Chapter 2 - The Empty Warehouse
Roman had spent fifteen years teaching himself that hesitation killed.
That was why he had chosen quickly.
And that was why, standing in Amelia’s empty cell, he hated himself.
Stefano moved through the warehouse with six men.
“Blood here.”
Roman turned sharply.
“How much?”
“Not enough to indicate serious injury.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Stefano looked at him.
Roman rarely repeated himself.
Tonight everyone understood they were dealing with a different man.
“Small amount. Probably from her lip.”
Roman closed his eyes briefly.
The last image he had of Amelia returned immediately.
Her pale face.
Her bloody mouth.
Her hand resting over their child.
I’m not Enzo.
Roman opened his eyes.
“Security cameras?”
“Wiped.”
“Traffic?”
“We’re pulling everything within five miles.”
“Hospitals?”
“Already checking.”
“Bus stations?”
“Yes.”
“Airports?”
“Yes.”
Roman looked toward the emergency door Amelia had used.
Rain blew through it.
“She was barefoot.”
Stefano said nothing.
“She was pregnant and barefoot.”
“I know.”
Roman turned on him.
“Do not say that to me tonight.”
Stefano’s expression hardened.
“You told me to tell you the truth.”
Roman stared at him.
Stefano had been with him since they were teenagers. He was one of perhaps three people alive who could speak to Roman Duca without permission.
So he continued.
“You knew she was pregnant when you chose Valyria.”
Roman’s face went still.
“I owed Enzo my life.”
“And Amelia owes you nothing.”
The words landed like a blade.
Roman stepped closer.
Stefano did not move.
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I think maybe you didn’t know it two hours ago.”
Silence stretched between them.
Roman looked away first.
That told Stefano everything.
Roman walked toward the corner where Amelia had been held.
A small strip of ivory lace was caught on a steel bolt.
He removed it carefully.
His wife’s dress.
The dress she had worn that morning when she left the house to meet a contractor.
Roman remembered seeing her near the staircase.
She had asked whether he would be home for dinner.
He had been reading a message.
“What?”
“Dinner,” she had repeated. “Are you coming home?”
“Probably.”
She had smiled faintly.
“You always say probably.”
Roman had finally looked up.
She was beautiful.
She had always been beautiful.
But pregnancy had changed something. Not her appearance exactly. It had changed the way he saw time when he looked at her.
Future.
Family.
Things he had never expected to possess.
He had crossed the foyer and kissed her forehead.
“I’ll be there.”
He hadn’t been.
Because Valyria had called.
Again.
Roman closed his fist around the torn lace.
His phone rang.
“Talk.”
A man on the surveillance team answered.
“We have a possible visual.”
Roman was moving before the sentence finished.
“Send location.”
“A laundromat on West Patapsco. A black SUV belonging to the Vescari crew passed through twelve minutes after the alarm.”
“Amelia?”
“Camera inside is old. We see someone matching her height enter. We never see her leave from the front.”
Roman’s pulse kicked.
“I’m going.”
They reached the laundromat in nine minutes.
The older woman behind the counter looked unimpressed when six men in dark coats entered after midnight.
Roman approached alone.
“A woman came here.”
“No.”
He placed his phone on the counter.
Amelia’s photograph filled the screen.
The woman glanced at it.
Too quickly.
Roman noticed.
“She was hurt.”
“No woman came here.”
Roman lowered his voice.
“She’s my wife.”
The woman’s eyes sharpened.
“She looked afraid of whoever was searching for her.”
Roman felt cold.
“I am searching for her.”
“That doesn’t answer what I said.”
Stefano glanced away, almost admiring the woman’s nerve.
Roman stayed perfectly still.
“Did she say anything?”
“No.”
“Did she ask you for help?”
Silence.
Roman understood.
He slowly removed his wallet and placed several hundred-dollar bills on the counter.
The woman looked offended.
“Take your money.”
“I’m not buying information.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“If she comes back, make sure she has what she needs.”
The woman stared at him.
Roman took a card from his pocket.
“Call that number. Day or night.”
She did not touch it.
“You the reason she was crying?”
That question hurt more than an accusation.
Roman answered quietly.
“Yes.”
The woman finally looked directly at him.
“Then maybe she doesn’t want to be found.”
Roman left the money anyway.
Outside, Stefano waited.
“She helped her.”
“Yes.”
“Do we pressure her?”
“No.”
Stefano nodded.
Roman stared down the wet street.
His men were searching every block.
But something had changed.
They were no longer simply searching for a kidnapped woman.
They were searching for a woman who might actively be hiding from them.
From him.
Meanwhile, Amelia sat inside the passenger seat of a battered Honda driven by the laundromat owner’s sister.
Her name was Nora Bell.
She was sixty-two, smoked too much, and asked almost no questions.
“Train station?” Nora asked.
“No.”
“Bus?”
“No.”
“Friend?”
Amelia looked at her.
“I need to reach someone Roman doesn’t know.”
Nora sighed.
“That sounds complicated.”
“It is.”
Amelia had spent most of her marriage believing Roman knew everything about her.
He didn’t.
