Chapter 10 - THE ENEMY BESIDE MY BED
I did not trust Sabrina.
Trust required the possibility that a person might choose decency when betrayal was easier.
Sabrina had already made her choice repeatedly.
But Marcus was coming, the security system had been compromised, and Ava lay in a bassinet beside my bed.
I picked up the pistol.
“Where is the guard?”
“Drugged.”
“Did you drug him?”
“No.”
“How did you enter?”
“Nathan gave me federal access codes.”
“You said he was missing.”
“He sent them before he disappeared.”
“Why?”
“Because he discovered Lucia planned to eliminate all of us.”
Sabrina opened the service door behind the bathroom. A narrow corridor led toward the laundry elevators.
Before following her, I pressed the emergency call button.
Nothing happened.
The line had been cut.
Sabrina handed me a coat large enough to conceal my hospital clothing. I wrapped Ava against my chest in a medical carrier.
“You walk too slowly,” she said.
“I had surgery six days ago.”
“I know when you had surgery.”
Hatred moved through me.
She had watched my pregnancy.
Planned my disappearance.
Prepared a nursery for my daughter.
“You will never touch her,” I said.
“I don’t expect forgiveness.”
“You shouldn’t.”
We entered the corridor.
Emergency lights cast red shadows along the walls. Somewhere above us, an alarm began sounding.
“They know you’re gone,” Sabrina whispered.
“Who?”
“Marcus’s people.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“You came without knowing?”
“I came because Marcus said he was already inside.”
We reached the elevator.
Sabrina pressed the button.
Nothing.
She opened a maintenance panel and crossed two wires. The doors slid apart.
The elevator waited one floor below.
We climbed down the ladder.
My incision felt as though it were tearing open.
Ava stirred against my chest.
“Almost there,” I whispered.
At the lower level, we entered the laundry area.
A man in hospital scrubs stood beside the exit.
He raised a gun.
Sabrina fired first.
The bullet struck his shoulder. He fell against a cart of sheets.
I flinched at the sound.
Sabrina did not.
She kicked away his weapon and checked his pulse.
“Alive.”
“You’ve done this before.”
“My mother taught me many things.”
“Lucia?”
“Yes.”
We moved through the loading dock.
A black SUV waited outside.
“Absolutely not,” I said.
“It’s the only vehicle without a tracking device.”
“How do I know it doesn’t belong to Marcus?”
“You don’t.”
She opened the rear door.
Inside, Detective Ortiz sat with her hands zip-tied.
Blood ran from a cut above her eyebrow.
“Sabrina,” Ortiz said, “step away from Elena.”
“You were supposed to be unconscious longer.”
“You’re losing your touch.”
I climbed into the vehicle and cut Ortiz’s restraints with a medical tool from the emergency kit.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Someone sent a message using your father’s credentials. I came to move you. Sabrina hit me from behind.”
“I needed the car,” Sabrina said.
Ortiz reached for her weapon.
Gone.
Sabrina held it.
“Drive,” Ortiz ordered.
Sabrina laughed.
“I don’t take orders from police.”
I pointed the pistol at her.
“You take them from me tonight.”
Her eyes flicked toward the gun.
Then she entered the driver’s seat.
We left the facility through a service road.
Within minutes, three dark vehicles appeared behind us.
“Marcus?” I asked.
“Probably,” Sabrina said.
“Probably?”
“Lucia uses the same cars.”
Ortiz called Agent Price from a secure phone hidden in her boot. The call failed.
The signal had been jammed.
Sabrina accelerated.
The road curved through forest.
A vehicle struck us from behind.
Ava began crying.
I shielded her with my body.
“Where are we going?” I shouted.
“Nathan owns a safe house twenty miles east.”
“You trust him?”
“No. But Marcus doesn’t know about it.”
A second impact threw us forward.
Ortiz found a flare gun beneath the seat.
“Open the sunroof.”
Sabrina did.
Ortiz fired.
The flare struck the windshield of the closest vehicle. It swerved into a ditch.
Two remained.
We reached a bridge.
Headlights appeared ahead.
Another black SUV blocked the road.
Sabrina braked.
Vehicles closed behind us.
Men emerged with weapons.
Ortiz raised the flare gun, now empty.
I held Ava and the pistol.
Then the SUV ahead flashed its headlights three times.
Sabrina froze.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It’s Victor’s signal.”
My father stepped from the vehicle.
His six men had become five since Knox’s betrayal.
They opened fire toward the cars behind us—not at the men, but at tires and engines.
The attackers scattered into the trees.
My father’s team surrounded our SUV.
He opened my door.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Ava?”
“Safe.”
He looked at Sabrina.
His expression became murderous.
“She helped us escape,” I said.
“That does not erase what she did.”
“I know.”
Sabrina exited with her hands raised.
“I know where Lucia is going.”
My father closed the door behind me.
“Speak.”
