Chapter 15 - The Price of Grace
Elena lunged for the phone.
"Where is she?"
Matteo laughed softly.
"Alive."
"Put her on."
"Elena—"
"Put my daughter on the phone."
The command sounded so much like Dominic that Hannah understood why they had once frightened entire rooms together.
A rustling sound came through the speaker.
Then Grace cried.
"Mama."
Elena collapsed into the chair beside the crib.
"I'm here, baby."
"Mama."
"Are you hurt?"
Matteo returned to the line.
"She isn't hurt."
Dominic's voice was deadly calm.
"What do you want?"
"The blue ledger."
"Anything else?"
"Elena's clinic files."
"Done."
Elena looked at him sharply.
Matteo laughed.
"Still impulsive when it comes to family."
"Where do we bring them?"
"Not you."
Dominic's eyes narrowed.
"Who?"
"Elena."
"No."
"Then Grace spends the night somewhere less comfortable."
Elena grabbed the phone.
"I'll come."
Dominic turned on her.
"No."
She covered the microphone.
"He has our daughter."
"He wants you too."
"I know."
"Then you are not going."
"You don't get to decide that alone anymore."
The sentence silenced him.
Matteo's voice came through.
"Touching."
Elena uncovered the phone.
"Where?"
"I'll send instructions in one hour."
"If she has one mark on her—"
"You married Dominic after all."
The call ended.
Elena threw the phone against the wall.
It shattered.
Lily began crying louder.
Hannah picked her up while Rosa comforted Emma.
Dominic stood at the open window with both hands clenched.
Luca moved toward the security monitor.
"The camera blackout lasted four minutes."
"How did they know where we were?"
Dominic demanded.
Nobody answered.
Then Rosa began sobbing.
Hannah looked at her.
The older woman sank onto the bed.
"I'm sorry."
Dominic turned slowly.
"Rosa."
She covered her face.
"I'm sorry."
Elena stared.
"What did you do?"
Rosa shook with sobs.
"Matteo called me after you disappeared."
Dominic's face emptied.
"When?"
"Eighteen months ago."
"What did he want?"
"Information."
"What information?"
"Where the girls were moved, when security changed, who visited."
Luca looked furious.
"You gave him our locations?"
"Not at first."
"At first?"
Rosa wept harder.
"He had my son."
Hannah remembered Sofia's brother.
Matteo had built a machine out of other people's loved ones.
"Your son lives in Arizona."
Dominic said it flatly.
"He told you that."
Rosa looked at him.
"Matteo has kept him in a private facility for eighteen months."
Dominic stared.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because Matteo sent me a video every week."
"He said if you knew, Paolo would die."
Rosa looked at Elena.
"After you vanished, he told me you were dead because Dominic refused to cooperate."
Elena's eyes closed.
"So you believed him too."
"For a while."
Dominic's voice turned hard.
"Did you tell him about this brownstone?"
Rosa nodded.
"Tonight."
Elena stood so quickly the chair fell backward.
"My daughter is gone because of you."
Rosa sobbed.
"I know."
"You held her when she was born."
"I know."
"You watched me cry for these children every day."
"I know."
Elena raised her hand as if she might strike her.
Then she stopped.
The hand fell.
"Get out."
Rosa looked at Dominic.
He did not defend her.
"Go downstairs."
Two guards escorted Rosa away.
Hannah shifted Lily against her shoulder.
"Matteo uses the same weapon every time."
Dominic looked at her.
"Family."
"He takes someone people love and turns them into a door."
Luca nodded slowly.
"Thomas's twins."
"Sofia's brother."
"Rosa's son."
"Elena."
Hannah looked at Grace's empty crib.
"Now Grace."
Elena wiped her face.
"Then we stop giving him doors."
Dominic looked at her.
"How?"
"We don't do what he expects."
An hour later, Matteo's instructions arrived through an encrypted message.
Elena was to bring the blue ledger and clinic drive to Pier Forty-One in Brooklyn at four in the morning.
She was to come alone.
No trackers.
No police.
No Dominic.
If Matteo saw anyone else, Grace would disappear permanently.
Federal prosecutor Daniel Reeves wanted surveillance teams positioned three blocks away.
Dominic wanted armed men inside every building on the pier.
Elena wanted to go alone.
