Chapter 2 - Five Minutes to Disappear
And beneath Norah’s patient number was another name.
Dante Alessandro Lombardi.
Norah read it twice.
Then a third time.
The room became strangely quiet.
“This proves somebody typed your name into a document,” she said.
Dante’s expression remained unreadable.
“Page 6.”
Norah flipped through the file.
A laboratory report showed a genetic profile. Another page contained storage records, transfer dates, signatures, and a photograph of a cryogenic transport container.
Then she saw the date.
The sample had arrived at Genesis Fertility Clinic 48 hours before her procedure.
Her stomach tightened.
“No.”
Dante’s phone vibrated.
One of his men glanced toward the window.
“Boss.”
Dante answered.
He listened for 4 seconds.
His entire body changed.
Not visibly enough that an ordinary person might notice, but Norah did.
His shoulders became still.
His eyes emptied.
“Which entrance?”
A pause.
“Understood.”
He disconnected.
“Time is up.”
“What happened?”
Dante looked at the buzz-cut man.
“Marco, take the stairs.”
Then toward the other.
“Elias, rear alley.”
Norah stepped forward.
“What happened?”
Dante reached beneath his coat.
This time, the silver handgun appeared.
Norah froze.
He did not point it at her.
He moved to the window.
“Three vehicles stopped outside.”
Her pulse jumped.
“Police?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Police generally use police cars.”
The building lights died.
Darkness swallowed the apartment.
Somewhere downstairs, glass shattered.
Dante crossed the room and caught Norah around the waist.
She fought instinctively.
“Do not touch me!”
“Then move faster.”
A muffled gunshot sounded beneath them.
Norah stopped fighting.
Dante pushed her toward the bedroom.
“Shoes. Coat. Nothing else.”
“My documents—”
“I have them.”
“My medication.”
That stopped him.
“What medication?”
“Prenatal vitamins and progesterone.”
“Take it.”
Norah grabbed the bottles, boots, and an old green jacket. Her hands shook so badly she dropped one bottle beneath the bed.
Dante crouched before she could.
For the first time, she saw something almost human cross his face when he read the prescription label.
“You need this for the pregnancy?”
“Yes.”
He placed it carefully in her palm.
Another shot.
Closer.
Dante rose.
They entered the hallway.
The emergency lights painted everything red.
Her elderly neighbor’s door opened.
“Norah?”
Mrs. Kessler stood there in a robe.
Norah’s heart nearly stopped.
“Go inside!”
A bullet punched through the stairwell door.
Dante shoved Norah against the wall and covered her body with his.
Marco fired twice down the stairs.
Mrs. Kessler screamed.
“Get her inside!” Dante barked.
Elias pulled the elderly woman behind her door and locked it.
Norah stared at Dante.
He could have ignored her neighbor.
He had not.
There was no time to understand why.
They raced toward the service stairs.
At the 3rd floor, a man appeared below them.
Dante fired.
The man dropped.
Norah screamed.
“Keep moving.”
“You killed him!”
“He was aiming at you.”
They reached the alley.
A black SUV skidded around the corner.
Dante opened the rear door and practically lifted Norah inside.
He climbed after her.
Marco entered the front.
“Drive.”
The vehicle accelerated.
Norah twisted toward the rear window.
Her apartment disappeared behind rain.
Everything she owned remained inside.
Her photographs.
Her books.
The cheap yellow mug her mother had given her before she died.
Her entire ordinary life.
Gone in less than 5 minutes.
“You planned this.”
She turned toward Dante.
“You scared me and then arranged an attack so I would leave.”
Dante stared at her.
Then he handed her his phone.
A photograph filled the screen.
It had been taken perhaps 20 minutes earlier.
Norah leaving a grocery store.
A red circle surrounded her stomach.
Beneath it was a message.
CONFIRM PREGNANCY. ACQUIRE MOTHER ALIVE IF POSSIBLE.
Norah’s blood chilled.
“If possible?”
Dante took the phone back.
“Carmine’s instructions.”
She looked away.
For several minutes, only rain and windshield wipers filled the silence.
