Chapter 6 - NO MORE SECRETS
For approximately twelve seconds, I considered doing exactly what Dorian had done to me.
I considered lying.
Protecting him through ignorance.
Making the decision alone.
Then I understood how easily love could become arrogance.
I handed him the phone.
“Victor wants me to meet him alone.”
Dorian read the message.
His expression became lethal.
“No.”
Agent Reed stepped closer.
“Where?”
“Old Lake Shore rail terminal,” I said.
She took the phone.
“Could be useful.”
Dorian looked at her.
“Absolutely not.”
Reed didn’t blink.
“I didn’t say we send her.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I was thinking we exploit the communication.”
“Using my pregnant wife as bait is not exploitation. It’s insanity.”
I stood.
“Stop.”
Both looked at me.
“I am not bait.”
Reed nodded.
“Correct.”
“I’m also not going alone.”
Dorian started to speak.
I raised one hand.
“But Victor thinks I might.”
That became the foundation of our plan.
Not a dramatic shootout.
Not some ridiculous one-man rescue.
Federal surveillance.
A controlled meeting.
Hidden transmitters.
Tracking.
Dorian hated every second.
Good.
I had hated the last six months.
The rail terminal had been abandoned for seventeen years.
At 9:10 p.m., I entered wearing a wire stitched into my coat.
Dorian remained three blocks away inside an FBI vehicle.
Before I left him, he touched my cheek.
“If anything feels wrong, walk out.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
He hesitated.
Then said quietly, “I love you.”
My chest tightened.
It was the first time he had said those words in months.
I didn’t return them.
Not because I didn’t feel them.
Because some words have to be earned again.
Victor waited beneath the rusted steel canopy.
He came alone.
Or appeared to.
“You’re brave,” he said.
“No. I’m angry.”
He smiled.
“You remind me of Evelyn.”
“You kidnapped her.”
“She abandoned me first.”
“She was nineteen.”
“She made a choice.”
“So did you.”
That erased his smile.
I stopped twenty feet away.
“Where are they?”
“Safe.”
“Show me.”
He lifted a tablet.
Live video.
Evelyn.
Sophie.
Dr. Mercer.
All breathing.
I forced myself not to show relief.
“What do you want from me?”
“Your cooperation.”
“With what?”
“Dorian signs away the trust.”
“He will.”
Victor studied me.
“No, he won’t.”
“You don’t know him.”
“I knew him before you did.”
“That doesn’t mean you understand him.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“Dorian believes power is protection.”
“He learned that from men like you.”
A long silence.
Then Victor laughed.
“Perhaps.”
I stepped closer.
“If you want the money, take it.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You think it’s about money?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
For the first time, emotion entered his voice.
“It’s about ownership.”
There it was.
Not greed.
Resentment.
“You want the family to admit you belong to it.”
His face changed.
I continued.
“You spent your entire life believing Evelyn chose them over you.”
“She did.”
“She gave you up before she ever met Vincent Cross.”
Victor froze.
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know enough.”
The FBI had discovered the adoption records that afternoon.
Evelyn had been unmarried, unemployed and living in a church-sponsored shelter when Victor was born.
She hadn’t traded him for wealth.
She had believed another family could give him what she couldn’t.
“Your adoptive parents were teachers,” I said.
His face became stone.
“They loved you.”
“Stop.”
“You attended college because they refinanced their house.”
“Stop.”
“You spent your life punishing a woman for giving you a chance to have one.”
Victor lunged forward.
I stepped back.
Instantly, voices exploded through my earpiece.
I held my ground.
“Where are the hostages?”
Victor stared at me.
“You think the FBI will save them?”
My blood ran cold.
He knew.
Then the lights went out.
Dorian’s voice screamed through the earpiece.
“ALINA, MOVE!”
I ran.
A gunshot cracked behind me.
Then another.
Metal screamed somewhere above.
I ducked behind a concrete barrier.
Agents poured into the terminal.
Victor disappeared into the darkness.
Dorian reached me seconds later.
He dropped to his knees.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
His hands shook as he checked my face, shoulders and coat.
“I’m okay.”
He pulled me against him.
For one second, I let myself disappear into his chest.
Then Reed shouted.
“We have a vehicle leaving north!”
The chase lasted eleven minutes.
Victor escaped.
But he made one mistake.
He left the tablet behind.
The live video feed remained active.
Technical teams traced the signal to a former private nursing facility forty miles outside Chicago.
By midnight, federal tactical units surrounded it.
Dorian wasn’t allowed inside.
Neither was I.
We waited in a vehicle while agents entered.
Seven minutes.
Ten.
Fifteen.
Then Reed’s radio crackled.
“Three hostages located.”
My hand found Dorian’s.
“Status?”
A pause.
“Alive.”
Julian began crying.
Caleb, still in custody but brought along to identify Sophie, bent forward until his forehead touched his knees.
Evelyn came out first.
Thin.
Exhausted.
But walking.
Julian ran to her.
She collapsed into his arms.
Sophie followed.
Caleb wasn’t permitted to approach immediately.
When she saw her father through the vehicle window, she screamed.
The sound broke something in everyone.
Then Dr. Mercer emerged.
She looked bruised but alive.
When she saw me, she immediately came over.
“Are you all right?”
I laughed through tears.
“You were kidnapped and you’re asking me?”
“You’re my patient.”
Dorian almost smiled.
For a moment, it felt over.
Then Agent Reed approached.
“It isn’t finished.”
Dorian’s expression darkened.
“Victor?”
“Gone.”
“Where?”
“We don’t know.”
Evelyn, wrapped in a blanket, suddenly spoke.
“I do.”
Everyone turned.
She looked at Dorian.
“He’ll go to your father’s lake house.”
Dorian frowned.
“It was demolished.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“Vincent told everyone it was.”
Her eyes filled with dread.
“There’s a second structure beneath it.”
Julian stared at her.
“How do you know?”
Evelyn looked toward the floor.
“Because that’s where Vincent used to take people he wanted forgotten.”
Silence.
Then she said something worse.
“And Victor knows Dorian helped the FBI.”
Dorian’s face changed.
“So?”
“So he won’t run.”
Evelyn looked at me.
“He’ll destroy the evidence that can prove Dorian’s cooperation.”
My chest tightened.
“What happens without it?”
Agent Reed answered.
“Depending on what Victor destroys, your husband could lose the deal protecting him from the most serious charges.”
I looked at Dorian.
“How serious?”
He didn’t answer.
Reed did.
May you like
“Potentially decades in federal prison.”
And suddenly, even with the hostages safe, Victor still had the power to take my husband away.
