Chapter 4 - THE PRICE OF A MOTHERLorenzo wanted Tommy found before nightfall.
Hunter wanted him alive.
Those goals were not naturally compatible.
“He admitted knowing about Sophia’s murder,” Lorenzo said. “He is part of the conspiracy.”
“He is also a witness.”
“He is a coward asking for money.”
“Cowards still hear things.”
Lorenzo stood at the long table inside the estate command center, surrounded by maps, photographs and security feeds.
Hunter sat near the wall feeding Leo beneath a light blanket. She had stopped feeling embarrassed about nursing in front of armed men.
The men were more uncomfortable than she was.
Marco enlarged a map of abandoned industrial buildings near the Brooklyn waterfront.
“Tommy’s call passed through a tower near Red Hook,” he said. “There are three properties connected to Matteo’s companies within a six-block radius.”
“Search all of them,” Lorenzo ordered.
“Quietly?”
“No.”
Hunter looked up.
“If you arrive with twenty gunmen, Tommy will run or someone will kill him.”
“He deserves both.”
“He has information.”
“He pushed you down a staircase.”
“And I want him to stand in a courtroom while someone reads Lily’s name into the record.”
Lorenzo’s jaw tightened.
“Prison will not be enough.”
“It has to be.”
“Why?”
“Because I need one part of my life to end without a body disappearing.”
The room became quiet.
Lorenzo dismissed everyone except Marco.
Then he looked at Hunter.
“You want to meet him.”
“I want to make him think I will.”
“No.”
“He asked for me.”
“He nearly killed you.”
“He knows I’m afraid of him. He will believe fear makes me controllable.”
Lorenzo shook his head.
“I will not use you as bait.”
Hunter gave him a tired smile.
“That sounds strange coming from a man who wanted to keep me in a locked nursery.”
“I was wrong.”
The admission silenced her.
Lorenzo Rossi did not look like a man who practiced those words.
He looked as though each one had cut his throat on the way out.
Hunter shifted Leo to her shoulder.
“Then let me choose.”
Lorenzo walked to the window.
Beyond the armored glass, waves struck the cliffs.
“Sophia used to say that to me.”
“What?”
“Let me choose.”
Hunter waited.
“I assigned guards to follow her without telling her. I controlled which drivers she used. I bought the building beside her office because I did not like the men who worked there.”
“That is not protection. That is surveillance.”
“I know that now.”
“Did you know it then?”
“I knew she hated it.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
His reflection looked back at her from the glass.
“No.”
Hunter lowered her voice.
“You can’t keep losing women and deciding the answer is more control.”
Lorenzo turned.
For a second, anger flashed.
Then Leo made a small burping sound against Hunter’s shoulder.
The absurdity weakened the tension.
Hunter smiled.
Lorenzo stared at his son.
“He is louder.”
“He’s stronger.”
“Because of you.”
“Because he ate.”
“He ate because of you.”
Hunter looked away.
She had begun to fear those words.
Not because they were untrue, but because they attached her to Leo in a way that could become impossible to survive.
She loved the feel of his warm body against hers.
She loved the small frown he made before latching.
She loved that he had started opening his eyes after feedings.
Every new sign of life healed something in her and tore something else open.
“I will meet Tommy,” she said. “You can put a tracker on me. Police can be nearby. Your men can be nearby. But no one fires unless he attacks.”
Lorenzo looked at Marco.
Marco shrugged slightly.
“She is right. Tommy asked for her. He may not talk to anyone else.”
Lorenzo’s gaze darkened.
“You are enjoying this.”
“No, boss.”
“You look like you are.”
“I look this way all the time.”
Hunter almost laughed.
By midnight, the plan was ready.
Tommy called again and directed Hunter to an abandoned church near the waterfront.
She wore a wire beneath her coat.
A tracking device was sewn into her collar.
Detective Erin Walsh from the NYPD organized the official surveillance team after Hunter insisted police be involved. Lorenzo’s men watched from farther out, a compromise no one trusted.
Leo remained at the estate with Dr. Halloran, two nurses cleared by federal background checks, Marco’s wife and six guards.
Hunter hated leaving him.
The reaction frightened her.
As the armored car approached Brooklyn, she pressed a hand against the ache in her chest.
Lorenzo sat beside her.
“You can turn back.”
“So can you.”
“No.”
“Then neither can I.”
He studied her profile.
“Are you afraid?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Hunter looked at him.
“That is a terrible thing to say.”
“Fear keeps intelligent people alive.”
“Fear kept me with Tommy for two years.”
