Chapter 6 - Titan Finds Her
Elena remembered very little about the drive.
She remembered Adrian beside her.
Dante shouting into his phone.
Red lights.
Rain.
Her own voice saying Sophia’s name over and over.
At the mansion, Titan was nearly uncontrollable.
He scratched at the front doors until his paws bled.
Adrian opened them.
Titan ran.
“Follow him,” Adrian ordered.
The dog crossed the lawn, passed the gate, and entered the woods.
Elena ran behind him.
Adrian caught up.
“You should stay—”
“Finish that sentence and I’ll hit you again.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
They followed Titan for nearly a mile.
Then the dog stopped beside an abandoned maintenance road.
Tire tracks cut through mud.
Dante crouched.
“Vehicle.”
Titan sniffed the ground and pulled east.
Adrian’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Vincent’s voice came through.
“Hello, cousin.”
Adrian’s entire body hardened.
“Where is she?”
Vincent laughed.
“You’ve become sentimental.”
“If you hurt that child—”
“You’ll do what? Kill me?”
A pause.
“You’ve wanted to do that since this morning.”
Elena grabbed Adrian’s wrist.
“Let me talk to her.”
Vincent heard.
“The maid.”
“My daughter.”
“You’ll see her again when I get the drive.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“She’s five.”
“And yet she caused more trouble than your sister ever managed.”
Elena went cold.
“You killed Lucia.”
“No.”
Vincent sounded almost offended.
“Reynolds did.”
Adrian looked at Dante.
Confirmation.
“Where’s Sophia?”
“Old Moretti hunting lodge. Bring the drive. Adrian alone.”
The call ended.
Adrian immediately gave Dante instructions.
Elena interrupted.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“She is my daughter.”
“That is exactly why.”
“You think I’m sitting here?”
“I think if I lose control in there, you need to be somewhere safe for Sophia afterward.”
Elena stared at him.
The words struck differently.
Not if he died.
If he lost control.
Adrian knew himself.
That frightened her.
She stepped closer.
“Bring my daughter home.”
“I will.”
“Promise me.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“I promise.”
Then Titan barked.
He was already heading toward the road.
Adrian smiled grimly.
“Apparently I’m not going alone.”
The hunting lodge sat near a reservoir outside the city.
Adrian arrived carrying the flash drive.
Titan remained hidden in the woods.
Vincent waited inside with two armed men.
Reynolds stood beside him.
Sophia sat in a chair.
She wasn’t tied.
She was holding her teddy bear.
“Mr. Adrian!”
Adrian’s heart twisted.
“Hey, little one.”
“Titan bit the bad doctor’s pants.”
Reynolds flushed.
Vincent looked irritated.
“Drive.”
Adrian held it up.
“Child first.”
Vincent raised a gun.
“Drive.”
Adrian tossed it across the floor.
Vincent bent.
That was the mistake.
The window exploded inward.
Titan came through it like a black missile.
One guard dropped his weapon.
Dante’s team breached the rear entrance.
Adrian crossed the room.
Reynolds grabbed Sophia.
He barely got one arm around her before Elena appeared behind him.
She had ignored Adrian completely.
She swung a fireplace shovel.
Reynolds collapsed.
Sophia blinked.
“Mommy?”
Elena dropped the shovel and grabbed her.
“I told you to stay with Mrs. Bellini!”
Sophia began crying.
“So did I!”
Elena laughed and sobbed simultaneously.
Adrian stared at them.
Then a gunshot rang out.
He staggered.
Elena screamed.
Vincent stood near the doorway, gun smoking.
Titan attacked.
Vincent hit the floor.
Dante dragged the dog away before he could kill him.
Adrian sank against the wall.
Blood spread across his side.
Sophia ran toward him.
“No!”
Elena caught her.
Adrian pressed one hand against the wound.
“Just a scratch.”
Dante looked at him.
“That is definitely not a scratch.”
Sophia escaped Elena’s arms and knelt beside Adrian.
She placed both little hands over his.
“You promised Mommy.”
Adrian looked at her.
“What?”
“You promised you’d bring me home.”
Despite the pain, he smiled.
“And I did.”
“You have to come too.”
Something broke open in Adrian’s expression.
For three years he had behaved like a man who had already lost everything worth protecting.
Now a five-year-old girl was ordering him to live.
Titan crawled beside him.
Adrian rested one bloody hand against the dog’s head.
“All right.”
His eyes found Elena.
“I’ll come home.”
Hours later, surgery removed the bullet.
Vincent survived and was arrested on evidence connecting him to multiple financial crimes, attempted murder, kidnapping, and the deaths of Isabella and Lucia.
Reynolds agreed to cooperate.
But the Harbor Ledger revealed something worse.
Vincent had not created the conspiracy.
He had inherited it.
At the top of one account was a name Adrian had not seen in twenty years.
Salvatore Moretti.
May you like
His father.
A man everyone believed was dead.
