my neck as he secured the clasp.
The contact lasted only seconds, but six years disappeared too easily.
“You used to wear a silver moon,” he said quietly.
“I sold it when Theo needed antibiotics.”
His hands stopped.
“You should never have had to do that.”
“I did what mothers do.”
He moved in front of me.
“And now?”
“Now I bring David home.”
Luca held my gaze.
“And after?”
“After, we decide what happens to Theo.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“We decide what happens with Theo. But I already know what happens to me.”
“What?”
“I become his father.”
“You can’t simply announce that.”
“I’m not asking you to return to me. I’m not asking you to forgive me. But I will not disappear from his life.”
“Your presence may put him in danger.”
“Then I remove the danger.”
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
I wanted to believe him.
That was the most dangerous impulse of all.
My phone rang.
It was the clinic.
The nurse spoke quietly and asked me to confirm my date of birth. I answered while Luca watched.
“The blood test you took yesterday is positive,” she said. “You’re approximately six weeks pregnant.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Thank you.”
I ended the call.
Luca had heard enough.
He looked toward the floor.
“I’m sorry,” I said, though I did not know what I was apologizing for.
“You don’t owe me an apology.”
“David doesn’t know.”
“We’ll bring him back so you can tell him.”
The steadiness of Luca’s answer surprised me.
Then Marco entered.
“We have movement at the Harrington building. Rafael’s men just arrived with a prisoner.”
David.
Luca picked up his jacket.
“Stay close to me until we separate.”
“I know the plan.”
“This is not part of the plan.”
“What is it?”
He looked at the small pendant resting over my heart.
“A request.”
May you like
I waited.
“Come back alive.”