Then Norah noticed blood.
Not on Dante’s hands.
On his shirt.
“Were you shot?”
“No.”
“Then why are you bleeding?”
He looked down.
A dark stain was spreading beneath his jacket.
His jaw tightened.
“Graze.”
“That is not a graze.”
“I have experienced worse.”
“Congratulations.”
Norah reached toward him before remembering who he was.
She withdrew her hand.
Dante noticed.
Something unreadable moved across his eyes.
“Where are you taking me?”
“A secure property.”
“Your house?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Carmine knows where I live.”
“Then how is this other place secure?”
“He does not know it exists.”
Norah laughed once, without humor.
“You are a mafia boss with a secret house.”
“I never said mafia.”
“You said syndicate.”
“Different tax structure.”
She stared at him.
To her disbelief, one corner of his mouth almost moved.
Almost.
Then Marco’s voice came from the front.
“We have company.”
Headlights appeared behind them.
One vehicle.
Then 2.
Dante checked his weapon.
“Get down.”
Norah’s body went cold.
The SUV swerved.
Gunfire exploded behind them.
The rear window fractured.
Dante dragged Norah beneath him.
She heard bullets striking metal.
Then a violent impact threw the vehicle sideways.
Norah’s head struck Dante’s chest.
He grunted.
“Dante—”
“I am fine.”
He was not.
His breathing had changed.
The SUV turned sharply beneath an overpass.
Marco accelerated.
Their pursuers overshot the turn.
For 10 seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Dante’s weight became heavier.
Norah looked down.
Blood was now pouring through his shirt.
“Marco.”
Her voice changed.
“Pull over.”
“No.”
Dante’s answer was immediate.
“You are bleeding badly.”
“We stop, you die.”
“You keep bleeding, you die.”
His gray eyes met hers.
“That problem ranks second.”
Something inside Norah shifted.
She hated his arrogance.
She hated his threats.
She hated that his family had invaded her body without permission.
But she was not going to watch a man bleed to death beside her.
“Give me the medical kit.”
Dante blinked.
“What?”
“You people get shot often. There is a medical kit somewhere in this ridiculous car.”
Marco almost smiled.
“Under your seat.”
Norah found it.
She tore Dante’s shirt open.
He caught her wrist.
“Careful.”
“Are you modest now?”
“No.”
His eyes lowered toward her hand.
“There is another gun there.”
Norah discovered the shoulder holster.
She removed it carefully.
Then she saw the wound.
Not a graze.
A bullet had entered near his ribs.
Her face changed.
“You lied.”
“I simplified.”
She pressed gauze against him.
Dante’s jaw clenched.
“Hold this.”
He obeyed.
For the first time since entering her apartment, Dante Lombardi did exactly what Norah Gibson told him.
Twenty minutes later, they reached an abandoned industrial building near the waterfront.
A steel door opened.
The SUV entered.
The door closed behind them.
Norah stepped out into a warehouse filled with armed men.
At least 30.
Every one of them became silent when they saw her.
Then their eyes moved toward her stomach.
Norah instinctively covered it.
Dante saw the gesture.
“Stop staring at her.”
Every man immediately looked away.
A doctor hurried forward.
Norah turned toward Dante.
“Your wound needs treatment.”
“So does your blood pressure.”
“My blood pressure?”
“You are pale.”
“I was kidnapped and shot at.”
“You were not kidnapped.”
“You gave me 5 minutes.”
“Four and a half.”
She stared at him.
Then something crashed outside the warehouse.
Everyone reached for weapons.
But the sound had come from Dante’s phone.
A message.
He looked at it.
His face went completely still.
Norah saw the image before he could hide it.
It was an ultrasound.
Her ultrasound.
The one taken 3 days earlier.
Written across the image in red letters were 6 words.
THE BABY WAS NEVER THE REAL TARGET.
Norah looked up.
“What does that mean?”
Dante did not answer.
Because beneath the message was a second photograph.
A photograph of Norah.
Taken 31 years earlier.
May you like
She was a newborn.
And the woman holding her was standing beside Carmine Lombardi.
