Chapter 18 - The Second Kidnapping
Aleandro did not raise his voice.
That frightened Marco more than shouting would have.
"Find the vehicle."
"We're pulling every camera now."
"Find the officer who signed the evacuation order."
"The signature belongs to a real federal supervisor."
Samuel was already calling the task force.
"And he did not issue it."
Teresa Voss sat frozen at the conference table.
"Anthony knows federal procedure."
Aleandro looked at her.
"How?"
"He worked joint campaign details with federal protection teams years ago."
"Could he forge the paperwork?"
"I don't know."
"Could Dominic?"
Teresa closed her eyes.
"Dominic knows everyone."
Aleandro turned away before anger made him useless.
At the safehouse, the security team had done exactly what trained men were taught to do when presented with apparently valid federal authority during an active threat.
They verified names against credentials.
They called a number printed on the emergency order.
A professional-sounding dispatcher confirmed the transfer.
They watched Sophia and Emma enter an armored government-style vehicle with two uniformed officers.
Every layer of the deception had been designed to punish caution instead of carelessness.
Sophia had objected.
Camera footage showed her arguing with the lead officer for nearly two minutes.
Then he said something that changed her mind.
Marco replayed the audio.
"Mr. Moretti's location has been compromised."
Sophia's face changed on screen.
"Is he alive?"
"At this moment, yes."
The officer lowered his voice.
"But we need you and the child moved before the same team reaches this address."
Emma clutched Mr. Hops.
Sophia looked toward the Moretti guards.
One of them nodded after the false dispatcher confirmed the order.
She entered the vehicle.
Aleandro watched the recording once.
He did not watch it twice.
"She went because they used me."
Marco said nothing.
"They knew she would move if she thought staying endangered me."
Samuel looked at him.
"Which means whoever planned this understands her now too."
That fact made the room colder.
The armored vehicle disappeared from traffic cameras near the Bronx River Parkway.
Ten minutes later, a different camera caught Sophia and Emma being transferred into a dark sport utility vehicle beneath an overpass.
The false officers removed their jackets.
One was Anthony Voss.
Teresa identified him before anyone asked.
"That's my husband."
Her voice collapsed.
The second man remained unknown.
Emma's rabbit was visible in her hands.
Sophia walked without struggling.
Aleandro knew why.
When your child is beside you, resistance becomes a calculation rather than an instinct.
Every sudden movement has a price you may not be willing to make the child pay.
At 10:22 a.m., Dominic Romano called.
Not Aleandro.
Samuel.
"Put me on speaker," Dominic said.
Samuel did.
"Where are they?" Aleandro asked.
Dominic laughed softly.
"No greeting?"
"You have five seconds before every recording of your daughter accusing you reaches every newsroom in the country."
"Do that and Sophia dies first."
The room went still.
Aleandro's face did not change.
"If you touch either of them, there will be no place on this earth where your name protects you."
"There is the Moretti temper."
Dominic sounded almost pleased.
"Your father had it too."
"My father made one mistake."
"Only one?"
"He trusted men like you to honor paper."
Dominic's tone sharpened.
"Your father begged me for money."
"And you spent twelve years trying to collect a family instead of a debt."
"I spent twelve years waiting for the asset to mature."
Sophia's voice suddenly came through in the background.
"Aleandro, do not sign anything."
A sound followed, as though the phone had been pulled away from her.
Aleandro's fists clenched.
"Let me speak to Emma."
Dominic waited.
Then a small voice came onto the line.
"Mr. Moretti?"
Aleandro closed his eyes.
"I'm here."
"Mommy says I'm not supposed to be scared."
He heard Sophia say, "I said it's okay to be scared."
Even now, she was correcting the wording.
Aleandro almost broke.
"Your mommy is right."
Emma whispered, "Are you coming?"
Dominic took the phone back before Aleandro could answer.
"You will come alone."
"Where?"
"Instructions will follow."
"What do you want?"
"Three signatures."
"On what?"
"A temporary control agreement, a debt acknowledgment, and a sworn statement that Sophia Bellini's child is not yours."
Samuel shook his head violently.
Aleandro ignored him.
"And after I sign?"
"They walk away."
"You expect me to believe that."
