Chapter 8 - The Daughter Who Came Back
Adelaide wanted to go immediately.
Mateo wanted her nowhere near the house.
For once, he won.
Barely.
Police surrounded the Jones mansion while Adelaide and Mateo waited inside a command vehicle two blocks away.
Harrison had taken Rockford hostage.
But the bigger shock was Chloe.
She had been released pending trial after agreeing to cooperate.
Now surveillance footage showed her walking willingly beside Harrison.
“She betrayed us again,” Adelaide whispered.
Mateo studied the footage.
“No.”
“What?”
“Look at her left hand.”
Chloe repeatedly touched her thumb to her smallest finger.
Three times.
Pause.
Three times.
Pause.
Adelaide recognized it.
A childhood signal.
When the sisters were young, before Evelyn turned competition into cruelty, they had invented silent codes.
Three taps meant:
Help me.
“She's not with him.”
Mateo immediately contacted the tactical commander.
Harrison called minutes later.
He wanted Margaret's original ledger and the recording.
In exchange, he would release Rockford and Chloe.
“He'll kill them anyway,” Mateo said.
Adelaide knew.
Then Chloe appeared at an upstairs window.
Her hands were tied.
Rockford stood behind her.
Harrison held a pistol.
Adelaide felt seventeen years of anger collide inside her.
This man had taken her mother.
He had taken Mateo's father.
He had corrupted her family.
And he was still trying to decide who lived and died.
“No.”
Mateo looked at her.
“No what?”
“He doesn't get another person.”
She picked up the phone.
“Call him.”
“Adelaide—”
“He wants me.”
Mateo's expression hardened.
“Which is precisely why you're staying here.”
“He doesn't want the ledger. He wants the person who can authenticate it.”
Mateo knew she was right.
Without Adelaide, Harrison could still claim Margaret's records were fabricated.
He needed her compromised or dead.
Adelaide proposed a trade.
Herself for Chloe and Rockford.
Mateo rejected it.
Then Adelaide explained the second half.
Harrison believed Adelaide weak.
That assumption had already destroyed half his empire.
They would let it destroy the rest.
Twenty minutes later, Adelaide walked toward her childhood home carrying the ledger.
She wore a hidden microphone.
Tactical officers surrounded the property.
Mateo remained somewhere behind her.
She couldn't see him.
But she knew he was there.
Harrison opened the door.
He was sixty-four, silver-haired, elegant and utterly calm.
“Margaret's daughter.”
“Let them go.”
“Come inside.”
“Release Chloe first.”
He smiled.
“You've become demanding.”
“I learned from unpleasant men.”
His smile vanished.
Chloe was shoved through the doorway.
She stumbled down the steps.
As she passed Adelaide, their eyes met.
Chloe whispered, “I'm sorry.”
Adelaide believed her.
Not enough to erase the past.
Enough to save her life.
Inside, Rockford sat tied to a chair.
Harrison closed the door.
“You look remarkably like your mother.”
Adelaide almost laughed.
Everyone had spent years telling her she didn't.
“She had the same expression when she thought she'd won.”
“You killed her.”
“She killed herself by refusing to understand the world.”
“That's a confession.”
“No. That's philosophy.”
He was careful.
Adelaide needed more.
“You sabotaged her brakes.”
Harrison smiled.
“I hired a man to frighten her.”
“By cutting her brakes?”
“He was supposed to weaken a line.”
Adelaide's heart slammed.
There.
She kept him talking.
“And Antonio?”
“A stubborn man.”
“You ordered his murder too.”
“He had evidence.”
“So you killed him.”
Harrison's eyes hardened.
“I solved a problem.”
Outside, Mateo heard every word.
Adelaide knew it.
Harrison suddenly looked at her handbag.
“Where's the recorder?”
Her blood went cold.
“What?”
He crossed the room and ripped the bag away.
Empty.
Then he grabbed her collar.
His fingers found the wire.
Harrison smiled.
“Oh, Adelaide.”
He tore it free.
“Your mother tried this too.”
The front windows exploded inward.
Officers breached the house.
Harrison dragged Adelaide backward and pressed the gun beneath her jaw.
Everything stopped.
“Back!”
Mateo entered through the broken doorway.
His gun remained lowered.
Harrison smiled.
“The famous Mateo Moretti.”
Mateo looked only at Adelaide.
She saw fear in his eyes.
Not panic.
Calculation.
“Let her go.”
“You love her.”
Mateo said nothing.
Harrison laughed.
“That makes this perfect.”
Adelaide remembered something Mateo had taught her during security training.
Never fight the weapon.
Fight the balance.
She dropped suddenly.
Harrison's grip shifted.
Adelaide drove backward into him.
The gun fired.
Mateo moved.
Officers rushed forward.
Harrison crashed to the floor.
The weapon skidded away.
Adelaide heard Mateo shout her name.
Then she felt pain.
She looked down.
Blood spread across her dress.
Mateo caught her.
“No.”
His face went white.
“Adelaide. Look at me.”
She tried.
His hands pressed against her side.
“It hurts.”
“I know.”
“Did we get him?”
“Don't worry about him.”
“Mateo.”
“Yes.”
She smiled weakly.
“That's the first time you've sounded scared.”
“Adelaide.”
“I think I like it.”
“Don't you dare make jokes.”
She heard sirens.
Then darkness began narrowing her vision.
Mateo touched his forehead to hers.
“Stay with me.”
She wanted to.
May you like
More than anything.
But the darkness came anyway.
