Chapter 7
For the second time in one day, Leo Rossi became a father before he became a crime boss.
He ran.
This time, he ran.
The hallway blurred around him.
Mateo shouted orders into his phone. Guards moved. Doors slammed. The mansion lockdown became a storm.
Beatrice pushed herself off the medical table.
Dr. Bell tried to stop her.
She shoved past him.
Her knee nearly failed on the stairs, but she gripped the railing and kept moving.
By the time she reached Lily’s room, Leo was standing by the open window.
Cold night air poured through the curtains.
The bed was empty.
The stuffed rabbit was gone.
That detail broke Beatrice.
“They took Bunny,” she whispered.
Leo turned to her.
“What?”
“She never leaves Bunny unless she’s hiding nearby. If Bunny is gone, Lily is gone.”
Mateo entered.
“No breach at the main gate. No car left. North cameras looped for six minutes.”
“Inside route,” Leo said.
Beatrice looked toward the nursery closet.
“There’s an old service lift.”
Mateo frowned.
“It was sealed.”
“No,” Beatrice said. “The panel sticks. I found it once when I was cleaning. It drops to the laundry level.”
Leo crossed the room.
Beatrice pulled aside stacked boxes in the closet and pressed the edge of the wall.
The panel creaked open.
A narrow black shaft waited behind it.
Small enough for a child.
Or for someone carrying one.
Leo’s hand curled into a fist.
Beatrice grabbed the flashlight from the nightstand.
“I know where it comes out.”
“You’re not coming,” Leo said.
She looked at him like he had lost his mind.
“Yes, I am.”
“You can barely walk.”
“She’ll call for me.”
The argument died there.
Because it was true.
They descended through the main stairs to the laundry level. The mansion felt different below ground. Older. Damp. Less like wealth and more like a secret.
Beatrice led them past linen shelves and boilers.
At the far wall, the service lift door hung open.
A pink ribbon lay on the floor.
Lily’s ribbon.
Beatrice picked it up with shaking hands.
“She was here.”
Mateo crouched.
“Two sets of footprints. One man. One child dragged or carried.”
Leo’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered on speaker.
A distorted voice filled the room.
“You have something that belongs to Senator Kensington.”
Leo’s eyes turned black.
“I have many things that belong in prison.”
“Memory card. Original and copies. Trade them for the child.”
Beatrice covered her mouth.
Leo’s voice stayed calm.
“Let me hear her.”
Static.
Then Lily crying.
“Daddy?”
Leo closed his eyes.
“I’m here, princess.”
“Bee?”
Beatrice stepped forward.
“I’m here, baby. Are you hurt?”
“I’m cold.”
The line crackled.
“Enough,” the voice said. “One hour. South marina. Come alone.”
The call ended.
Mateo cursed.
Leo lowered the phone.
“Trace?”
“Bounced,” Mateo said. “But close. Still on estate grounds when it started.”
Beatrice looked up.
“Estate grounds?”
Mateo nodded.
“They haven’t left yet.”
Leo turned toward the tunnels.
The Rossi mansion had been built over Prohibition-era smuggling passages. Beatrice knew the staff ones. Leo knew the violent ones.
But Lily’s kidnappers had chosen a route between both.
That meant someone knew the house as well as Beatrice.
Mrs. Alvarez appeared at the bottom of the stairs, breathless.
“Mr. Rossi, I counted staff. One missing.”
“Who?” Leo asked.
Her face crumpled.
“Clara.”
The young nanny.
The one Victoria insisted they hire.
Beatrice remembered Clara’s perfect references.
Her quiet smile.
The way Lily avoided being alone with her.
“I should have noticed,” Beatrice whispered.
Leo grabbed her shoulders gently.
“Do not do that.”
“But—”
“No. They hurt my child. Not you.”
His hands were warm through the blanket still around her shoulders.
For a second, their fear touched and became something steadier.
Then Mateo spoke.
“We split teams.”
“No,” Leo said. “They expect force. We give them fear.”
He opened the metal case and took out the memory card.
Beatrice stared.
“You’re giving it to them?”
Leo looked at her.
“I’m giving them a reason to show their faces.”
At the south edge of the estate, a tunnel opened behind an abandoned boathouse.
Leo, Mateo, and Beatrice approached through darkness.
Beatrice should not have been there.
Every sensible bone in her body knew that.
But then she heard Lily.
A tiny cough.
A sob.
Beatrice moved before anyone could stop her.
“Lily!”
Inside the boathouse, Clara stood with Lily held in front of her. A gun pressed to the child’s side.
Lily’s face was wet with tears. Bunny hung from one hand.
Behind Clara stood Senator Kensington.
His expensive suit looked absurd in the damp wooden room.
“You brought the maid,” he said.
Leo’s gun lifted.
Kensington smiled.
“I told you to come alone.”
“You brought my daughter,” Leo said. “I assumed rules were flexible.”
Clara tightened her grip on Lily.
Lily whimpered.
Beatrice stepped forward.
“Clara, look at me.”
The nanny’s eyes flickered.
“She’s cold,” Beatrice said. “Let me give her my blanket.”
“No.”
“She has asthma. If she panics, she could stop breathing again.”
Kensington’s smile faded slightly.
He could handle crime.
He could handle threats.
He could not handle a dead child in his hands.
“Let her,” he said.
Clara hesitated.
Beatrice walked slowly, holding out the blanket.
Lily’s eyes locked on hers.
Bee.
Beatrice saw the word without hearing it.
When she reached them, she wrapped the blanket around Lily’s shoulders.
Then she whispered, “Drop.”
Lily went limp.
Beatrice lunged.
The gun fired into the wall.
Leo shot Clara in the leg.
Mateo slammed Kensington into a post.
Beatrice fell over Lily, covering her with her own body as wood splintered above them.
“Bee!” Lily sobbed.
“I’ve got you!”
Leo was there.
He lifted Lily first.
Then Beatrice.
For a moment, he held both of them against him.
Kensington laughed from the floor, blood at his mouth.
“You think this ends here?”
May you like
Leo looked down at him.
“No,” he said. “This is where I stop being polite.”