“She needs the key. Evelyn has it. Marcus found Evelyn first.”
“Where?”
“An old hotel outside Baltimore.”
“Which hotel?”
“The Cormorant.”
My father knew the name.
“It belonged to Gabriel,” he said.
Sabrina nodded.
“Lucia believes Evelyn hid the rabbit there.”
“Why would Evelyn go to Gabriel’s hotel?”
“Because she worked for him.”
My father stared at her.
“That is a lie.”
“Evelyn was the one who told Gabriel that Isabella planned to leave him.”
My mother’s closest friend had not merely guarded the trust.
She had been connected to my biological father.
“Is she alive?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Marcus sent me a photograph.”
She showed me her phone.
Evelyn sat on the floor of a hotel room. Her wrists were tied. A stuffed white rabbit rested beside her.
Snow.
The key was close enough to touch.
A message beneath the photograph read:
BRING ELENA AND THE HEIR BEFORE SUNRISE.
My father studied the image.
“It’s too obvious.”
“Marcus always becomes careless when he thinks he has won,” Sabrina said.
“He has not won,” I replied.
The Cormorant Hotel had been abandoned for eighteen years.
It stood beside a polluted harbor, surrounded by empty factories and boarded warehouses. Federal authorities had once investigated it as a meeting place for Gabriel Soren’s organization.
At 4:40 a.m., we watched it from a rooftop across the street.
My father wanted me and Ava moved somewhere safe.
I refused.
Marcus would kill Evelyn if I did not appear.
We created a plan.
Sabrina would enter with a medical carrier containing a doll. I would remain in the vehicle with Ava and Ortiz. My father’s men would surround the hotel.
At 5:03, Sabrina crossed the street alone.
A light appeared on the fifth floor.
She entered.
Minutes passed.
Then her voice came through the hidden microphone.
“I brought them.”
Marcus replied, “Open the carrier.”
A pause.
Then gunfire.
The microphone went dead.
My father’s team moved.
I stayed in the vehicle for exactly twenty seconds.
Then I saw flames in a fifth-floor window.
“Evelyn is up there.”
Ortiz grabbed my arm.
“You cannot go inside.”
“Sabrina may be dead.”
“That is not your responsibility.”
“She came for me.”
I placed Ava’s carrier into Ortiz’s arms.
“Protect her.”
“Elena!”
I ran across the street.
The hotel lobby filled with smoke.
My father’s men had already entered the stairwell.
I followed.
Every step tore at my wound.
On the third floor, I found Sabrina leaning against the wall with blood on her sleeve.
“Where is Marcus?”
“Fifth floor.”
“Evelyn?”
“Room 512.”
“Are you shot?”
“Grazed.”
We climbed together.
The fifth-floor corridor burned near the elevators.
Room 512 stood open.
Evelyn was tied to a chair.
Marcus stood behind her with a gun pressed to her head.
The stuffed rabbit lay on the bed.
My father entered from the opposite corridor.
For one moment, all of us froze.
Marcus smiled.
“Family reunion.”
“Let her go,” I said.
“Where is Ava?”
“Safe.”
“Then Evelyn dies.”
Evelyn looked at me.
“Don’t give him anything.”
Marcus pressed the gun harder against her temple.
“Your father taught everyone to sacrifice themselves for his secrets.”
“My father is Gabriel Soren.”
Marcus’s smile widened.
“Now you understand.”
“No. I understand that you spent nine years blaming me for men I never knew.”
“You inherited everything.”
“I inherited lies.”
“You inherited power.”
“So did you. You used yours to put a pregnant woman in a cage.”
His hand tightened around the gun.
“You were supposed to sign.”
“Sign what?”
“The future.”
A shot exploded.
Evelyn screamed.
Marcus staggered.
Blood spread across his hand.
Sabrina had fired from behind me, striking the gun from his grip.
My father’s men rushed forward.
Marcus kicked over a fuel can.
Flames raced across the carpet.
He grabbed the stuffed rabbit and ran through a side door.
My father followed.
I cut Evelyn’s restraints.
“Where does that door lead?”
“Roof.”
The fire spread between us and the stairwell.
Sabrina tried the emergency exit.
Locked.
Smoke filled the room.
Evelyn pointed toward the window.
“Gabriel built escape cables.”
We broke the glass.
A rusted steel line extended toward the neighboring warehouse.
Only one harness remained.
“You go,” Sabrina told me.
“What about you and Evelyn?”
“We’ll find another way.”
“No.”
“Elena, Ava needs you.”
The ceiling groaned.
Evelyn placed the harness around me.
“Your mother made me promise to protect you.”
“You betrayed her.”
Tears filled Evelyn’s eyes.
“Yes. And I spent twenty-five years trying to pay for it.”
The ceiling collapsed behind us.
Sabrina pushed me through the window.
The harness caught the cable.
May you like
I slid into the darkness as flames consumed the room.
Behind me, the hotel roof exploded.
