Chapter 12 - Ellie Never Came Home from School
Adrian looked as though he had aged ten years in ten seconds.
Dante waited.
Sebastian watched with obvious satisfaction.
Rosa remained near the door.
“What did you do?” Dante repeated.
Adrian looked at Sebastian.
Then at Dante.
“Six months after Lucia disappeared, Sebastian found me.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“How?”
“I made a mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“I called someone I trusted.”
“Who?”
“My brother.”
Dante knew Adrian’s younger brother had died years earlier.
“He owed Sebastian money,” Adrian continued.
“I didn’t know.”
Sebastian smiled faintly.
Adrian ignored him.
“My brother told Sebastian where I was.”
“With Lucia?”
“No. But Sebastian knew I had contact with her.”
“What happened?”
“He gave me a choice.”
Dante almost laughed.
“Of course he did.”
Adrian’s voice cracked.
“He said if I didn’t tell him where Lucia was, he would hurt my brother.”
Rosa looked at Sebastian with disgust.
Dante said nothing.
“I gave Sebastian an address.”
The words landed quietly.
Dante stepped closer.
“Lucia’s address?”
“Yes.”
Adrian did not defend himself.
“I warned her before anyone arrived. She escaped.”
“And then disappeared from you.”
“Yes.”
“Because she knew you betrayed her.”
“Yes.”
Dante wanted to hit him.
He did not.
Ellie’s voice echoed in his memory.
Grown-ups do bad things when they’re angry.
Dante turned away.
“You let me trust you for fifteen years.”
“I know.”
“You stood beside me at her memorial.”
“I know.”
“You helped me search.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because every year that passed made telling you harder.”
“That is cowardice.”
“Yes.”
No argument.
No excuse.
Just yes.
Sebastian clapped slowly once.
“Touching.”
Dante turned.
“You’re done.”
Sebastian raised an eyebrow.
“With what?”
“With me.”
“You think sending files to investigators changes who you are?”
Sebastian knew.
Dante’s stomach tightened.
“How?”
“My people watch Rebecca.”
Dante immediately reached for his phone.
Sebastian smiled.
“Relax. Your attorney is alive.”
Dante called Rebecca.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Rosa went pale.
“Ellie.”
Dante called the cottage guard.
Nothing.
Another.
Nothing.
He turned toward Sebastian.
“What did you do?”
Sebastian’s expression finally changed.
“I told you to stop.”
Dante moved so quickly Adrian stepped between them.
“Where is she?”
Sebastian stood.
“I didn’t order anyone to hurt the girl.”
“Where is Ellie?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then call whoever does.”
Sebastian’s smile returned faintly.
“You seem emotionally attached.”
Rosa stepped forward.
“If anything happens to my daughter—”
Sebastian looked at her.
“Mrs. Voss, your husband created this problem.”
Rosa slapped him.
The sound cracked across the study.
Everyone froze.
Sebastian touched his cheek.
Rosa’s entire body shook.
“My husband spent his life trying to protect people from men like you.”
Dante almost admired her.
Then his phone rang.
Rebecca.
He answered.
“Where is Ellie?”
Rebecca was crying.
“They took her.”
Rosa collapsed into the chair.
Dante’s vision narrowed.
“How?”
“One of the guards received a call that you wanted Ellie moved.”
“I gave no order.”
“I know.”
“Who made the call?”
“They used your authorization code.”
Dante looked at Adrian.
Only a handful of people had it.
Sebastian was one.
“Vehicle?”
“Black SUV.”
“Tracker?”
“Disabled.”
“Camera?”
“We have partial plates.”
Dante turned toward Sebastian.
“Call them.”
“I told you, I didn’t order this.”
“You expect me to believe you?”
Sebastian looked genuinely annoyed.
“I wanted the evidence, not a kidnapped child. Children create attention.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“He’s telling the truth.”
Dante stared at him.
“You’re defending him?”
“No.”
Adrian pointed toward the laptop bag Rosa carried.
“If Sebastian knew we had the evidence, he could have taken it here. Taking Ellie makes no sense.”
“Unless he wants leverage.”
“Then why return to the mansion?”
