Chapter 5 - NO SAFE ROAD OUT
Sarah did not speak until they were back in the car.
Rain hammered the roof hard enough to turn the world outside into a gray smear.
Nico drove faster than he had on the way in. The second security car stayed close behind.
Dominic sat beside Sarah with the photograph from St. Agnes inside his coat.
Elena’s voice still seemed trapped in the car with them.
Lucy owns something he needs.
Sarah stared through the window.
“What does ‘voting control’ mean?”
Dominic answered carefully.
“My father split a portion of Russo Holdings into family trusts years ago. Some shares came to me. Some remained tied to Elena.”
“She was dead.”
“So her shares should have transferred according to the trust.”
“To you?”
“Eventually.”
Sarah turned to him.
“Eventually?”
“If she died without legal heirs.”
The anger returned to Sarah’s face immediately.
“But she didn’t.”
“No.”
“So Lucy owns them.”
“If Elena and Julian were legally married, and if Lucy is their biological child, yes.”
“If?”
Dominic looked at her.
“I’m not questioning what you told me.”
“It sounded like it.”
“I’m saying legal systems require paper.”
“Your family seems very good at making paper disappear.”
“That’s the problem.”
Sarah folded her arms.
“What happens if Vincent gets control?”
“Of the company?”
“Of Lucy.”
Dominic went quiet.
Sarah’s face sharpened.
“That pause was too long.”
“He would need a court to recognize her identity before the shares matter.”
“And then?”
“If she’s a minor, her assets are controlled by a guardian or trustee.”
“Me.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“You’re her legal mother?”
Sarah’s voice became cold. “I adopted her.”
“Then yes, you have rights.”
“Rights.” She gave a bitter laugh. “That’s comforting.”
Dominic leaned forward slightly.
“Sarah, listen to me. Vincent cannot simply walk into a courthouse and take your daughter.”
“No. He just kills everyone around her first.”
Nico’s eyes lifted to the rearview mirror.
Nobody argued.
Sarah looked away.
Dominic hated that silence because she was right.
He had grown up in a world where power often arrived before law and cleaned up after itself. Vincent had spent decades learning which doors opened to money, which people could be frightened, and which signatures could be borrowed from dying men.
If Elena had discovered him, she had discovered only part of what he was capable of.
Dominic pulled out his phone.
No service.
He looked at the signal icon.
“Nico.”
“I see it.”
“Jammer?”
“Could be the weather.”
“Could be.”
Nico reached for the radio connecting him to the second car.
“Unit Two, status.”
Static.
He tried again.
Nothing.
Sarah sat straighter.
“What’s wrong?”
Dominic turned to look through the rear window.
The second sedan was no longer behind them.
“Where did they go?”
Nico’s voice remained calm, which meant the situation was bad.
“They were there thirty seconds ago.”
He accelerated.
Ahead, traffic slowed where the highway narrowed between concrete barriers.
A utility truck sat sideways across one lane, yellow lights flashing.
Nico cursed.
Dominic saw the trap at the same moment.
“Don’t stop.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
The utility truck began moving farther across the road.
A black SUV appeared behind them.
Then another.
Sarah looked back.
“Oh God.”
“Seat belt,” Dominic said.
“It is on.”
“Tighter.”
The first SUV accelerated.
Nico swerved into the shoulder, tires cutting through standing water.
The car fishtailed once.
Sarah grabbed the door handle.
Dominic braced one hand against the front seat.
A dark shape came alongside them.
The passenger window of the SUV lowered.
Dominic saw Gabriel Voss.
Not a gun.
A phone.
Gabriel held it toward Dominic’s window.
On the screen was a live video feed.
Lucy.
Dominic’s blood turned to ice.
The child sat at the kitchen table back at the estate, eating something from a blue bowl.
Bernadette was beside her.
The feed was live.
Gabriel smiled and lifted one finger to his lips.
Then his SUV fell back.
“Jesus,” Nico said.
Sarah had seen it.
Her scream barely sounded human.
“Turn around!”
“We can’t.”
“My daughter is there!”
“Sarah—”
“TURN AROUND!”
She reached for the door as if she might somehow get out at fifty miles an hour.
Dominic caught her wrist.
“Lucy is alive.”
“For how long?”
“They’re showing us the feed because they want us to panic.”
“It’s working!”
Dominic tightened his grip just enough to keep her from hurting herself.
“Look at me.”
She did not.
“Sarah.”
Her eyes finally found his.
“I left her there because you said she was safe.”
“I know.”
“You promised.”
The accusation cut deeper than it should have.
“I know.”
Nico shot them another glance through the mirror.
“I’ve got signal again.”
“Call Bernadette.”
He did.
The call rang once.
Twice.
Then someone answered.
No voice.
Only breathing.
“Bernadette?” Nico said.
A man chuckled softly.
Sarah went still.
Vincent’s voice came through the car speakers.
“Dominic.”
