Chapter 1 - THE CHOICE
When Amelia Vale heard her husband say, “Get Vanessa out first,” she stopped being afraid of dying.
For one terrible second, fear became something simpler.
Understanding.
The burner phone was lying on the concrete floor six feet away, its cracked screen showing Roman Vale inside a warehouse command center across Baltimore. Men in dark jackets moved behind him. Maps covered a folding table. Two live security feeds glowed on monitors.
One showed Vanessa Marino tied to a chair in an abandoned mechanic’s shop.
The other showed Amelia.
Roman’s wife.
Sixteen weeks pregnant.
A man with a pistol stood behind Amelia, one hand buried in her hair. Her lip was split. Her sweater was torn at the shoulder. Beneath it, one arm curved instinctively around the small swell of her stomach.
The kidnappers had taken both women an hour earlier.
They had deliberately separated them.
Roman had two rescue teams.
Only one location could be reached before the kidnappers moved.
His second-in-command, Miles Carver, leaned toward him on the screen.
“Roman, Amelia is pregnant.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
Vanessa’s forehead was bleeding from a cut she had suffered during the abduction. She looked frightened, but conscious.
Then she whispered his name.
“Roman…”
Everything changed in his face.
Amelia saw it.
She had seen that look for years.
Vanessa was the daughter of Anthony Marino, the man who had saved Roman’s life when Roman was twenty-four. Anthony had died doing it.
Before dying, he had made Roman promise one thing.
Take care of my daughter.
Roman had turned that promise into a religion.
“Send the first team to Vanessa,” he ordered.
Miles stared at him.
“What about Amelia?”
“The backup unit goes to her.”
“They’re twelve minutes farther out.”
Roman looked directly into Amelia’s camera.
“I’ll get to both of them.”
Amelia’s throat tightened.
“No,” she whispered.
Roman leaned closer to the monitor.
“Amelia, listen to me—”
“No.”
The kidnapper holding the phone grinned.
Amelia barely noticed him.
“You chose.”
Roman’s face hardened with desperation.
“I’m coming for you.”
“You’re going for her.”
“Vanessa’s injured.”
“I’m pregnant.”
The silence that followed was worse than a scream.
Roman’s expression cracked.
“Amelia—”
“Don’t tell yourself later that you had no choice.”
The kidnapper disconnected the call.
A garage door rattled upward behind her.
Amelia heard engines.
Not Roman’s.
The kidnappers were moving her.
“On your feet.”
The man behind her grabbed her arm.
That was when Amelia noticed the red fire alarm mounted beside a side office.
She did not have a weapon.
She did not have Roman.
So she stopped waiting for either.
She stumbled deliberately.
The guard cursed and loosened his grip.
Amelia twisted away, lunged for the wall, and pulled the alarm.
A shrieking bell exploded through the building.
The kidnappers shouted.
Amelia ran into the office, slammed the door, and shoved a metal filing cabinet against it.
The first impact nearly knocked the cabinet aside.
The second pushed it six inches.
She planted both palms against it.
“Come on!”
Another blow.
Her stomach cramped.
Amelia bit down a cry.
Then, faintly beneath the alarm, she heard sirens.
Real sirens.
The men outside scattered.
Minutes later, someone shouted through the door.
“Baltimore Fire Department! Ma’am, can you hear us?”
Only then did Amelia collapse.
At Harbor Mercy Medical Center, an obstetrician moved an ultrasound probe over Amelia’s stomach while she stared at the ceiling.
She did not breathe normally until a fast, steady heartbeat filled the room.
“There,” the doctor said gently. “Baby’s still with us.”
Amelia closed her eyes.
A small bleed had developed near the placenta. Not catastrophic. Not necessarily permanent. But enough to require careful monitoring.
“You need rest,” the doctor told her. “And you need to keep every follow-up appointment.”
“I will.”
Roman arrived twenty minutes later.
He still had blood on the cuff of his shirt.
Vanessa’s blood.
He crossed the room quickly.
“Amelia.”
She looked at the stain.
“Is she alive?”
May you like
“Yes.”
“The baby?”
