Chapter 2 – THE EMPTY COAT

“What do you mean they took him?” I gripped the phone, my knuckles turning white. Lily looked up at me, her brown eyes wide with fresh terror.

“We were at the train station,” Isabella sobbed, her voice barely audible over the roaring wind and distant sirens. “I knew Elias would realize the birthday letters were missing. I tried to get Leo out of the city. Two men in suits… they grabbed him on the platform. They threw him into a black sedan. I fought them, Claire. I fought them so hard.”

“Isabella, where are you right now?”

“A payphone outside the Milwaukee Amtrak station. I have a broken rib. I can’t—Claire, they dropped a phone on the pavement before they drove off. It rang. It was Victoria.”

My breath caught. “Victoria?”

“She told me if Gabriel didn’t sign the business over to Elias by midnight, I would never see Leo again.” Isabella’s voice broke into a jagged weep. “Please. Put Gabriel on the phone. Please!”

“I’m locked in the study with Lily. Hold on, I’ll put you on speaker and use the landline to call Marco down—”

Before I could finish the sentence, a heavy thud echoed from the hallway outside the study.

Someone was throwing their weight against the locked oak doors.

Lily screamed, scrambling backward on the leather sofa and pressing Mr. Buttons over her face.

“Claire?” Isabella cried through the phone. “What’s happening?”

“Hide,” I whispered fiercely to Isabella. “Don’t let anyone see you. Gabriel is coming for you.”

I hung up, shoving the cell phone deep into my pocket.

The brass doorknob rattled violently.

“Claire!” Victoria’s voice filtered through the heavy wood. It didn’t sound panicked. It sounded venomous. “Open the door, you stupid girl.”

I moved in front of Lily, grabbing a heavy brass letter opener from Gabriel’s desk. “Mr. Moretti ordered us to stay locked inside!”

“Gabriel is busy downstairs with my father’s men,” Victoria sneered. “You think we came to an engagement dinner without backup? Open the door, or my men will shoot the hinges off.”

My mind raced. How had Elias’s men gotten inside? Where was Marco?

I looked frantically around Gabriel’s study. It was a fortress, but no door could hold against bullets. My eyes landed on the massive mahogany bookcase against the far wall. Gabriel had once asked me to clean the hinges of a hidden panel behind it—a safe room built during the prohibition era.

“Lily,” I whispered, dropping to my knees. “Remember the game your dad plays? Where he hides the candy behind the books?”

She nodded, tears streaming down her face.

“I need you to go behind the bookcase. Do not come out. No matter what you hear.”

“Come with me, Claire.”

“I have to lock it from the outside to make it look like the wall is solid. I promise I’ll be okay.”

I practically shoved the little girl into the narrow, dark crawlspace behind the shelves. Just as I clicked the false panel into place, a deafening gunshot shattered the heavy oak door.

Splinters flew across the room.

The door kicked open.

Victoria stood in the threshold, her beautiful champagne gown smeared with a few drops of blood. Behind her stood two massive men in dark suits holding suppressed pistols.

Victoria stepped into the room, her eyes darting around.

“Where is the brat?” she asked.

I backed up against Gabriel’s desk, hiding the letter opener behind my skirt. “She ran out the balcony doors. She climbed down the trellis.”

Victoria walked toward the balcony. She looked down at the rain-slicked stones of the terrace, then turned back to me.

She smiled, a cold, empty thing.

“You’re a terrible liar, Claire.”

She reached into her designer clutch and pulled out a small, child-sized winter coat. It was dark blue.

My stomach plummeted. It was a little boy’s coat.

“Leo dropped this when my men picked him up at the train station,” Victoria said, tossing the coat onto the carpet between us. “Such a shame. It’s cold in Chicago tonight.”

“You’re a monster,” I breathed. “You were going to marry Gabriel, yet you’re holding his son hostage?”

“I’m doing Gabriel a favor!” Victoria snapped, her mask finally slipping. “Isabella ruined him. She made him soft. My father built this empire, and Gabriel stole it through his stupid moral codes. Once Elias has the legal deeds tonight, the boy goes in the river. And the mother follows.”

She stepped closer to me, her eyes manic.

“Now, give me Lily. If Elias has both of Gabriel’s children, Gabriel will sign the papers in seconds.”

“I told you, she’s not here.”

Victoria raised her hand. One of the men stepped forward, grabbing my hair and throwing me onto the Persian rug. The wind was knocked out of my lungs.

“Tear the room apart,” Victoria ordered.

The men began pulling books from the shelves. They were getting closer to the false panel. I had to create a distraction.

I scrambled to my feet and lunged at Victoria with the brass letter opener.

I managed to slash her arm—a shallow cut, but enough to make her scream. The man beside her backhanded me across the face. The world spun into darkness as I hit the floor, tasting blood.

Through my blurry vision, I saw the man raise his gun, pointing it directly at my chest.

“Leave her,” Victoria hissed, clutching her bleeding arm. “We don’t need the girl. We have the boy. Let’s go.”

They rushed out of the study.

I lay on the carpet, my head ringing, staring at the little blue coat left on the floor.

Then, I saw it.

Sticking out of the pocket of Leo’s coat was a small piece of folded, heavy cardstock.

I dragged myself over to it and pulled it out.

It was a flight ticket.

Not for Leo. Not for Isabella.

The name on the boarding pass was Dominic Moretti. It was a one-way ticket to Zurich, dated for tomorrow morning.

Dominic wasn’t a hero. He hadn’t just helped Isabella hide.

He was planning to take the money and run, leaving Isabella and the boy as bait for Elias.

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