Chapter 3 - The House With No Safe Room
Darkness swallowed the consultation room.
For half a second, nobody breathed.
Then Nico's hand closed around my wrist.
"Down."
He pulled me behind the heavy conference table just as something struck the glass panel in the door.
The panel cracked into a white spiderweb.
Mateo drew a pistol from beneath his jacket.
So did the other two men.
I had seen guns before.
I had never seen four men react as if a gunshot were simply another kind of clock alarm.
"Emergency power in twelve seconds," Mateo said.
"Too long," Nico answered.
Another shot hit the door.
David began breathing so loudly I wanted to slap him.
"They're here."
"Quiet," I snapped.
He looked at me with wild eyes.
"You think this is normal?"
"No, but panicking loudly seems unhelpful."
Nico glanced at me.
Even in the dark I could feel it.
The emergency lights flickered on.
Red illumination flooded the room.
Leo was upstairs.
The thought hit me like ice water.
"Leo."
Nico's face changed.
He raised his phone.
"Unit one, status."
Static.
Then a man's voice.
"Secure."
Nico closed his eyes for one fraction of a second.
"Move him to vehicle two."
"Already moving."
He looked at Mateo.
"We leave through surgical receiving."
Mateo nodded.
The door handle rattled.
One of Nico's guards fired through the cracked glass.
A body hit the corridor floor.
I stared at the dark shape beyond the panel.
Nico stepped directly into my line of sight.
"Don't look."
"I already did."
"Then forget it."
"That isn't how brains work."
"Tonight, I am learning many things about your opinions."
The absurdity of the sentence almost made me laugh again.
Then the side door opened.
A nurse stepped in with both hands raised.
"There's a service elevator through imaging."
Mateo checked the hallway.
"Move."
We ran.
Or everyone else ran.
I moved as fast as stitches and pain medication allowed while Nico kept one hand at my elbow without ever actually dragging me.
David was shoved ahead by a guard.
The hospital corridor flashed red beneath the emergency lights.
Patients shouted from behind closed doors.
Somewhere an alarm kept repeating that power systems were switching to backup.
At the imaging intersection, a man in blue scrubs stepped from an alcove.
He raised something black.
Nico slammed me against the wall and covered me with his body.
Mateo fired once.
The man dropped.
My heart stopped.
Then started again so violently my chest hurt.
Nico turned my face toward him.
"Are you hit?"
"No."
"Your back?"
"Still attached."
"Good."
He released me.
We reached the service elevator.
The doors opened on the loading level.
Rain blew sideways through an open receiving bay.
A black SUV waited with its engine running.
Leo was inside.
The moment he saw me, he scrambled across the seat.
"Emma!"
Nico stopped him from climbing out.
"Seat belt."
"But she is hurt."
"Which is why you will not jump on her."
I climbed into the rear seat beside him.
Leo took my hand carefully.
It was the smallest gesture anyone had made all night.
It nearly broke me.
Nico slid into the front passenger seat.
Mateo drove.
Another SUV followed behind us.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"Somewhere secure."
"Your house?"
Nico looked at me in the mirror.
"No."
I remembered Chloe's voicemail.
The order came from inside his own house.
"You believe her."
"I believe someone knew details they should not have known."
"That's not the same thing."
"It is enough for caution."
David was in the following vehicle.
I turned to look through the rain-blurred rear window.
Headlights followed us through the city.
For twenty minutes, nobody spoke.
Then Mateo took an unexpected turn beneath the elevated tracks.
The trailing SUV stayed with us.
Another set of headlights did too.
Mateo looked into the mirror.
"We have company."
Nico did not turn around.
"Confirmed?"
"Three turns."
Leo squeezed my hand.
"Papa?"
Nico's voice softened instantly.
"It is fine."
It was not fine.
Mateo accelerated.
The SUV behind us accelerated too.
Rain hammered the roof.
We cut through a yellow light and turned into a warehouse district along the river.
The third vehicle followed.
Nico opened the glove compartment and removed a second handgun.
I stared at it.
"Do you keep those everywhere?"
"Only where I might need them."
"That sounds like everywhere."
"Tonight, yes."
The vehicle behind us suddenly swerved.
A flash erupted from its passenger window.
The back glass of our SUV shattered.
Leo screamed.
I threw myself over him before I could stop myself.
Pain ripped across my stitches.
Nico turned in his seat.
"Emma."
"I'm fine."
"Stop saying that when you are clearly not fine."
Mateo cut hard left.
The SUV fishtailed on wet pavement.
Nico fired through the missing rear glass.
The chasing vehicle dropped back.
A second Valenti SUV pulled alongside it.
Then we were beneath an overpass and out of sight.
Mateo made three more turns.
The tail disappeared.
Leo shook under my arms.
"Hey."
I forced my voice calm.
"Remember your dinosaur?"
He nodded against my chest.
"What kind is he?"
"Tyrannosaurus."
"Terrible choice."
He lifted his head in outrage.
"Why?"
"Tiny arms."
"They are not tiny."
"They are extremely tiny."
"Papa, tell her."
Nico looked back at us.
For the first time since the shooting started, Leo almost smiled.
"I am staying out of this dispute."
"Coward," I said.