There was one person she had never introduced to him.
Not because she was hiding him.
Because she hadn’t seen him in seven years.
Daniel Hartwell.
Her mother’s younger brother.
Uncle Daniel.
Former federal prosecutor.
A man who had warned her not to marry Roman Duca.
At their final argument, Daniel had said, “One day his world is going to ask you to pay for choices you never made.”
Amelia had called him judgmental.
Daniel had answered, “I hope I’m wrong.”
She had left.
They never repaired things.
Now Amelia knew exactly where he lived.
Annapolis.
Forty minutes away.
But Roman would know that too.
She needed another route.
“Nora,” Amelia said, “can you take me to a church?”
“At two in the morning?”
“One that stays open.”
Nora thought.
“There’s Saint Vincent’s.”
“Please.”
At the church, Amelia borrowed a phone.
She did not call Daniel directly.
She called an old office number she still remembered.
Voicemail.
“This is Amelia.”
Her voice cracked.
She steadied it.
“I need you to remember the day Mom taught us to hide the Christmas presents. I’ll be where she put the blue box.”
She hung up.
Nora raised an eyebrow.
“What does that mean?”
“If Daniel remembers, he’ll know.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Amelia looked down at her stomach.
“Then I’m alone.”
By sunrise, Roman had identified seven possible routes Amelia could have taken.
None produced anything.
At seven-thirty, Valyria arrived at the Duca residence.
Roman had not asked her to come.
She walked into his study anyway.
“I heard Amelia escaped.”
Roman did not look up from the city map covering his desk.
“Yes.”
“She’ll be found.”
Roman finally looked at her.
Something in his expression made Valyria hesitate.
“Roman…”
“What?”
“Thank you.”
He went still.
“For coming for me first.”
Roman’s eyes dropped to the map.
For years, those words would have meant something.
They would have fulfilled the promise made beside Enzo Marino’s grave.
Now they made him feel sick.
Valyria stepped closer.
“My father would have—”
“Don’t.”
She stopped.
Roman’s voice became quieter.
“Do not use Enzo to make tonight easier.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
Valyria’s face changed.
She had known Roman almost her entire life.
She had never heard him speak to her that way.
“You saved me because you promised him.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you acting like you committed some unforgivable sin?”
Roman looked directly at her.
“Because my wife was begging me to choose her.”
Valyria fell silent.
Roman gathered the maps.
“I should have sent another team for you.”
“There wasn’t time.”
“I should have found another solution.”
“You couldn’t know Amelia would be moved.”
Roman’s stare hardened.
“That is exactly what men like me are supposed to know.”
He left her alone in the study.
At eight-twelve, Amelia reached the abandoned boathouse where, twenty years ago, her mother had hidden Christmas presents from the children.
The blue box.
She waited.
For twenty-two minutes, nothing happened.
Then tires rolled over gravel.
Amelia froze.
A dark sedan stopped outside.
The driver’s door opened.
Daniel Hartwell stepped out.
He was fifty-eight now, silver appearing at his temples.
For a moment they simply stared at each other.
Then Daniel saw her bruised face.
His expression changed.
“Oh, Amelia.”
She broke.
Not dramatically.
No screaming.
No collapse.
She simply crossed the space between them and let her uncle hold her while the strength she had been borrowing finally disappeared.
Daniel wrapped his coat around her.
“Is the baby all right?”
“I don’t know.”
“We’re going to a doctor.”
“No hospitals.”
“I know someone.”
He helped her into the car.
As they drove away, Daniel asked the question she had been dreading.
“Does Roman know where you are?”
“No.”
“Do you want him to?”
Amelia stared out the window.
Baltimore was somewhere behind them.
Roman was somewhere behind them.
The life she had built was behind them.
“No.”
Daniel nodded.
“Then as far as the world is concerned, Amelia Duca disappears today.”
Roman received the first real development at almost the same moment.
Stefano entered his study carrying a tablet.
“We traced a call made from Saint Vincent’s.”
Roman stood.
“To whom?”
“Old federal prosecutor’s office voicemail.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“Who?”
Stefano turned the screen.
Daniel Hartwell.
Roman knew the name.
He had never met the man.
But he remembered Amelia mentioning him once.
Her estranged uncle.
The man who had opposed their marriage.
Roman stared at the address listed beneath Daniel’s name.
Annapolis.
“Get the cars.”
Stefano hesitated.
“What?”
“If she went to him voluntarily…”
Roman looked at him.
Stefano finished.
“She may not appreciate us arriving with twelve armed men.”
Roman’s mouth tightened.
“Then bring six.”
But when they reached Daniel Hartwell’s home ninety minutes later, they found the driveway empty and the house cold.
And sitting beneath the front door was an envelope.
Roman’s name had been written across it in Amelia’s handwriting.
Roman opened it.
Inside was her wedding ring.
Nothing else.
Roman stood motionless on the porch.
For the first time since becoming the most powerful man in Baltimore’s underground, Roman Duca had no order to give.
No threat to make.
No enemy to punish.
His wife had answered his choice with one of her own.
May you like
And she had chosen to disappear.
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