Chapter 1 - Don’t Wake Her
Nobody in Chicago had dared tell Gabriel Romano what to do that night.
Not the police commander who had called twice asking him to let law enforcement handle the search. Not the attorneys who begged him to stay away from the river warehouses. Not the private doctor waiting at his Gold Coast penthouse with sedatives for his sister-in-law. Not even the men who had known Gabriel since he was twenty-two and mean enough to turn a room silent simply by entering it.
Then Marco Bennett stood in front of a reinforced steel door at two seventeen in the morning and said six words that stopped him cold.
“Boss. Whatever you do, don’t wake her.”
Gabriel stared at him.
Rainwater still darkened the shoulders of his black shirt. There was blood on his right cuff that did not belong to him, and every muscle in his body had been wound tight for three hours.
“Where is Leo?”
Marco’s jaw shifted.
“Inside.”
Gabriel took one step closer.
“My nephew disappeared from a motorcade three hours ago.”
“I know.”
“Six men are in the hospital.”
“I know.”
“My sister-in-law thinks her baby is dead.”
Marco said nothing.
“And you’re standing in front of this door because somebody is sleeping?”
“You need to see her first.”
Gabriel grabbed the front of Marco’s jacket.
“Move.”
Marco had been with him long enough to recognize the moment before Gabriel stopped asking.
He stepped aside.
Gabriel shoved open the safe-room door.
Then the most feared man in half the city forgot how to breathe.
Mia Carver was curled against the corner of a leather sectional.
She looked nothing like the careful, quiet accountant who normally appeared at Romano Shipping before eight with neat brown hair, sensible shoes and a stack of spreadsheets under one arm.
Her hair hung loose and tangled around her face. One sleeve of her pale blouse had been ripped from shoulder to elbow. Purple bruises spread beneath the torn fabric. Her knuckles were scraped raw. Dried blood stained one side of her coat.
And wrapped inside that coat, pressed tightly against her chest, was Leo Romano.
Six months old.
Sleeping.
Alive.
Completely unharmed.
Gabriel crossed the room before he realized he had moved.
He dropped to one knee.
For a few seconds, he heard nothing.
Not Marco behind him.
Not the hum of the ventilation system.
Not the rain striking the narrow reinforced windows.
Only the tiny, soft breath of a baby who had been missing long enough for Gabriel to imagine every possible ending.
He touched one finger to Leo’s cheek.
Warm.
Gabriel closed his eyes.
His younger brother Daniel had been dead eighteen months.
Daniel had always been the soft one in the family. The one who laughed too loudly at terrible jokes. The one who remembered birthdays. The one who once told Gabriel during a Christmas dinner that he wanted a house outside the city, two dogs, children and enough distance from the Romano name that his neighbors would complain about lawn sprinklers instead of security cars.
Gabriel had mocked him.
“You’d last six weeks in the suburbs.”
“Five,” Daniel had said. “Then I’d make you buy the house next door.”
Gabriel had rolled his eyes.
Three months later, Daniel died on an icy highway.
He never saw his son.
When Leo was born, Gabriel had stood alone outside the nursery at two in the morning and made a promise to his dead brother.
Nobody would ever touch the boy.
Tonight someone had.
Gabriel lowered his head and pressed his fist against his mouth.
For one terrible second, his shoulders shook.
Marco looked away.
He had watched Gabriel negotiate after being shot.
He had seen him identify his father’s body without changing expression.
He had watched him bury Daniel and then walk straight into a board meeting because investors were waiting.
He had never seen him cry.
Mia stirred.
Gabriel immediately froze.
Her eyes opened only halfway.
They were unfocused.
Scared.
Then she realized someone was touching Leo.
Her arm tightened instantly around the baby.
“Don’t.”
The word was barely audible.
Gabriel pulled his hand back.
“It’s me.”
Mia blinked.
Recognition came slowly.
“Mr. Romano?”
“Yes.”
She looked at Leo before looking back at him.
“Don’t take him yet.”
Gabriel glanced at Marco.
Marco said quietly, “She’s been doing that since I found her.”
Gabriel turned back to Mia.
“Why?”
Her eyelids were already falling again.
“Because I don’t know who you brought.”
“I brought my people.”
“Your people took us.”
The room changed.
Gabriel became completely still.
“What did you say?”
Mia tried to sit up.
Pain twisted across her face.
Gabriel instinctively reached toward her, but she recoiled before he touched her.
He stopped.
“Easy.”
“I heard them.”
“Who?”
“In the warehouse.”
Her breathing was shallow.
“One of the men said they knew the route because somebody gave it to them.”
Gabriel stared at her.
“That could mean anything.”
“No.”
Her eyes closed for a second.
Then reopened.
“He said, ‘Romano paid for the road himself.’”
Marco’s expression hardened.
Gabriel’s voice dropped.
“Exact words?”
“I think so.”
“Mia.”
She looked at him.
“I need you to be certain.”
“I am.”
Gabriel turned toward Marco.
Marco understood immediately.
“There were only eleven people who knew tonight’s motorcade route.”
“Names.”
“I’ll get them.”
“Now.”
Marco left the room.
Gabriel looked at Mia again.
“How did you get Leo back?”
A tiny crease appeared between her brows.
“I didn’t get him back.”
“What?”
“I never let them take him away from me.”
Gabriel’s gaze dropped to her hands.
Raw knuckles.
Split skin.
A thin cut across her palm.
“What happened?”
She shook her head.
“Later.”
“No.”
“Mr. Romano—”
“Gabriel.”
She stared at him.
“Nobody calls me Mr. Romano at two in the morning after stealing my nephew back from kidnappers.”
