Chapter 1 - THE WALL OF MISSING WOMENThe man stopped beside the SUV and bent forward, both hands braced against his knees.
Rain streamed from his hair and ran in red-tinted lines down the side of his face. I could not tell whether the blood belonged to him.
Franco opened the door before the man could speak.
“Where is Roberto?”
“Gone,” the man gasped. “There’s a tunnel behind the wine cellar. It comes out near the woods.”
Franco’s expression did not change.
That frightened me more than anger would have.
“How long ago?”
“Hard to know. The mud’s fresh. Maybe twenty minutes.”
“Send cars to every road within ten miles. Alert the airports, train stations and private hangars. No one fires unless I give the order.”
The man nodded, but he did not leave.
“There’s something else, boss.”
Franco’s hand tightened around the SUV door.
“What?”
“We found a room behind the basement wall.”
My stomach twisted.
“What kind of room?” Franco asked.
The man glanced at me.
Franco moved slightly, blocking his view.
“Say it.”
“Photographs. Files. Women’s identification cards.”
For one second, the rain seemed to stop making sound.
“How many?” Franco asked.
“At least twelve.”
I stopped breathing.
The mansion behind us glowed through the storm, every window warm and golden. It looked beautiful from the outside.
I had spent three months beneath that beauty, screaming where no one came.
Twelve.
The number moved through me like ice water.
“Are they alive?” I whispered.
The man looked at Franco instead of answering me.
That told me enough.
Franco leaned into the vehicle.
“We’re leaving.”
“No.”
His eyes returned to mine.
“Megan—”
“I need to see that room.”
“You need a doctor.”
“I need to know whether there were other women in that house.”
His voice became quiet.
“You are barely conscious.”
“And I still need to see it.”
Franco looked as though he wanted to argue. Then he studied my face and seemed to understand that dragging me away without answers would be another kind of imprisonment.
He took off his jacket again and wrapped it more securely around my shoulders.
“You stay beside me.”
I almost laughed.
The chain marks around my ankle burned. My legs barely held me. I was sitting inside an armored vehicle surrounded by armed criminals, and he was giving me instructions as though staying beside him were the safest thing in the world.
Maybe, at that moment, it was.
Franco lifted me from the SUV.
“I can walk,” I said.
“You nearly collapsed ten minutes ago.”
“Put me down.”
“No.”
“I was chained for three months. I would like to choose when someone carries me.”
He stopped immediately.
The rain struck both of us.
Then Franco lowered me carefully until my bare feet touched the wet gravel. One of his men brought a pair of oversized boots and helped place them beside me without touching me.
Franco offered his arm instead.
“Your choice.”
I stared at him.
He had listened.
That should not have felt extraordinary.
It did.
I slipped my hand around his sleeve.
We walked toward the mansion.
Inside, men moved rapidly through the marble halls. Some carried weapons. Others photographed doors, furniture and footprints. The air smelled of expensive candles, gunpowder and damp earth.
No one looked directly at me.
Franco must have ordered that.
We passed the basement door.
My body stopped.
The darkness below seemed to rise through the stairway and wrap itself around my throat.
For three months, I had imagined that door opening.
Sometimes I had dreamed my sister Claire would appear.
Sometimes a police officer.
Sometimes no one.
I had never imagined a mafia boss with rain on his suit and murder in his eyes.
Franco felt my grip tighten.
“You do not have to go down there.”
“Yes, I do.”
His gaze stayed on me.
“No one will think less of you.”
“This isn’t for them.”
I put one foot on the first step.
The basement smelled the same.
Mold. Rust. Old water. Fear.
The broken chain lay on the concrete where Franco’s man had cut it. Seeing it separated from my body made it look smaller than it had felt.
I had spent months believing that chain filled the entire world.
Now it was only a piece of steel on a dirty floor.
A section of the far wall had been opened. Behind it was a narrow doorway reinforced with metal.
Portable lights illuminated the hidden room.
Franco entered first.
Then he stopped.
I stepped around him.
Photographs covered the walls.
Women at grocery stores.
Women leaving work.
Women carrying coffee.
Women waiting at bus stops.
Some photographs had been taken from far away. Others were close enough to show the expressions on their faces.
Most of them did not know they were being watched.
A long table held folders labeled with names.
EMILY SOTO.
KAREN WELLS.
DANIELLE PRICE.
JENNA MORRIS.
Twelve folders.
Maybe more.
Identification cards had been arranged inside a glass display case as if they were trophies.
Driver’s licenses.
Hospital badges.
College IDs.
A silver necklace.
A wedding ring.
My Chicago General identification card sat near the center.
The photograph showed me smiling.
I barely recognized that woman.
Beside my badge was a folded piece of paper.
Franco reached for it.
“Wait.”
I picked it up myself.
The handwriting was neat and controlled.
She believes saying no makes her strong.
The first week will teach her otherwise.
My knees weakened.
Franco caught my elbow but released it the second I steadied myself.
I unfolded the page completely.
There were dates beneath the sentence.
The night Roberto had approached me in the emergency room.
The day someone had followed me home.
The night my car tire had been cut.
I remembered that tire.
I had blamed a pothole.
The final date was the night I disappeared.
Next to it, Roberto had written:
TRANSFER DELAYED. SHE REMEMBERS THE PATIENT.
“What patient?” Franco asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You reacted.”
“I worked in an emergency room. I saw hundreds of patients.”
I looked through my folder.
There were copies of my schedule, photographs of my apartment building and notes about Claire.
My sister’s home address had been circled.
“No.”
The word tore out of me.
I grabbed the file.
“Where is my phone?”
“It was not in the basement,” Franco said.
