Chapter 6 - The Sister Who Betrayed Him
Nobody moved.
Rachel's thumb rested over the red switch.
Leo's pistol pointed at her chest.
Liam spoke first.
“Put it down.”
“I can't.”
Rachel was crying so hard she could barely breathe.
“Rachel.”
“They have Sophie.”
Liam's expression changed instantly.
“Who?”
“Calder.”
I looked between them.
“Who's Sophie?”
“My daughter,” Rachel whispered.
Liam closed his eyes.
His niece.
Seven years old.
Rachel explained in fragments.
Calder's men had taken Sophie six weeks earlier on her way home from school.
Nobody knew because Rachel had been ordered to pretend her daughter was visiting her father in London.
Calder demanded information.
Liam's movements.
Medical staff.
Security codes.
Rachel had complied.
“You gave them Nora?” Liam asked.
“I forwarded the application.”
His voice cracked.
“Why?”
“They said they'd send Sophie back one piece at a time.”
Nobody had an answer for that.
I understood desperation.
Tommy had brought me into a mafia mansion.
Sophie had turned Rachel against her brother.
Fear made people negotiate with monsters.
“What does the detonator do?” Leo asked.
Rachel looked toward the basement.
“Calder made me plant something beneath the generator.”
Leo swore.
“How long?”
“There isn't a timer. He told me to press it when Liam's guards discovered me.”
“Then don't press it.”
“You don't understand.”
Rachel lifted her phone.
A live video showed a little girl tied to a chair.
Beside her stood a digital clock.
09:41.
Nine minutes.
“If I don't activate it, Sophie dies.”
Liam looked at Leo.
“Evacuate.”
“No,” Rachel said. “He'll know.”
“We aren't sacrificing thirty people.”
“And I'm not sacrificing my daughter!”
Her thumb trembled.
I stepped forward.
“Nora,” Liam warned.
I ignored him.
“Rachel, look at me.”
She did.
“You forwarded my information.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Your actions put Tommy in danger.”
“I know.”
“I should hate you.”
Tears fell faster.
“But I don't.”
Her face crumpled.
“Why?”
“Because I'd burn this house down myself if Tommy were sitting in that chair.”
Liam looked at me.
I continued.
“So we're getting Sophie back.”
“How?”
I looked at the video.
The room behind Sophie had white tile.
Industrial lights.
A red stripe across the wall.
And behind the chair, almost invisible, was a stainless-steel cabinet with a blue logo.
I knew it.
“That's a hospital.”
Leo leaned closer.
“No.”
“Yes.”
I had spent years working Chicago emergency rooms.
“That cabinet is manufactured specifically for medical facilities.”
Liam stared.
“Which one?”
“Not enough information.”
Then Sophie moved.
A sound came through the phone.
A chime.
Three notes.
My skin prickled.
“I know that sound.”
Everyone looked at me.
“Freight elevator.”
“Which hospital?”
“Not hospital.”
I suddenly remembered.
During nursing school I'd worked weekend events at an abandoned medical complex converted into storage.
“St. Augustine.”
Leo was already moving.
“It closed eight years ago.”
“Exactly.”
Liam ordered six men to go.
I stopped him.
“Calder will see them coming.”
“He'll kill Sophie anyway if Rachel doesn't trigger the bomb.”
I looked at the detonator.
Then at Liam's medical equipment.
An idea formed.
“Maybe she can trigger something.”
Leo frowned.
“What?”
“The generator doesn't have to explode.”
I looked at Rachel.
“It just has to look like it did.”
Five minutes later, Leo's explosives expert disconnected the detonator and wired its signal into a controlled flash charge outside.
Rachel pressed the button.
A thunderous boom shook the windows.
Smoke rose beyond the house.
On the phone, a man entered Sophie's room.
He checked his own phone.
Then smiled.
The clock stopped.
Rachel collapsed sobbing.
“She did it.”
But Liam wasn't celebrating.
“Calder still has her.”
Leo's team reached St. Augustine seventeen minutes later.
We watched through body cameras.
Dark corridor.
Broken doors.
Old surgical wards.
Then gunfire.
Rachel grabbed my hand.
I squeezed back.
Leo's voice came over the radio.
“Second floor clear.”
Another thirty seconds.
“Movement east wing.”
Gunfire again.
Then—
“We have the child.”
Rachel screamed.
She fell against Liam, sobbing into his shoulder.
For the first time, I saw Liam Mercer cry.
Only one tear.
But it changed him.
Sophie was brought to the mansion before dawn.
She ran directly into Liam's arms.
He dropped to one knee despite the agony.
“Uncle Liam.”
“Hey, bug.”
“I knew you'd come.”
His face broke.
“So did I.”
Later, after Sophie slept beside Rachel, I changed Liam's dressing.
“You tore two sutures.”
“Worth it.”
“You say that because I'm the one fixing them.”
He watched me work.
“Why did you stay?”
I didn't look up.
“Tommy is safe.”
“That wasn't my question.”
I tied the bandage.
“Maybe I'm bad at quitting.”
“Nora.”
I finally met his eyes.
“Because you jumped in front of a bullet for me.”
“You'd have done the same.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn't answer anything.”
I smiled faintly.
“Maybe I don't have an answer yet.”
His hand touched mine.
Neither of us moved.
Then Leo entered.
His expression destroyed the moment.
“We found Calder.”
Liam stood.
“Where?”
Leo placed a photograph on the table.
Victor Calder was entering a private restaurant in downtown Chicago.
Da Vincenzo.
“He's hosting a dinner tomorrow night.”
“For whom?”
Leo hesitated.
“Half the people on Daniel Bennett's evidence list.”
I looked at my father's memory card.
Liam looked at me.
“We end it tomorrow.”
But Leo shook his head.
“There is one problem.”
“What?”
“The guest of honor.”
He slid another photograph forward.
My blood went cold.
The woman in the picture was older now.
But I knew her immediately.
“Mom?”
May you like
Leo nodded.
“Your mother is having dinner with Victor Calder.”