Hannah rejected all three plans.
"Matteo hasn't seen Elena clearly in years except at the clinic."
Everyone looked at her.
Dominic's eyes narrowed.
"No."
Hannah ignored him.
"From a distance, in a coat, at four in the morning—"
Elena understood first.
"You want to go as me."
"Yes."
Dominic stepped between them.
"Absolutely not."
"He wants Elena because he thinks controlling her controls the trust."
"He wants to kill her."
"Which is exactly why she shouldn't be there."
"And you should?"
"I am the surprise he didn't plan for."
Dominic laughed without humor.
"You have been in this family four days and already think recklessness is genetic."
Elena looked at Hannah.
"It might be."
"Do not encourage her."
Hannah pointed at the map.
"You put a wire on me."
"No."
"Reeves puts agents outside."
"No."
"Luca tracks the exchange route."
"No."
"Do you have another plan that doesn't involve handing him your wife?"
Dominic said nothing.
Hannah held his gaze.
"Grace called me Hannah before she ever called you Dad."
His face tightened.
"Don't."
"I love her too."
The words surprised Hannah as she said them.
They were true anyway.
Elena's eyes filled.
Dominic looked away.
"If anything happens to you—"
"You can apologize for kidnapping me at my funeral."
"Not funny."
"A little funny."
Luca coughed into his hand.
Dominic glared at him.
The final plan used a duplicate ledger and a sanitized copy of the clinic files.
Hannah wore Elena's dark coat and pulled a knit cap low over her hair.
Elena gave her the silver pendant.
"He knows I wear this."
Hannah fastened it around her neck.
"Did Dad give you this?"
Elena touched the pendant.
"Maria said it came with me when I was adopted."
"Mine looked the same."
"Maybe Mom bought two."
The possibility hurt and comforted them at once.
At 3:51 a.m., Hannah walked alone toward Pier Forty-One carrying a black document case.
The East River wind cut through her coat.
The pier appeared deserted.
A single warehouse light burned near the water.
Her earpiece remained silent because Dominic had been forbidden to speak unless necessary.
A van door opened twenty yards away.
Adrian Cole stepped out.
Hannah had seen his photograph only hours earlier.
He was fifty, neat, silver-templed, and looked like the kind of attorney who belonged in a boardroom rather than a kidnapping.
"Elena."
Hannah kept her face partly shadowed.
"Where's Grace?"
Adrian smiled.
"You always were direct."
Hannah said nothing.
"Matteo wants the case."
"I want my daughter."
"First the case."
Hannah lifted it.
"First Grace."
Adrian studied her.
"You sound different."
Hannah's pulse kicked.
"Eighteen months in a clinic changes a person."
His smile faded.
"Take off the hat."
Hannah did not move.
"No."
Adrian's eyes narrowed.
A second man appeared behind the van holding Grace.
The child saw Hannah and began reaching.
"Hanna!"
Adrian froze.
Hannah's heart sank.
Grace had just exposed everything.
Adrian turned toward her slowly.
"Well."
His hand moved toward his coat.
"The other twin."
Before Hannah left for the pier disguised as Elena, Grace's empty crib remained visible through the nursery doorway.
Hannah stopped beside it.
Elena joined her.
"You can still say no."
"So can you."
"I'm not the one walking into a kidnapping exchange."
Hannah looked at her.
"You spent eighteen months in one."
Elena's eyes filled.
"Exactly why I don't want you doing this."
Hannah touched the silver pendant at her throat.
"Do you know what I thought when I first saw your picture?"
"What?"
"That somebody had stolen my face."
Elena gave a broken laugh.
"I thought the same thing when I first saw yours."
"Maybe we can use that once for something useful."
Elena shook her head.
"You barely know Grace."
"I know enough."
"What does that mean?"
Hannah looked at the empty crib.
"It means she reaches for me when she's scared."
"It means she says my name."
"It means I am not letting Matteo teach her that adults always surrender children to protect themselves."
Elena stared at her sister.
Then she hugged her hard.
"Come back."
Hannah held her.
"That's the plan."
"Plans in this family are terrible."
"I noticed."
May you like
Elena pulled away and adjusted Hannah's hat exactly the way a sister might have done a thousand times if their lives had been different.
The small gesture nearly broke them both.
