Chapter 7 - The Sister Who Refused to Break
Elena read the message six times.
Each time, the words became less real.
She tried calling Sophie.
No answer.
She called again.
Straight to voicemail.
Alessandro was already speaking to Marco.
“Contact campus security.”
“I am.”
“Get the footage from the entrance.”
“Understood.”
Elena moved toward the door.
“I have to find her.”
Alessandro stepped aside rather than blocking her.
“Where would you go?”
She stopped.
“I don't know.”
“Then let's find out where she is before anyone moves blindly.”
Elena pressed both hands against her face.
Ryan had once told her that Sophie was the easiest way to hurt her.
At the time, she had thought he was being cruel.
Now she realized he had been making a plan.
Daniel arrived twenty minutes later with a detective from the Chicago Police Department.
Detective Nora Walsh was in her early forties, with a calm voice and eyes that missed very little.
She listened while Elena explained the previous threats.
Then she asked to see the message.
Elena handed over her phone.
“Do you think he kidnapped her?”
“We're treating her safety as the priority,” Walsh said.
“She's nineteen.”
“I understand.”
“She wouldn't just disappear.”
“We're not assuming she did.”
The detective requested details about Sophie's routine, friends, and recent contacts.
Elena answered everything.
At the same time, Rachel obtained permission to review security footage from the college.
The first video showed Sophie arriving outside the nursing building.
She walked toward the entrance carrying a blue backpack.
Then she stopped.
A man approached.
Ryan.
Elena's stomach turned.
He appeared to say something.
Sophie shook her head.
Ryan held out a phone.
Sophie looked at the screen.
Then she followed him toward a silver sedan.
Elena stared.
“She wouldn't go unless he threatened someone.”
Walsh nodded.
“We'll investigate that.”
Alessandro stood beside the table.
His jaw was tight.
But he said nothing until the detective finished.
Then he asked, “What can we provide that helps without interfering?”
Walsh looked at him.
“Preserve everything and let us handle contact.”
He nodded.
For once, Elena saw a powerful man accept an answer he didn't like.
Two hours passed.
Then three.
Elena could not eat.
Every sound made her reach for her phone.
At four twenty, a new message arrived.
This time it came from an unknown number.
Bring the Harbor Ledger to the abandoned theater on Halsted Street.
Come alone.
No police.
There was a photograph attached.
Sophie sat in a chair beneath a bare lightbulb.
She looked frightened but uninjured.
Behind her stood Ryan.
Elena made a sound she had never heard from herself.
Detective Walsh immediately took the phone.
“We need to trace this.”
“He wants the ledger,” Elena whispered.
“I don't have it.”
Alessandro's expression turned cold.
“That doesn't matter to him.”
The detective examined the message.
“Do not respond yet.”
Elena stared at her sister's face.
“She must be terrified.”
Across the city, Sophie was indeed terrified.
But she was also angry.
Ryan had taken her to an empty office in the back of a closed theater.
He had told her to sit down.
She had refused until he threatened to call someone watching Elena.
Now she sat beneath the light, quietly studying the room.
She noticed the cracked window.
The fire exit.
The old security camera near the ceiling.
Ryan paced while speaking into his phone.
“He'll bring it.”
A pause.
“I know Moretti.”
Another pause.
“No, Vanessa, I haven't lost control.”
Sophie's eyes narrowed.
Vanessa.
The fiancée.
Ryan ended the call and turned.
“You should be grateful I'm being reasonable.”
Sophie looked at him.
“You threatened my sister.”
“She owes me.”
“No.”
Ryan laughed.
“You don't know anything about adult responsibilities.”
Sophie sat straighter.
“I know my mother didn't raise us to sell each other.”
For a moment, Ryan's smile vanished.
Then he approached.
“You think you're brave?”
“No.”
She met his eyes.
“I think you're a coward.”
He raised his hand.
Sophie flinched.
But he stopped when his phone rang again.
He turned away, furious.
Sophie lowered her gaze.
Her fingers moved toward the emergency alert button on her smartwatch.
She had activated it before Ryan took her phone.
She hoped the signal had gone through.
At the mansion, Detective Walsh's radio crackled.
A dispatcher reported a possible emergency location associated with Sophie's device.
Halsted Street.
Near an abandoned theater.
Walsh looked up.
“We have a lead.”
Elena rose so quickly that her chair fell backward.
Alessandro reached to steady the chair but did not touch her.
For the first time that day, hope entered her face.
Then Walsh's phone rang.
She listened.
Her expression changed.
“What do you mean there's a second vehicle?”
A pause.
“Who owns it?”
May you like
She looked directly at Alessandro.
“The car parked behind the theater is registered to Vanessa Bellini.”
