Chapter 6 - THE PRICE OF INNOCENCE
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The name echoed through the study like a curse, freezing Luca in his tracks.
His gun remained leveled at her forehead, but his hand trembled with sudden hesitation.
“What did you just say?” Luca demanded, his voice thick with rising dread.
Vanessa tapped the speakerphone button on the burner phone with her long acrylic nail.
The quiet room was suddenly pierced by the sound of high-pitched, terrified weeping.
“Grandpa! Grandpa, please help me!” Lily’s voice cried through the tinny speaker.
“It’s dark in here and my chest hurts so bad!”
“I can’t find my inhaler!”
Arthur let out a guttural scream of pure agony and collapsed onto his knees before the desk.
Tears flooded down the deep wrinkles of his weathered cheeks as he reached out toward the phone.
“Lily! Baby, can you hear grandpa?” the old man wailed, his soul shattering across the room.
A rough male voice cut over the child's weeping through the phone line.
“Shut up, kid,” the man growled before addressing the room.
“Boss lady, we’re ready on this end.”
“Dante has the cinder block tied to her ankles.”
“One word from you, and she takes a swim in the river.”
Vanessa tapped the mute button, smiling with triumphant malice at the broken old butler sobbing at her feet.
“Arthur, you should have burned that ledger like I told you to yesterday,” Vanessa whispered coldly.
She turned her gaze back to Luca, basking in the sudden shift of absolute power.
“Here are my terms, Luca, and they are completely non-negotiable.”
“Twenty million dollars transferred into my offshore account in Grand Cayman within the next forty-five minutes.”
“A private Gulfstream fueled and waiting on the tarmac at O’Hare International Airport.”
“And Marco will personally escort me past your perimeter guards to my car downstairs.”
“If anyone follows me, or if the money isn't cleared before wheels up, Dante drops the girl.”
Luca stood motionless, the gun slowly lowering to his side as he stared at the woman he had shared a bed with.
The sheer cruelty of threatening an eight-year-old child was a line even the mafia boss would never cross.
“She’s an innocent child, Vanessa,” Luca said, his voice shaking with restrained fury.
“Leave the girl out of this and I will let you walk away with the money.”
Vanessa laughed, a sharp, metallic sound that cut through Arthur’s quiet weeping.
“I don't trust your word, Luca, and I certainly don't care about a butler's brat.”
“You have forty minutes left on the clock.”
“Start typing on that laptop, or you can go fish Lily Collins out of the Calumet tomorrow morning.”
My heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird trying to break free.
May you like
I slipped my hand into my apron pocket and felt the edges of Arthur’s folded paper.
I knew what I had to do, even if it cost me my own life.