Dominic’s hand closed around the edge of the seat.
“You’re getting predictable.”
“Family does that to a man.”
“Where is Lucy?”
“Eating macaroni, last I checked.”
Sarah covered her mouth.
“Put her on.”
“No.”
“Put her on.”
“You’re not in a position to give orders.”
Dominic watched the road ahead.
Nico had cleared the utility truck and was moving fast now.
“Bernadette?”
“Alive.”
“My people?”
“Embarrassed.”
“How did you get inside?”
Vincent laughed.
“Dom. I helped design the security renovation.”
There it was.
Not a mole.
Not necessarily.
An old master key to a new fortress.
Dominic hated himself for not considering it.
“What do you want?”
“You know what I want.”
“The rabbit?”
“The rabbit, the key, whatever you took from St. Agnes, and the girl’s paperwork.”
Sarah leaned toward the phone.
“You will not touch her.”
A pause.
“Sarah Carter,” Vincent said. “At last.”
Her face drained.
“You know me?”
“I’ve known about you for a long time.”
Dominic turned toward her.
Sarah stared at the speaker.
Vincent continued.
“Michael made such a mess of things. Good man, though. Loyal to the wrong woman.”
Sarah made a sound low in her throat.
“You killed him.”
“I didn’t drive his truck.”
“You killed him.”
“Bring me what Elena stole and we can stop discussing old accidents.”
Dominic said, “Where?”
Nico looked at him sharply.
Vincent gave an address.
A closed roadside diner twenty miles east.
“One hour.”
“How do I know Lucy will be there?”
“She won’t.”
Sarah’s head jerked.
Vincent continued.
“You come alone. We exchange information. If I like what I hear, the girl stays where she is.”
Dominic’s voice flattened.
“And if you don’t?”
“Then Sarah learns why Elena was right to be afraid.”
The call ended.
For several seconds there was only rain and the sound of tires on wet pavement.
Then Sarah hit Dominic.
Her palm cracked across his face.
Nico’s eyes flashed in the mirror.
Dominic did not move.
Sarah’s hand shook.
“You brought this to her.”
“I know.”
“You brought all of it to her.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that!”
“What do you want me to say?”
“That you can fix it!”
Dominic looked at her.
For the first time since she had entered his dining room, Sarah Carter looked not angry, not guarded, not proud.
She looked terrified.
He understood then that she did not need truth from him.
She needed certainty.
It was the one thing he did not have.
So he gave her something else.
“I will get Lucy back.”
Her eyes filled.
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
“Then don’t promise me.”
Dominic leaned closer.
“I’m not promising because I know the future. I’m promising because there is no version of the next twenty-four hours where I stop before she’s safe.”
Sarah stared at him.
Nico took an exit Dominic had not told him to take.
Dominic noticed.
“Where are you going?”
“Not to the diner.”
“Good.”
Sarah looked between them.
“Then where?”
Nico said, “Somewhere Vincent can’t watch.”
They pulled beneath an abandoned freight overpass ten minutes later.
Nico killed the engine.
Rain drummed overhead.
Dominic took Elena’s phone, the photograph and the key from his coat.
“Vincent thinks we found information at St. Agnes.”
“We did,” Sarah said.
“He doesn’t know what.”
Nico nodded. “Meaning he didn’t get into locker 214.”
“Right.”
Dominic looked at Sarah.
“He wants the rabbit because he still thinks the evidence is inside it.”
“But it isn’t.”
“Not the evidence he’s afraid of.”
Sarah frowned.
“What else could there be?”
Dominic replayed Elena’s recording mentally.
Trust amendment.
Lucy owns something he needs.
Vincent believes the company passes cleanly to Dominic.
He took out the hospital photograph again.
Elena and Julian wore matching silver rings.
“Marriage certificate,” Dominic said.
Nico looked at him.
“If Elena married Julian under her real name, there has to be a record.”
“Vincent could have erased it.”
“From one system. Maybe.”
Sarah’s breath caught.
“St. Agnes chapel.”
Dominic looked at her.
“What?”
“Elena asked a priest to bless Lucy. I remember because she argued with Michael about it. She said Father Thomas knew Julian.”
“Priest’s last name?”
“I don’t remember.”
Nico was already searching through a secure browser on a clean device.
“St. Agnes chaplains four years ago… Thomas Keane.”
“Alive?” Dominic asked.
Nico scrolled.
“Yes. Retired. Lives at a monastery near Lake George.”
Sarah whispered, “If he married them…”
“He may have kept a parish record even if Vincent destroyed the civil copy.”
Dominic’s phone lit again.
A message from Vincent.
FORTY-SEVEN MINUTES.
Attached was a picture of Lucy.
She was no longer at the kitchen table.
She sat on a couch Dominic did not recognize.
Mr. Button was not with her.
And beside her, just at the edge of the frame, lay one small red shoe.
The torn one.
May you like
Sarah broke.
Dominic caught her before she hit the floor.