Mateo made a choking sound at the wheel.
Nico's stare met mine in the mirror.
Something warm flickered beneath it before disappearing.
We reached the safehouse shortly after midnight.
It was not a bunker.
It was a narrow brownstone on a quiet residential street where porch lights glowed behind wet trees.
No guards were visible.
No gates.
No dramatic iron fence.
"This is secure?" I asked.
"The people who secure it are good at not looking like people who secure things," Mateo said.
Inside, the house was warm and surprisingly ordinary.
There were bookshelves.
A faded rug.
A kitchen with mismatched coffee mugs.
A framed drawing of a crooked blue whale hung near the stairs.
Leo pointed proudly.
"I made that."
"I can tell."
His face fell.
"Because it's bad?"
"Because only a genius would give a whale six legs."
"Those are waves."
"Obviously."
He laughed.
Nico watched us from the doorway.
The look on his face made me suddenly self-conscious.
Mateo led David into the dining room under guard.
Nico followed.
"You stay with Leo."
I bristled.
"I want to hear what he says."
"You need rest."
"You need answers."
"Emma."
"Nico."
His eyes narrowed.
"You enjoy provoking dangerous men."
"Only bossy ones."
Leo looked between us.
"Papa, she talks to you like Nonna used to."
The room went silent.
Nico's expression closed instantly.
Mateo looked away.
I had no idea who Nonna was, but I understood I had stepped near a wound.
"Bed," Nico told Leo.
"But -"
"Now."
Leo's lower lip came out.
I touched his shoulder.
"I'll be here in the morning."
He studied my face.
"Promise?"
The word caught me.
Promises were dangerous things around children.
Adults broke them and children blamed themselves.
I looked at Nico.
He gave one small nod.
"Promise," I said.
Leo hugged my waist carefully, avoiding my back.
Then a guard led him upstairs.
Nico waited until his footsteps disappeared.
"My mother died two years ago."
I looked at him.
"I'm sorry."
"She was the only person who spoke to me without fear."
"Leo seems to manage it."
"Leo believes I exist to provide snacks and solve dinosaur emergencies."
"A demanding position."
"Very."
The brief softness vanished when Mateo returned.
"Mercer is ready."
David looked worse than before.
He sat beneath the dining room light while rain slid down the windows behind him.
Nico took the chair opposite.
I sat beside Nico before he could object.
Mateo remained standing.
"Start with Clara," Nico said.
David rubbed his palms together.
"She contacted me six months ago."
"How?"
"At a card room in Cicero."
"Why you?"
"She knew I had dated Emma."
I felt Nico's attention shift toward me.
"She knew where Emma worked?"
"Yes."
David looked miserable.
"She knew everything about her."
A cold pressure built behind my ribs.
"Everything?"
"Where you lived."
He stared at the table.
"Your schedule."
"What else?"
He hesitated.
"The ring."
I went still.
"My grandmother's ring?"
"She asked where it went."
"Why would Chloe care about my ring?"
"I don't know."
"Stop saying that."
"I really don't."
David looked at Nico.
"She paid twenty thousand toward what I owed Russo just so I would tell her which pawn broker got it."
Nico leaned back.
"Which broker?"
"Bell Street Exchange."
Mateo's expression shifted.
Nico noticed.
"What?"
"That shop belongs to one of Vittorio's holding companies."
Nico's face became unreadable.
I looked between them.
"Who is Vittorio?"
Nobody answered immediately.
That told me the answer mattered.
Finally Nico said, "My uncle."
"Inside your house?"
"Not literally."
"You know what I mean."
He did not answer.
David leaned forward.
"Clara told me one other thing."
Nico's gaze hardened.
"Speak."
"She said if anything happened at Lumina, I was supposed to tell Emma to look under the dinosaur's left foot."
I stared at him.
"The red dinosaur?"
"Yes."
Mateo was already dialing.
"The apartment team has it."
He spoke into the phone.
"Check the left foot."
We waited.
Thirty seconds felt like thirty minutes.
Mateo's eyes met Nico's.
"There is a compartment."
"Tracker?"
"No."
Mateo listened.
"A microSD card."
Nico stood.
"Bring it here."
David exhaled shakily.
I looked at him.
"You said it had a tracker."
"That's what Clara told me."
"Then she lied to you."
Nico's gaze remained on David.
"Or she wanted the wrong people to believe it was a tracker."
An hour later, Mateo inserted the tiny memory card into an isolated laptop.
There was only one file.
A video.
The timestamp was four days old.
The image showed a dark interior I did not recognize.
A woman sat in a chair facing the camera.
Her hair was dark.
Her face was pale.
A bruise shadowed one cheek.
Nico stopped breathing.
Mateo whispered something in Italian.
I looked at Nico.
Every trace of color had left his face.
"Who is she?"
He did not answer.
On the screen, the woman looked directly into the camera.
"Nico, if you are watching this, they finally made their move."
Leo appeared at the dining room doorway behind us.
His dinosaur slipped from his hand.
"Mama?"
The entire room froze.
Nico turned slowly toward his son.
Leo stared at the screen with tears filling his eyes.
"Papa."
His voice broke.
May you like
"Why is Mama alive?"