"No."
Dominic's voice became colder.
"I expect you to decide whether disbelief is worth your daughter's life."
The line ended.
Samuel immediately began listing reasons the documents would be challengeable if signed under duress.
Aleandro barely heard him.
Marco was studying Emma's damaged rabbit on the traffic footage.
"Wait."
Everyone looked at him.
He enlarged the image.
"The brown replacement button."
Aleandro frowned.
"What about it?"
"After the first kidnapping, I asked Sophia for permission to put a low-power safety tag inside the rabbit."
Aleandro stared at him.
"You did what?"
"She agreed."
"Why didn't you say this ten minutes ago?"
"Because the tag only wakes when queried at close range by our network or when it detects certain movement patterns."
"Can you query it?"
"Trying now."
Marco opened a secure tracking application.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then a small green point appeared near the waterfront in Brooklyn.
It moved once.
Stopped.
Moved again.
Aleandro recognized the location before the map label loaded.
Moretti Terminal Four.
The oldest active shipping property in the company.
The same terminal where his father had signed the first private debt agreement with Dominic Romano twelve years earlier.
Samuel looked at the screen.
"This is too convenient."
"It's symbolic," Aleandro said.
"Dominic wants the company transferred where he believes he bought it."
Marco was already coordinating federal teams.
Aleandro grabbed his coat.
Samuel blocked the doorway.
"You are not going alone."
"He expects me alone."
"He also expects you desperate."
"I am."
Samuel did not move.
"Then do not let desperate decide the plan."
Aleandro stared at him.
The sentence sounded like Sophia.
That was probably why it worked.
They built the operation around one fact Dominic did not know.
Emma still had the rabbit.
Federal tactical teams would approach from the river and neighboring freight yards while Aleandro entered through the main gate visibly alone.
Marco would remain close enough to intervene but far enough not to trigger anyone watching the entrance.
Valentina, under federal protection, insisted on joining the command channel remotely.
Aleandro refused.
She called Sophia's second phone anyway, forgetting it had been recovered at the safehouse and was now in Samuel's possession.
Samuel answered.
"What?"
"Tell Aleandro something."
"He's standing here."
Valentina's voice came through speaker.
"My father never releases leverage."
Aleandro looked at the phone.
"I know."
"No, you don't."
Her voice shook.
"When he says they walk away, he means after he has made sure they can never contradict whatever he forces you to sign."
Sophia and Emma were not hostages Dominic intended to trade.
They were witnesses he intended to erase after the signatures were complete.
Valentina continued.
"And Aleandro?"
"What?"
"Anthony Voss isn't his final security layer."
"Who is?"
Valentina hesitated.
"Carlo."
Aleandro stared at the phone.
"Carlo is in federal custody."
"Check again."
Samuel called his contact.
The answer came less than a minute later.
Carlo Vieri had never reached the federal detention center.
The transport convoy had been diverted after a false emergency order.
The exact same trick used to take Sophia and Emma.
The armored prisoner vehicle was found empty beneath an overpass.
Aleandro looked at Marco.
Dominic had taken Sophia.
He had taken Emma.
And now he had freed Carlo.
Whether Carlo wanted freedom or not, everyone connected to the original Moretti debt was being pulled toward the same terminal.
During the first minutes after Sophia and Emma were taken, one compromised guard tried to resign by text and disappear.
Marco stopped him at a train station before he left the city.
The guard insisted he had not helped with the abduction.
He admitted only to forwarding internal shift schedules to a consultant who paid him for what he believed was corporate intelligence.
The consultant worked through a company tied to Romano Strategic Holdings.
Marco wanted to treat him as a traitor.
Samuel insisted on turning him over to federal investigators instead.
Aleandro backed Samuel.
That decision surprised Marco.
"Six months ago you would have handled him yourself."
"Six months ago I did not have a daughter watching what handling means."
Marco looked at him for a long moment.
Then he nodded.
The captured guard provided one useful detail before the Terminal Four operation began.
Dominic had requested diagrams of the old loading dock and executive launch routes three weeks earlier.
The terminal was not an improvised meeting place.
May you like
It had always been the planned final location if the poisoning and inheritance transfer went wrong.