Dante hated that Adrian was right.
His phone buzzed.
A text.
Unknown number.
A photograph loaded.
Ellie sat in a chair.
Unhurt.
Frightened.
Benny in her lap.
Rosa sobbed.
Below the picture was a message.
Bring the original card to the old Mercer greenhouse. Dante alone. One hour.
Sebastian frowned.
“The old greenhouse?”
“You know it?” Rosa asked.
“It belonged to Evelyn.”
Dante looked at him.
“My mother?”
“She grew roses there.”
Dante remembered vaguely.
The property had been abandoned after her death.
Thirty miles east.
Sebastian looked unsettled now.
“Whoever sent that message knows more about your mother than most people alive.”
Dante stared.
“Could Lucia have taken Ellie?”
Rosa reacted immediately.
“No.”
Adrian shook his head.
“Lucia would never use a child.”
Dante agreed.
But someone connected to the old secrets was controlling this.
He opened Jacob’s memory-card files.
Searched greenhouse.
One result.
A scanned map.
The old Mercer property.
Jacob had marked a room beneath the greenhouse.
Dante looked at Sebastian.
“What’s under it?”
Sebastian said nothing.
Dante stepped closer.
“What is under my mother’s greenhouse?”
“A records room.”
“For what?”
“Your mother’s foundation.”
Dante understood.
More evidence.
The kidnappers did not just want Jacob’s card.
They wanted whatever Evelyn had hidden there.
Rosa wiped her face.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“My daughter—”
“Rosa.”
“No.”
She shoved Dante’s chest.
“You do not get to tell me to stay behind while my daughter is sitting somewhere terrified.”
Dante caught her wrists gently.
“I need you alive when I bring her back.”
Rosa stared at him.
“When?”
“Not if.”
“When.”
His confidence was partly performance.
But Rosa needed it.
So did Dante.
He turned to Adrian.
“You stay with Rosa.”
“I should go.”
“I don’t trust you enough.”
Adrian absorbed that.
“Fair.”
Sebastian spoke.
“You’ll need someone who knows the property.”
Dante looked at him.
“No.”
“You haven’t been there in twenty years.”
“I’ll manage.”
Sebastian smiled without humor.
“You still think I’m the greatest danger in this story.”
“Aren’t you?”
Sebastian’s eyes shifted.
“No.”
For the first time, fear appeared in his face.
“There was someone else who worked with your father and me.”
Dante waited.
“Who?”
“Marcus Vale.”
Adrian’s expression changed.
“I thought he was dead.”
“So did I.”
Dante had heard the name as a child.
A financial manager.
Disappeared after Evelyn died.
Sebastian continued.
“If Marcus is alive, he has a reason to want the records.”
“What reason?”
“Because half those accounts belong to him.”
Dante looked at Ellie’s photograph.
A man supposedly dead for twenty years.
A hidden room beneath his mother’s greenhouse.
A seven-year-old girl being used as leverage.
The family’s past was no longer reaching toward them.
It had taken Ellie.
Dante picked up the original memory card.
Rosa grabbed his sleeve.
“Bring her home.”
Dante looked into the eyes of the woman who had trusted him with the only person she had left.
“I will.”
He drove alone toward the greenhouse.
Rain began before he reached it.
The same kind of cold September rain that had fallen fifteen years earlier when Lucia disappeared.
Dante parked outside the ruined iron gates.
The old greenhouse stood beyond the trees.
One light glowed inside.
Dante entered.
“Ellie?”
Silence.
Then a small voice came from behind the fogged glass.
“Mr. Mercer?”
Dante moved toward it.
“Ellie.”
He saw her.
Alive.
Then another figure stepped from the shadows.
A woman.
Dark hair streaked with gray.
Dante stopped.
The world seemed to disappear.
Because standing beside Ellie was the sister he had buried fifteen years earlier.
Lucia Mercer looked directly at him.
And whispered:
“Don’t come any closer.”
Behind Dante, a gun clicked.
Lucia’s eyes filled with terror.
“Dante,” she said softly, “he’s behind you.”
May you like
And the man who had stolen fifteen years from the Mercer family finally stepped out of the dark.
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