Chapter 10 - Where They Took Marie
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I could still hear my aunt screaming long after the phone went dead in my hand.
I stood in Alessandro's hospital room with my heart hammering and no words left in my mouth.
Alessandro tried to sit up too fast and his face went white from the pain in his left shoulder.
His left arm was bound tight in a sling and his wound from the bank garage shooting was still serious.
Dante caught him by his good arm and pushed him back against the pillows with a firm hand.
I finally told them Rafael Orsini had taken Marie from the guarded safe apartment.
Dante was already on his phone and his voice turned hard as he demanded answers from his team.
He learned the back door guard had been found unconscious in the service hallway.
He learned a delivery van with cloned plates had left eleven minutes before my phone rang.
Alessandro reached for me with his right hand and pulled me close to the bed.
His gray eyes searched my face like he was checking whether I was still breathing.
He told me Lorenzo wanted me frightened enough to obey without thinking.
I told him fear was working because Marie was the only family I had left besides him.
I told him I had not forgiven her lies but none of that mattered if she died screaming my name.
Agent Sarah Blake arrived with two agents and listened to the recording of the call without flinching.
She heard Marie scream and she heard Rafe tell me to wait for instructions.
She told me Lorenzo needed something from me that he could not steal or forge on his own.
My phone lit up again on the tray beside the bed and every person in the room went silent.
Lorenzo wanted the original USB from deposit box four hundred seventeen brought to him in person.
He wanted me to sign a protective proxy naming him trustee in my place.
He wanted me at Terminal Four in Warehouse Nine at midnight and he wanted me there alone.
He wrote that no police could come near the terminal or Marie would die before I reached the door.
A photograph followed and it stopped my heart for a full second.
Marie sat bound to a metal chair under a harsh light with terror in her eyes.
Alessandro took the phone from my shaking fingers and his jaw locked as he stared.
He told me he would go to Warehouse Nine in my place and trade himself for Marie.
He told me Lorenzo hated him most and would take a nephew over an aunt without hesitation.
I told him Lorenzo needed my signature and my trust and only I could hand over the evidence.
I told him a trade built on him would end with both him and Marie dead before midnight passed.
He asked why I would walk into his uncle's hands when his wound proved he could not protect me there.
I told him I had spent four years being moved and hidden and lied to for my own protection.
I told him protection that stole my choices had left me starving and bleeding in a bakery.
I told him I would not be hidden again while people I loved were used as chains around my neck.
His right hand tightened around mine and he asked what I wanted to do like the answer belonged to me.
I said I would go in as the bait Lorenzo believed he had already broken.
I said Blake could hide a wire on me and Dante could wait outside until Lorenzo talked.
I said men like Lorenzo could not resist explaining how clever they had been when they thought they had won.
Blake told me a wire could fail and a frightened man with a gun could change every plan in a second.
She told me the Bureau could surround Terminal Four using the service roads and the empty container yard.
Dante spread a map of the terminal across the foot of the bed and pointed to Warehouse Nine.
He showed me the loading doors and the office corridor and the blind corner behind the shipping crates.
He told me his team would hold the outer line beyond the fence where Lorenzo's lookouts would never search.
Doctor Elena Rosini came in and scolded Alessandro for discharging himself against medical advice.
She told him the sling stayed on and the left arm stayed still and no heroics would change her orders.
Blake's technician arrived with the black bow I wore in my hair every shift at the bakery.
The bow was plain cloth from my uniform and it still smelled faintly of flour and coffee.
The technician showed me the wire woven so thin beneath the center knot that my fingers could barely feel it.
Blake fixed the bow herself in my long dark brown hair and told me to keep Lorenzo talking if I could do it safely.
Henry Whitaker arrived with a leather folder and asked to speak with me privately in the family lounge.
He reminded me Lorenzo would put a pen in my hand before he let Marie go free.
He reminded me my only valid trust signature was exactly the name Sophia M. Chen and no other form would bind the Chen Trust.
He told me any other version of my name on a proxy would be invalid under the trust deed my father had signed.
I understood the gift hidden inside his warning at once.
I could hold a pen in that warehouse and still deny Lorenzo the one thing he needed.
Whitaker also told me he would reactivate the Terminal Four warehouse cameras that afternoon so nothing Lorenzo did would go unseen.
When I returned Alessandro stood waiting with my plain silver wedding ring held in his right fist.
I had worn that ring on a chain for weeks because putting it on my finger had felt too dangerous to hope for.
He slid the ring onto my finger with slow care and it fit exactly as it had on our wedding day.
He told me I would walk in as his wife and not as Lorenzo's victim.
I told him I would wear it because I chose him in that moment and not because any paper ordered me to.
He bent his forehead to mine while his sling kept a clumsy space between our bodies.
Dante told us the cars were ready and the rain had started again over Bellhaven.
I kissed Alessandro on his unshaven cheek and felt his good hand linger like letting go cost him strength.
Dante drove me to the last dark street before the terminal gates and stopped beneath a broken streetlight.
He told me Blake was in position and his men were in position and my voice would not be alone in that warehouse.
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I stepped out into the rain alone with the bow in my hair and the ring on my finger and the USB heavy in my pocket.
I drove the last stretch to the dark terminal by myself with both hands tight on the wheel and Marie's scream guiding me forward.
