Chapter 7 - Two Empty Beds
The daycare security footage showed Eric entering through the kitchen wearing a delivery uniform.
He had taken the twins seventeen minutes before police arrived.
Anna made a sound I will never forget.
Not a scream.
Something deeper.
A mother's body realizing her children were gone.
Police flooded the daycare.
Federal agents joined them.
I called every person I knew.
Anna grabbed my jacket.
“He'll take them to Canada.”
“How do you know?”
“He talked about it once. His mother has family there.”
Police issued alerts.
Airports were notified.
Highways monitored.
But I remembered something.
Eric wanted control more than escape.
“He won't leave yet.”
Anna looked at me.
“What?”
“He wants you.”
Her face went still.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
Eric.
I answered.
“Put Anna on.”
“No.”
A child's voice sounded in the background.
“Mommy?”
Anna ripped the phone from my hand.
“Sophia!”
“Mommy!”
Then Eric returned.
“Come alone.”
He gave an address.
An abandoned Wellington property in Queens.
The company's first hotel.
Closed six years earlier.
Of course.
This had started with our families.
Eric wanted it to end there.
Police told Anna not to go.
She went.
So did I.
We weren't alone.
Claire had taught Anna something important: cooperation with authorities was not weakness.
A tracking device was sewn inside her coat.
Police waited three blocks away.
I entered through another side of the building.
Eric had the twins in the old ballroom.
They were frightened but unharmed.
Anna stood twenty feet away.
“Let them go.”
Eric smiled.
“You finally learned how to ask nicely.”
“You don't want them.”
His face changed.
“You don't know what I want.”
“Yes, I do.”
Anna's voice was steady.
“You want me afraid.”
Eric stepped closer.
“For six years, I gave you everything.”
“You gave me bruises.”
“I gave you a family.”
“You made me believe you were the only family I had.”
She looked at Sophia and Samuel.
“You were wrong.”
Eric grabbed her wrist.
I stepped from behind the column.
“Take your hand off her.”
He spun around.
“Of course.”
He laughed.
“The billionaire.”
“Let them go.”
“You think you're their father now?”
“No.”
I looked at Samuel.
The little boy was clutching his elephant.
“They already have one.”
Eric smiled.
Then Samuel spoke.
“I don't like you.”
The room went silent.
Eric stared at his son.
Samuel's lip trembled.
“You make Mommy cry.”
Something broke in Eric's expression.
His hand tightened around Anna.
Police rushed in.
Everything happened at once.
Eric shoved Anna.
I caught her.
Officers tackled him.
Sophia screamed.
Samuel cried.
Anna crawled across the floor and wrapped both children in her arms.
“I've got you.”
She kissed their faces again and again.
“I've got you. Mommy's here.”
Eric was dragged past us in handcuffs.
He looked at Anna.
“This isn't over.”
For the first time, she didn't flinch.
“Yes,” she said.
“It is.”
That night, the twins returned to the presidential suite.
Same bed.
Same elephant.
Same pink sneaker.
But everything was different.
Anna stood beside the window.
“You saved us.”
“No.”
She turned.
“You did.”
“You came.”
“You called the police. You faced him. You stopped letting him define what courage looked like.”
She looked at me for a long time.
“Do you always know what to say?”
“Absolutely.”
“You really don't.”
“I know.”
She walked toward me.
This kiss was slower.
No panic.
No grief.
No adrenaline.
Just us.
Then Sophia's sleepy voice came from the bed.
“Mommy?”
We separated.
Sophia sat up.
“Is Pancake Man your boyfriend?”
Anna turned bright red.
I considered the question.
“I think negotiations are ongoing.”
Sophia frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“It means go back to sleep.”
She did.
Anna covered her face.
I laughed.
For a few hours, everything felt possible.
Then the next morning brought another problem.
Richard's attorneys released documents claiming my father had known about the pension fraud.
May you like
If they were authentic, my family's company had been built partly on stolen money.
And this time, saving Anna might mean destroying everything my family had left me.