Lorenzo considered that.
“Then use it differently tonight.”
The church had been abandoned after a fire damaged the roof. Rain fell through broken sections and collected in puddles across the stone floor.
Hunter entered alone.
At least, she appeared alone.
“Tommy?”
Her voice echoed.
A figure stepped from behind the altar.
Tommy looked thinner than she remembered. His blond hair was greasy, and a bruise darkened one eye. He held a pistol in his right hand.
Hunter stopped.
“You said no weapons.”
“I said bring money.”
“It’s outside.”
“With Rossi?”
“Yes.”
Tommy laughed.
“So you’re sleeping with him now?”
“No.”
“You always find someone to take care of you.”
Hunter’s fear became anger.
“You took my savings.”
“I was going to pay it back.”
“You killed our daughter.”
His face changed.
For one moment, shame appeared.
Then he buried it.
“You fell.”
“You pushed me.”
“You were screaming.”
“Because you were hitting me.”
“You never knew when to stop talking.”
The old sentence hit her like a hand.
Her body wanted to shrink.
Hunter forced herself to remain still.
“Tell me about Matteo.”
Tommy glanced toward the doors.
“He paid my debt.”
“For what?”
“To get you hired at the estate.”
The answer shocked her.
“I applied through an agency.”
“He owns part of it. They needed someone desperate. Someone with no family. Someone who wouldn’t ask questions.”
“Why me?”
Tommy laughed again.
“Because you had milk.”
Hunter felt the blood leave her face.
“They knew?”
“I told a collector about the baby. About what happened. He told Matteo.”
“Why would Matteo want a maid with breast milk inside Lorenzo’s house if he was trying to starve Leo?”
“He didn’t.”
Tommy’s hand shook around the gun.
“He wanted you blamed.”
Hunter understood.
The forbidden maid enters the nursery.
The dying baby receives untested milk.
If Leo died afterward, Hunter would become the obvious cause.
“You were supposed to make me feed him?”
“The nurse was supposed to leave the door open. You were supposed to hear him. They said a grieving woman would do the rest.”
Hunter’s stomach turned.
Every step she had believed was her choice had been anticipated.
“But Leo got better,” she said.
“That messed everything up.”
“The message said I changed everything.”
“They thought your milk would kill him faster. Matteo’s doctor gave you something at the hospital.”
Hunter’s mind raced.
“I wasn’t given medication.”
“A shot after the delivery.”
Every woman received injections after delivery. Antibiotics, pain relief, medication to reduce bleeding.
“What was in it?”
“I don’t know. It was supposed to stay in your body long enough to make the baby sick.”
“But it didn’t.”
“The doctor screwed up or lied.”
“Which doctor?”
Tommy looked toward the broken entrance.
A shadow moved behind him.
Hunter saw it first.
“Tommy—”
A gunshot cracked.
Tommy’s shoulder exploded backward.
He fell behind the altar.
Hunter dropped as another bullet struck the stone wall.
Lorenzo burst through a side door with two men, firing toward the upper balcony.
Police shouted outside.
Hunter crawled toward Tommy.
He was bleeding heavily, gasping.
“Who was the doctor?” she demanded.
“I don’t know.”
“Tommy!”
“Halloran.”
The name nearly stopped her heart.
Dr. Julian Halloran.
The man alone with Leo at the estate.
Hunter ripped the wire from her coat.
“Lorenzo!”
He reached her, grabbing her arm.
“Are you hit?”
“Halloran is part of it. He’s with Leo.”
Lorenzo’s face changed.
He called Marco.
No answer.
He called the estate security desk.
No answer.
Then a video message arrived on Hunter’s phone.
Dr. Halloran stood inside the nursery holding Leo.
Behind him, Marco lay motionless on the floor.
Halloran pressed a syringe against the baby’s IV port.
“Bring Lorenzo Rossi to the old ferry terminal,” he said. “Alone.”
Leo cried in his arms.
“If I see police, soldiers, helicopters or a second vehicle, I inject enough potassium to stop his heart before anyone reaches the door.”
The video ended.
Hunter stared at the blank screen.
Milk soaked through her blouse as her body responded to Leo’s cry.
Lorenzo looked toward the altar, where Tommy was losing consciousness.
Then toward the distant estate on the other side of the city.
Revenge and fatherhood stood before him.
For the first time in his life, Lorenzo Rossi chose not to kill the man at his feet.
“Keep him alive,” he ordered the police.
Then he took Hunter’s hand.
“We are going to get our son.”
May you like
Neither of them noticed the word he had used.
Our.
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