Chapter 13 - The Deadline
The facility was hidden beneath a private rehabilitation center outside Lake Forest.
Victor had owned it through shell companies for sixteen years.
Anna had never been inside.
She only knew the delivery schedule.
Dante did not sleep.
Neither did I.
At dawn, he stood by the window staring toward the lake.
“You don’t have to come.”
“Yes, I do.”
“This is my brother.”
“And Victor murdered my father.”
He looked at me.
“This isn’t revenge.”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“It’s ending something.”
For the first time since the ballroom, Dante touched my face.
Just his fingertips.
Careful.
Waiting.
I did not move away.
Then every phone in the room buzzed.
Victor had released a video.
Nolan appeared on screen again.
This time he wasn’t tied up.
He sat beside Victor.
My stomach turned.
Victor smiled into the camera.
“Good morning, Emily.”
Nolan would not look at the lens.
Victor placed one hand on his shoulder.
“Your former boyfriend has been very helpful.”
I whispered.
“He went back.”
Dante’s expression hardened.
Victor continued.
“You have something that belongs to me.”
The flash drive.
“And I have something that belongs to Mr. Moretti.”
The camera shifted.
A frail older man sat in a wheelchair.
Scarred.
Gray-haired.
But unmistakably related to Dante.
Gabriel.
Dante gripped the table.
Victor smiled.
“Midnight.”
A countdown appeared.
Seventeen hours.
“The drive for Gabriel.”
The screen went black.
Dante immediately began giving orders.
Anna interrupted.
“There’s another problem.”
She opened the ledger.
“The flash drive is incomplete.”
“What?”
“The real account keys are stored somewhere else.”
“Where?”
Anna looked at me.
“Thomas hid them with Emily.”
I stared.
“I was eight.”
“That was the point.”
She described a silver music box.
Small.
Painted with blue flowers.
I remembered it instantly.
My father gave it to me the month before he died.
Afterward, it went into storage with everything from my childhood.
The storage unit belonged to my aunt.
Who had died six years ago.
Her belongings were auctioned.
Including the music box.
Somewhere in Chicago, a stranger had purchased the only thing capable of destroying Victor Hale.
May you like
And we had less than seventeen hours to find it.
---
