Chapter 8 - The Price of Loving a Rossi
The photograph was impossible.
Damian had locked the ring inside his private safe less than twelve hours earlier. He had personally checked the combination and tested the lock twice.
Yet the image showed the ring on a stranger's hand.
“Seal the house,” he ordered. “Nobody leaves.”
Dominic moved toward the door.
“Damian, if Voss has a copy of the ring—”
“He doesn't.”
“Then he has someone who looks convincing enough to make us believe he does.”
Clara studied the photograph.
The stranger's fingers were long and pale. A thin scar crossed the knuckle of his index finger.
She had seen that scar before.
“That's the man who broke into my apartment,” she whispered.
Damian looked at her.
“You're certain?”
“I saw the same hand on the security footage from my building. The police sent it to me after the break-in.”
Dominic leaned closer to the image.
“Adrian Voss.”
Damian's face became stone.
The man who had vanished after his father's murder had finally stepped into the open.
At 11:15 p.m., Damian received a call from an encrypted number.
Voss's voice was older than Damian remembered, but the contempt remained unchanged.
“You have something I need.”
“And you have something I want.”
“Michael.”
“Then we're negotiating.”
“No,” Voss said. “We're correcting an old mistake. Bring the ring to the abandoned freight terminal on Goose Island. Come alone.”
Damian laughed without humor.
“You've mistaken me for a fool.”
“Your father made the same mistake.”
The call ended.
Clara watched Damian put down the phone.
“You're not going alone.”
“I am.”
“That's exactly what he wants.”
“Which is why he won't get it.”
Damian turned toward Dominic.
“Prepare a team. No visible weapons until we confirm the boy is there.”
Clara stepped in front of him.
“What happens if Voss has Michael?”
“Then I get him out.”
“And if he has evidence about my mother?”
Damian's expression softened.
“Then we'll find it.”
She searched his face.
“You can't promise that.”
“No.”
It was the first time he had answered her without pretending he could control the outcome.
Clara reached for his hand. His fingers were cold, and a faint tremor passed through them before he closed his hand around hers.
“You don't have to carry every terrible thing alone,” she whispered.
Damian stared at their joined hands as if he had never seen such a gesture before.
“My father died because he trusted the wrong person.”
“Then don't confuse trusting everyone with trusting someone.”
For a moment, he leaned closer.
Then the radio crackled.
Dominic's voice cut through the silence.
“We have movement at the east gate.”
A guard shouted in the background.
The connection broke.
Damian drew his weapon.
Clara heard the first explosion before the lights failed.
The estate plunged into darkness. Glass shattered somewhere upstairs. Men shouted in the corridors, and the smell of smoke drifted through the study.
Damian pushed Clara behind the desk as gunfire erupted outside.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“Clara, listen to me.”
“I'm not going to sit in a locked room while people die.”
He looked at her, anger and fear colliding in his eyes.
Then he handed her a small flashlight.
“Follow Margaret to the lower security corridor. Do not leave it until I come for you.”
She nodded.
He pressed a brief kiss to her forehead, so unexpected and gentle that she almost forgot the gunfire.
Then he disappeared into the smoke.
Clara reached the corridor with Margaret, but the security door had been damaged by the blast. The lock refused to engage.
A guard appeared at the far end.
“Miss Jennings, come with me.”
Clara hesitated.
“What is your name?”
“Frank.”
She recognized him from the gate.
But something was wrong. Frank had been assigned to the west wing, not the east corridor.
She stepped back.
“Where's Margaret?”
The guard raised his weapon.
“Move.”
Clara ran.
She slipped through a side door into the old service passage and locked it behind her. Footsteps thundered on the other side.
Her phone vibrated.
A message from an unknown number appeared.
Your mother is alive. If you want to see her, come to the old chapel behind the estate.
Clara's breath caught.
A second message followed.
Come alone. Damian will kill her if he finds out.
She stared at the words.
It could be a trap.
It almost certainly was a trap.
But if there was even a chance her mother had survived, Clara could not ignore it.
She moved through the service passage and out into the cold night.
Behind the estate, an abandoned stone chapel stood beneath the trees. Its windows were dark, and its wooden door hung slightly open.
Clara stepped inside.
A single candle burned near the altar.
A woman sat in the front pew with her back to the door.
“Mom?”
The woman turned.
She was older, thinner, and marked by years of suffering, but Clara knew that face.
Evelyn Jennings stood slowly.
Tears filled her eyes.
“My baby.”
Clara rushed toward her, collapsing into her arms.
For several seconds, neither could speak.
Then Evelyn gripped Clara's shoulders and looked past her toward the door.
“You shouldn't have come.”
“Who sent the messages?”
Evelyn's expression changed.
“I did.”
Clara drew back.
“Why?”
“Because I need you to do something before Damian finds out the truth.”
“What truth?”
Evelyn reached inside her coat and removed a small envelope.
“Your father wasn't the man you were told he was.”
Clara stared at her.
“Who was my father?”
Evelyn swallowed.
May you like
Then she said the name that shattered everything Clara believed about her life.
“Marco Rossi.”
