Chapter 5 - My Father’s Voice
My father sounded exactly as he had at my mother’s funeral.
Calm.
Controlled.
Almost bored.
That terrified me more than shouting would have.
“Hello, Daniel.”
My mother grabbed my arm.
“He watches everything.”
Marco drew his weapon and moved toward the hallway.
The door had automatically locked behind us.
He tried the handle.
Nothing.
My father continued through the speakers.
“I had hoped you would be smarter than Gabriel.”
My jaw tightened.
“You murdered him.”
A chuckle came through the speaker.
“No, son. You did.”
The words hit where he intended them to.
My mother looked at me.
“Who is Gabriel?”
“Someone I failed.”
My father heard.
“Always dramatic. Your mother encouraged that softness in you.”
I looked toward the ceiling camera.
“Open the doors.”
“Why?”
“So you can say it to my face.”
“You always did confuse anger with courage.”
“And you always confused control with love.”
Silence.
For the first time, I had surprised him.
My mother’s fingers tightened around my sleeve.
“Daniel, please. He has people here.”
“So do I.”
“No, you don’t understand.”
She pointed toward a cabinet.
“Underneath.”
Marco pulled it away from the wall.
Behind it was a narrow panel.
Wires.
A secondary release system.
My mother had spent twenty-eight years studying the cage that held her.
“You know how to open the building?”
“I know how to open this room.”
“Enough.”
Marco broke the panel.
The lock released.
We entered the corridor.
Alarms screamed.
My father’s voice followed us.
“Your mother always did make poor choices.”
She stopped walking.
I felt her hand shake.
Something primitive rose inside me.
Not the fury of a mafia boss.
The fury of a six-year-old boy who finally understood his mother had not chosen to leave him.
“You told me she was dead.”
“I told you what you needed to hear.”
“You buried an empty coffin.”
“And you became strong.”
My mother whispered, “Don’t listen.”
He heard her.
“Elena.”
She flinched.
Twenty-eight years.
One word.
That was all it took to reduce her to fear.
I understood then that prisons were not always made of locked doors.
Sometimes they were made of voices.
“Keep moving,” I told her.
The first gunman appeared at the far end of the corridor.
Marco fired.
The man dropped behind a doorway.
I pushed my mother into an empty room.
“Stay down.”
“No.”
“Mom.”
Her face broke when I called her that.
She touched my cheek.
“I lost twenty-eight years. I am not spending another minute hiding while somebody hurts you.”
There was my mother.
Not the fragile woman at the window.
The woman who once planned to run from Thomas Hale with a six-year-old child and one suitcase.
“Fine,” I said. “Stay behind me.”
We moved toward the service staircase.
Two more armed men appeared.
Marco handled one.
I handled the other.
No speeches.
No hesitation.
We reached the ground floor.
The front doors were magnetically sealed.
My mother pointed.
“Kitchen loading dock.”
We ran.
My phone regained signal for three seconds.
Five missed calls.
Maria.
One message.
SOMEONE OPENED THE ESTATE GATE.
Then signal died again.
My stomach dropped.
This had never been about trapping me at Ashford.
It was about removing me from home.
“Sofia.”
My mother looked at me.
“Who’s Sofia?”
“A little girl.”
Marco understood before she did.
“Boss, your backup team can handle Ashford.”
“I know.”
We reached the loading dock.
A black SUV crashed through the outer barrier.
My men.
For once, seeing armed reinforcements felt like seeing angels.
“Get my mother out,” I ordered.
Marco grabbed my shoulder.
“You’re coming too.”
“I’m going back to the estate.”
“So are we.”
My mother stared at me.
“Daniel, what is happening?”
I opened the rear door for her.
“My father is trying to take something from me.”
“What?”
I thought of Sofia covering me with a blanket.
Maria standing in the doorway.
Nobody should be alone.
“Something he thinks will make me weak.”
My mother looked at me for a long time.
Then she whispered, “Don’t let him.”
We drove south at speeds no patrol officer would have ignored if they had managed to catch us.
I called Maria repeatedly.
No answer.
Marco reached the estate security channel.
Static.
Then a guard.
“Boss! East gate breach. Three vehicles.”
“How long ago?”
“Eight minutes.”
“Maria and Sofia?”
“Safe room was opened.”
My blood froze.
“By who?”
“Authorized print.”
“Whose?”
