Chapter 2 – THE MEDICAL BRACELET

“Lock down the estate!” Luca roared, his voice shaking the library walls. “Nobody gets past the main gates!”

“Sir, the SUV already broke through,” the voice on the radio panicked. “They’re heading toward the highway.”

Luca didn’t hesitate. He grabbed his keys from the desk. “Daniel, get a team. Eleanor, take Noah to the panic room in the basement. Now.”

“I’m not hiding in a basement while that woman runs away with my daughter’s murder,” I said fiercely, my hands trembling but my spine straight. “Noah, go with Daniel. Grandma is going with your father.”

Noah hugged my waist tightly. “Don’t let the mean lady come back.”

“I promise, my sweet boy,” I kissed his forehead. Daniel gently took Noah’s hand and led him toward the hidden security doors behind the bookshelves.

I followed Luca out into the pouring rain. The driveway was a scene of chaos. Armed men were piling into black vehicles. Luca shoved me into the passenger seat of his armored truck and slammed on the gas before his door was even fully shut.

The tires screamed against the wet asphalt as we tore out of the estate.

“If she destroys the original adoption decree, what happens?” I asked, gripping the dashboard as we swerved onto the dark coastal highway.

“Without the original unsealed document, the closed agency records are legally ambiguous in this state,” Luca said, his jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth might break. “If she destroys it, she can claim we bought the child illegally. She can petition for an emergency custody injunction. With her new legal name and a forged background, a corrupt judge might hand Noah over to her during the investigation.”

“She’s trying to steal him through the courts,” I realized, feeling sick. “Because she couldn’t do it by marrying you.”

“She won’t live to see a courtroom,” Luca growled, pushing the speedometer past ninety.

Up ahead, through the driving rain, the taillights of a crushed black SUV flickered on the side of the road. It had skidded off the wet pavement and smashed into the steel guardrail.

Luca slammed the brakes. We fishtailed, stopping inches from the wrecked vehicle. He jumped out, his weapon drawn, the rain soaking his white shirt instantly.

I scrambled out behind him, my heart in my throat.

Luca approached the driver’s side. The window was shattered. He ripped the door open.

The driver was slumped over the steering wheel, unconscious. It was one of the estate’s valets. A young kid named Marcus. Vanessa had paid or forced him to drive her.

But the passenger seat was empty.

Vanessa was gone.

“She fled into the woods,” Luca yelled over the storm, shining a heavy flashlight into the dark, towering pines bordering the highway. “Eleanor, stay in the car!”

But I couldn’t stay in the car. I walked toward the passenger side of the wrecked SUV. The door hung open, rainwater pooling on the leather seat.

Something shiny caught the beam of the streetlamp above.

I reached down into the footwell. My fingers brushed against cold metal. I pulled it out.

It was a silver chain. A medical alert bracelet.

The air rushed out of my lungs.

I recognized the delicate engraving immediately. I had bought it for Claire when she was diagnosed with her severe penicillin allergy in college. She wore it every single day of her life.

“Luca!” I screamed over the rain.

He ran around the car, his gun lowered. “What did you find?”

I held up the silver bracelet. My hand was shaking so violently the metal clinked together.

“This was Claire’s,” I sobbed, the grief of four years ago crashing into me all at once. “The police told me it was lost in the wreckage. They told me it burned in the crash.”

Luca took the bracelet from my hand. He stared at it, his dark eyes filling with a devastating realization.

“If it burned in the crash,” Luca said, his voice terrifyingly quiet, “then how did Vanessa have it in her pocket tonight?”

The answer was a nightmare.

“She was there,” I whispered, tears mixing with the rain on my face. “Vanessa didn’t just run Claire off the road. She went down into the ravine. She took this off my daughter’s wrist while she was dying.”

Luca let out a sound that wasn’t human. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated agony and rage. He turned toward the dark woods, the flashlight cutting through the trees.

“Vanessa!” he roared into the darkness.

There was no answer. Just the sound of the rain.

But as Luca lowered the flashlight, the beam caught something pinned against the bark of a pine tree ten feet away.

It was a single piece of torn brown wrapping paper. Pinned to the tree with a switchblade.

Luca pulled it down. Written on the back of the paper in smeared black ink were three words.

Check your accounts.

Luca pulled his phone from his pocket, his thumb swiping frantically through his banking alerts. The screen glowed harshly in the dark.

I watched his expression change from rage to absolute shock.

“What is it?” I asked.

“She didn’t just want Noah,” Luca said, staring at his phone. “While we were at the dinner table, someone used my private security clearance to access the Moretti family trusts.”

“How much did they take?”

Luca looked at me, his eyes hollow.

“Everything, Eleanor. They drained forty million dollars. And the transfer authorization was signed by Arthur Harris.”

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