Chapter 4 – THE TICKET TO NOWHERE

Vincent stormed back into my hospital room thirty minutes later.

He looked like a man walking to his own funeral.

“He has her,” Vincent said to me, pacing the small room. “Richard has Grace. He wants me to meet him in an hour. He’s going to kill us both, Clara. He’s tying up loose ends.”

I sat up in bed, ignoring the dull ache in my back.

“You can’t go alone, Vincent.”

“I have to,” he said, running a hand through his dark hair. “If my men show up, Vargas will shoot Grace before I even get out of the car.”

I looked down at the silver locket still resting on my chest.

Daniel had died to protect that little girl. He wouldn’t have just left her with Sarah without a backup plan. Daniel always had an escape route.

“Vincent,” I said suddenly. “When Daniel gave me this locket… he gave me something else that night.”

Vincent stopped pacing. “What?”

I pointed to my overnight bag sitting on the chair. “My jacket. The blue denim one. I brought it because it still smells like him.”

Vincent stepped over to the chair and grabbed the jacket.

“Check the inside breast pocket,” I said, my heart beating faster.

Vincent reached inside.

His fingers pulled out a crumpled, faded piece of paper.

It was a baggage claim ticket from Union Station, dated four years ago.

“Daniel told me that if anything ever happened to him, and I needed to disappear, I should take this ticket to the station,” I explained. “He said it was the key to his sanctuary.”

Vincent stared at the ticket.

“Union Station,” Vincent muttered. “It’s ten minutes from here.”

“Go,” I told him. “Whatever is in that locker, Daniel left it there to keep Grace safe.”

Vincent didn’t hesitate. He ran.

He reached Union Station just as the midnight crowds were thinning out.

He found the bank of old metal lockers near the long-term parking exit.

Locker 402.

Vincent handed the attendant a hundred-dollar bill, bypassed the line, and scanned the barcode on the ticket.

The locker door popped open.

Inside sat a dusty leather duffel bag.

Vincent pulled it out and unzipped it on a nearby bench.

Inside was a stack of cash, two fake passports, and a folded architectural blueprint.

Vincent opened the blueprint.

It was a map of the old industrial district on Lake Michigan. A massive, abandoned steel mill that Vincent’s father used to own, before it was sold to a shell corporation years ago.

A shell corporation owned by Richard Sterling.

In the center of the blueprint, circled in bright red marker, was a specific building on the property: The Lighthouse Annex.

Written at the bottom of the map, in Elena’s delicate handwriting, were three words:

He uses the basement.

Vincent’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

A text from Richard: Pier 49. South Side. Come alone.

Vincent stared at the text.

Pier 49 was in the exact opposite direction of the steel mill.

Richard was sending him to a decoy location to be ambushed by his men, while Grace and Sarah were being held at the Lighthouse Annex.

Vincent dialed his head of security.

“Daniel. Assemble the strike team,” Vincent ordered, his voice cold and lethal. “We aren’t negotiating. We’re going to the old steel mill on the lake. We breach in twenty minutes.”

Back at the hospital, I couldn’t sleep.

I held the empty silver locket, praying silently for Vincent, for Grace, and for the husband who had sacrificed everything for them.

Suddenly, my hospital room door opened.

It wasn’t a doctor.

It was a woman.

She was wearing a wet trench coat, her dark hair plastered to her face from the rain. She looked exhausted, terrified, and breathtakingly beautiful.

She looked exactly like the photograph Vanessa had tried to burn.

It was Elena.

I gasped, pulling the blanket up to my chest. “You…”

Elena closed the door quickly behind her and locked it.

She looked at me, her warm brown eyes filling with tears.

“You’re Clara,” she whispered.

I nodded, unable to speak.

Elena walked slowly toward the bed. She looked at my swollen stomach, then down at the silver locket resting against my collarbone.

“Your husband gave you that,” Elena said softly.

“Yes,” I breathed.

Elena reached out and gently touched my hand.

“Daniel found me in the snow the night I ran away,” Elena cried quietly. “Richard’s men were chasing me. Daniel was supposed to take me to them. Instead, he put me in his own car, drove me to a safehouse, and hid me.”

Tears streamed down my face. “He never told me.”

“He couldn’t,” Elena said. “To protect you. But he knew Richard would never stop looking. When Grace was born, Daniel took her to his sister to keep her hidden, and he moved me to a convent upstate so I couldn’t be tracked.”

Elena squeezed my hand.

“But Richard found the farmhouse today,” Elena said, her voice shaking. “He took my daughter, Clara. I came out of hiding the second Sarah managed to call me before they took her phone.”

“Vincent knows,” I told her quickly. “Vincent is on his way to the old steel mill right now. He’s going to get her.”

Elena’s eyes widened. “Vincent is alive? Richard didn’t kill him?”

“Richard lied to you, Elena,” I said. “Vincent never signed those divorce papers. He’s spent four years mourning you.”

Elena covered her mouth, a sob tearing through her chest.

Before she could say another word, the lights in my hospital room flickered.

Then, they went completely dark.

The emergency backup generators kicked on, bathing the room in a dim, eerie red glow.

Heavy footsteps echoed in the hallway outside my door.

Elena immediately moved in front of my bed, reaching into her trench coat and pulling out a heavy black pistol.

“Richard didn’t just go to the steel mill,” Elena whispered, raising the gun toward the locked door. “He sent someone to finish what Lakeview started.”

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