“I need to call Claire.”
“You will.”
“Now.”
“Megan, we do not know who is involved. Calling from an unsecured line could expose her location.”
“She could already be in danger.”
Franco turned toward one of his men.
“Contact Luca. Have him send a team to Claire Turner’s address. Quietly. Confirm her safety before making contact.”
I stepped toward him.
“You know her address?”
“It is in Roberto’s file.”
“You cannot send armed men to my sister’s home.”
“I can send them outside and have a female officer knock.”
“Officer?”
“I know one who is not on my payroll.”
The bluntness of the statement stunned me.
Franco took out his phone and made the call himself.
While he spoke, I opened the next folder.
Emily Soto.
Twenty-seven years old.
Dental hygienist.
Missing for eleven months.
The next page showed a handwritten schedule of medications.
Sedatives.
Antibiotics.
IV fluids.
The clinical terminology was accurate.
Too accurate.
“Roberto had medical help,” I said.
Franco ended the call.
“What makes you say that?”
“These dosages aren’t guesses. Someone calculated them by weight.”
I opened another folder.
Karen Wells had a list of blood pressure readings. Jenna Morris had notes about an allergic reaction.
The photographs changed near the back of each file.
The women no longer appeared in public.
They were inside rooms.
Basements.
Warehouses.
One photograph showed a young woman lying on a mattress beneath an IV bag.
Another showed the same woman being placed into the back of an ambulance.
My memory shifted.
A winter night at Chicago General.
An unidentified woman brought in by a private ambulance.
She had bruises around both wrists and adhesive residue on her arm. The paramedic claimed she had been found unconscious near a nightclub.
But her clothes had been clean.
Her feet had not.
I had asked questions.
Then a young man in a gray coat had entered the emergency room.
Roberto.
He had said he was looking for a friend.
Later, he had asked for my number.
“I remember the patient,” I whispered.
Franco stepped closer.
“Tell me.”
“She was brought into the ER six months ago. Unconscious. No identification. The private paramedic said she had overdosed, but her toxicology results didn’t match.”
“What happened to her?”
“She disappeared from the hospital.”
“Disappeared?”
“Someone signed her out before the police social worker arrived.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. The authorization was entered under a physician’s credentials.”
“Did you see Roberto with her?”
“No. I saw him in the emergency room that night.”
The note in my file suddenly made sense.
He had not kidnapped me only because I rejected him.
I had seen something.
Maybe I had remembered too much.
A man near the hidden doorway spoke.
“Boss, you need to see this.”
He held a small black ledger.
Franco opened it.
The pages contained initials, dates and dollar amounts.
Some entries were marked with police badge numbers.
Others listed hospital departments.
One name appeared repeatedly.
DR. N. MERCER.
I knew that name.
“Neil Mercer,” I said. “Deputy director of emergency medicine.”
Franco looked at me.
“He worked at Chicago General?”
“He still does.”
Mercer had been the physician whose credentials authorized the unidentified woman’s release.
My stomach turned.
“He has access to patient records,” I said. “Employee addresses too.”
Franco closed the ledger.
“Then Roberto did not find you by chance.”
A phone rang from the hallway.
One of Franco’s men answered, listened and approached us.
“Claire Turner is alive. She’s at home.”
My legs nearly gave out with relief.
“She wants to speak to Megan,” he added.
Franco held out the phone.
My hand shook so violently I nearly dropped it.
“Claire?”
Silence.
Then my sister made a sound I had heard only once before, when our father died.
“Megan?”
I closed my eyes.
“Hi.”
“Oh my God.”
She began sobbing.
So did I.
“They told us you were probably dead,” she said. “The police stopped calling. I never stopped looking. I swear I never stopped.”
“I know.”
“Where are you?”
I looked at Franco.
He shook his head slightly.
“I’m safe.”
“Are you hurt?”
I could not answer.
Claire understood anyway.
“I’m coming to get you.”
“No. Stay where you are.”
“What?”
“Lock your doors. Don’t trust anyone who says they’re police unless they give you the name of the woman outside.”
Franco quietly supplied it.
“Detective Elena Marquez,” I said.
Claire’s breathing became uneven.
“Megan, what is happening?”
“I don’t know yet.”
A sound came from somewhere above us.
A door slamming.
Then rapid footsteps.
Franco’s men raised their weapons.
The phone in my hand vibrated.
A text message appeared from an unknown number.
A photograph loaded slowly.
It showed Claire standing inside her kitchen, holding the phone to her ear.
Taken through the window.
Beneath it was a message.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED IN THE BASEMENT.
I turned the screen toward Franco.
His eyes went cold.
Before he could speak, every light in the mansion went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
For one instant, I was chained again.
I screamed.
A hand found mine.
Not grabbing.
Holding.
Franco’s voice came beside me.
“You are not in the basement anymore.”
Gunfire erupted upstairs.
Franco pulled me behind the reinforced wall as his men surrounded us.
The hidden room flashed with emergency lights.
“Get Claire out now,” Franco ordered into his phone. “Do not use police vehicles.”
Then a voice crackled through the mansion’s speaker system.
Smooth.
Amused.
Familiar.
“Megan.”
My blood froze.
Roberto.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to welcome you upstairs.”
Franco stared toward the ceiling.
Roberto continued.
“You’ve met my brother. He likes pretending he is different from me.”
The speakers hissed.
“But before you decide which Ravellini monster you trust, ask Franco what he did to the last woman who tried to leave his family.”
The message ended.
The emergency lights flickered.
I looked at Franco.
For the first time since he had opened the basement door, he looked afraid.
Not of the gunfire.
May you like
Of my question.
“What woman?”
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