The corner of her mouth moved.
Barely.
Then she winced.
“You make that sound like I had a plan.”
“You drove through a warehouse barrier.”
Marco had apparently told him enough.
Mia closed her eyes.
“It was wood.”
“You drove a box truck through it.”
“It was bad wood.”
Gabriel almost laughed.
The sound surprised him so much he stopped.
Mia heard it.
She opened one eye.
“That was a laugh.”
“No.”
“It was.”
“You’re injured.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m deaf.”
Gabriel studied her.
He had seen Mia hundreds of times.
Mostly from a distance.
She worked three floors below his office in financial compliance. She rarely attended executive dinners. Never joined office gossip. Never asked for favors.
Once, during a quarterly review, she had corrected one of his vice presidents in front of twelve people.
The vice president had turned red.
Mia had looked at the spreadsheet and said, “Numbers don’t become correct because somebody senior typed them.”
Gabriel remembered thinking she either had courage or absolutely no survival instinct.
Tonight he understood it was courage.
Leo made a small sound.
Mia instantly looked down.
The movement was automatic.
Protective.
She shifted the coat around him even though her own body was shaking.
Gabriel felt something tighten painfully in his chest.
“You kept him warm.”
“He was crying.”
“So you gave him your coat?”
“He’s a baby.”
“You were bleeding.”
“He’s a baby.”
As though that settled everything.
Gabriel looked away for a moment.
It did.
A doctor entered five minutes later.
Mia resisted immediately.
“I’m fine.”
The doctor looked at her torn shirt and bloody hands.
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m awake.”
“That is not a medical diagnosis.”
Gabriel stood.
“Examine her.”
Mia glared at him.
“Do you always give orders like people are furniture?”
“Yes.”
“That explains a lot.”
The doctor hid a smile.
Gabriel didn’t.
But something warm moved behind his eyes.
Then the doctor tried to take Leo.
Mia tightened again.
“No.”
Gabriel crouched beside her.
“Mia.”
“No.”
“Look at me.”
She did.
“He’s safe.”
Her breathing changed.
“We thought that before.”
Gabriel felt the accusation.
He deserved it.
She continued.
“They knew exactly which vehicle.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“I know.”
“They knew where the escort would turn.”
“I know.”
“They knew there was a baby inside.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t ask me to pretend this room is safe just because you say it is.”
Nobody spoke.
Gabriel had spent years surrounded by men who told him what they thought he wanted to hear.
Mia Carver had been kidnapped, beaten, chased through a warehouse, driven through Chicago in a stolen truck and still had enough fight left to tell him that his security had failed.
He respected her for it.
That realization irritated him.
He removed the watch from his wrist.
A custom steel piece Daniel had given him for his thirty-fifth birthday.
Gabriel held it where Mia could see.
“Daniel gave me this.”
Her gaze settled on it.
“Leo’s father?”
“Yes.”
Mia knew Daniel’s middle name because Marco had used it to convince her he was really part of the family.
Gabriel placed the watch beside Leo.
“If anyone enters this room without Marco, me or the doctor, you scream.”
Mia looked at him.
“And if you come in?”
“You can scream then too.”
This time she actually smiled.
Small.
Exhausted.
Real.
Then she finally let the doctor lift Leo from her arms.
The second the baby left her chest, Mia seemed to collapse inward.
Gabriel caught her before her head hit the couch arm.
Her body went rigid at his touch.
Then relaxed.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“For what?”
“I got blood on your shirt.”
Gabriel stared at her.
She had saved Leo.
And she was apologizing about his shirt.
Something inside him shifted.
“Destroy every shirt I own if you want.”
Her eyes closed.
“That sounds expensive.”
“I’ll survive.”
She fell asleep against his arm.
Gabriel remained there.
He could have handed her to the doctor.
He didn’t.
The physician examined her carefully and found bruised ribs, dehydration, cuts, a mild concussion and exhaustion. Nothing immediately life-threatening.
Gabriel should have felt relief.
Instead his anger sharpened.
Someone had put those bruises on her.
Someone had terrified Leo.
Someone had betrayed him.
At three twelve, Marco returned.
He held a tablet.
“We checked access logs.”
Gabriel slowly eased Mia back against the couch.
“What did you find?”
“Motorcade route was generated at eight seventeen tonight.”
“Who opened it?”
“Eleven authorized users.”
Gabriel stood.
“And?”
Marco’s face was grim.
“One account accessed it twice after final approval.”
“Whose?”
Marco hesitated.
That was enough to make Gabriel’s stomach turn cold.
“Say it.”
“Victor Hale.”
Gabriel frowned.
Victor had worked for the Romano family for twenty-three years.
He had attended Daniel’s wedding.
He had carried Daniel’s coffin.
“That’s impossible.”
“I thought so too.”
Gabriel took the tablet.
There was the login.
Victor Hale.
9:42 p.m.
Again at 10:03.
The ambush happened at 10:26.
Gabriel stared at the screen.
Then Marco said, “There’s something else.”
“What?”
“We pulled traffic footage from Wacker.”
Gabriel looked up.
“One of the vehicles used in the ambush was registered through a shell company.”
“Sterling?”
“No.”
“Who?”
Marco turned the tablet.
Gabriel saw the corporate registration.
For three seconds he simply stared.
The company belonged to Romano Maritime Holdings.
His company.
Not a fake.
Not a stolen plate.
One of his own vehicles had been used to kidnap his nephew.
May you like
And whoever planned it hadn’t broken into Gabriel Romano’s empire.
They had been standing inside it the entire time.