Pause.
“Marco Bell.”
Everyone in the vehicle looked at Marco.
He went pale.
“I’m right here.”
I knew.
Which meant someone had cloned his fingerprint access.
Vincent.
Of course.
The man had been beside me for eleven years.
He knew everything.
“Are they there?”
“We found one guard unconscious. Other is missing.”
“Maria?”
“No sign.”
I ended the call.
My mother sat silently across from me.
She had been free less than thirty minutes.
Already she was watching her son prepare for war.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“For what?”
“This.”
She shook her head.
“Your father did this.”
“I became part of it.”
“You were a child.”
“I’m not anymore.”
“No.”
Her eyes filled.
“You’re not.”
The estate gates appeared ahead.
One had been ripped partially from its track.
A vehicle burned near the entrance.
I was out before ours fully stopped.
Men shouted updates.
I heard almost none of them.
I went straight to the safe room.
Empty.
Blood on the floor.
Not much.
A broken lamp.
Sofia’s rabbit lay near the doorway.
I picked it up.
One ear was torn.
Something inside me went silent.
Dangerously silent.
Marco entered.
“We found Maria’s phone by the east wall.”
“Any bodies?”
“No.”
“Then they took them.”
My mother stepped into the room.
She saw the rabbit.
Her face changed.
“Gabriel.”
I turned.
“What?”
She walked toward me slowly.
“That was his daughter’s?”
“How do you know?”
“He showed me a picture.”
My pulse stopped.
“When?”
“Five years ago.”
“Tell me everything.”
“Not now.”
“Yes. Now.”
“He found me here at Ashford. He promised to tell you.”
“And I killed him before he could.”
My mother’s eyes filled with pain.
“He knew that might happen.”
“What?”
“He said Vincent would make you believe something terrible.”
“Why didn’t he come straight to me?”
“He tried.”
Of course he did.
“He also told me something else,” my mother continued.
“What?”
“If anything happened to him, his wife would finish what he started.”
I looked at the empty safe room.
Maria had done exactly that.
And now Vincent had her.
A guard ran in.
“Boss.”
He held out a phone.
“Found this outside the east gate. It’s ringing.”
Unknown number.
I answered.
Vincent’s voice greeted me.
“Daniel.”
Eleven years of friendship lived inside those two syllables.
Dinners.
Funerals.
Deals.
Blood.
I said nothing.
“I assume you found your mother.”
“Where are Maria and Sofia?”
A soft laugh.
“You see? That’s why Thomas was right.”
“Right about what?”
“You’ve become sentimental.”
“If either of them is hurt—”
“What? You’ll kill me?”
“Yes.”
“At least we understand each other.”
I heard a child crying faintly in the background.
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Sofia.”
“Mr. Daniel?”
Her tiny voice came through the line.
Then Vincent took the phone back.
“She’s fine.”
I could barely speak.
“Put Maria on.”
“No.”
“Vincent.”
“You have something I want.”
“The key?”
“Not anymore.”
I looked at the rabbit.
“What then?”
“Gabriel’s microfilm.”
He knew.
“There’s nothing useful on it.”
“Then you won’t mind bringing it.”
“Where?”
“You remember Red Hook?”
My stomach turned.
The warehouse.
Gabriel’s death.
Vincent knew exactly what he was doing.
“Midnight.”
“I’m coming now.”
“If I see more than one vehicle, the child disappears.”
The line went dead.
Marco started speaking before I lowered the phone.
“You’re not going alone.”
“Yes, I am.”
“That’s suicide.”
“Maybe.”
My mother walked directly in front of me.
“No.”
I looked into the eyes I had spent twenty-eight years missing.
“I have to.”
“For a little girl you met three weeks ago?”
I looked down at the torn rabbit.
“No.”
My voice surprised even me.
“For a little girl who saw me for three minutes.”
My mother understood.
She reached out and took my hand.
“Then go get her.”
I headed toward the door.
Behind me, my mother added, “Daniel.”
I turned.
She looked at the gun in my hand, then at my face.
“Bring her mother home too.”
I nodded.
Twenty-eight years ago, Thomas Hale had taken my mother because he believed love was weakness.
Tonight, Vincent had made the same mistake.
He believed Maria and Sofia gave him leverage over me.
He was wrong.
May you like
They gave me something I had never possessed before.
A reason to survive.
