“Clara is here,” Vincent said, reaching out to grasp my hand tightly. “She’s right beside me. She’s safe. And our baby is safe inside her.”
A long, choked sob echoed from the phone.
“Clara,” Elena cried, her words tumbling out through uncontrollable tears. “Clara, can you hear me?”
“I hear you,” I whispered, tears streaming freely down my face. “Elena… I didn’t know. I swear to you on my life, I didn’t know about the embryo. Daniel never told me. He just wanted to give me a baby. He wanted to save your family.”
“I know,” Elena wept. “Daniel was an angel sent from God. When Richard cornered me in that hospital room four years ago, Daniel was the guard standing at the door. He heard Richard telling the doctor to fake my death certificate. Daniel took my hand in the dark. He whispered, *‘Don’t make a sound. I’m going to get you out of here.’*”
I clutched Vincent’s hand, feeling the tremors running through his fingers.
“Daniel hid me in a small cabin in northern Ontario,” Elena continued. “He gave me a burner phone with one programmed number. He told me to never call Vincent directly because Richard was monitoring every cell tower in Cook County. Daniel told me he was going to find a way to expose Richard from the inside. But then… then Daniel stopped calling eight months ago.”
“They killed him, Elena,” Vincent said, his voice dropping into a register of sheer vengeance. “Richard had him thrown from a four-story scaffolding in Gary.”
“I knew it,” Elena wept. “The moment his calls stopped, I knew they had caught him. But Daniel left me a message before he died. He said, *‘If I don’t make it, look for my wife Clara. I put our hope inside her. She will lead Vincent to Grace.’*”
“Where is Grace?” I asked, my heart breaking for the mother who had been separated from her baby for four long years. “Elena, where is your little girl?”
“She’s safe,” a man’s voice suddenly spoke over the line.
It was Marco, Vincent’s chief of security.
“Boss,” Marco’s voice came through clear and steady. “We have secured the compound in Pine Ridge, Wisconsin. No casualties on our side. We took down the three private contractors Richard stationed here.”
Vincent shot to his feet, gripping the phone. “Marco! Where is she? Where is my daughter?”
A brief pause followed. Then, the sound of small, shuffling footsteps echoed through the receiver.
“Daddy?” a tiny, high-pitched voice asked.
The entire universe seemed to stop spinning.
Vincent sank to his knees beside my bed. The towering, untouchable king of Chicago’s underworld pressed the phone against his cheek and began to weep like a broken child.
“Grace,” Vincent whispered. “Grace, my darling. It’s Daddy. I’m here. I’m right here.”
“A nice man said you were coming to get me,” the little girl said, her voice innocent, sweet, and pure. “He said you have a big house with a garden. And he said Uncle Daniel’s wife was waiting for me with a little sister.”
I buried my face in the sheets, weeping so hard my shoulders shook.
“Yes, baby,” Vincent said, wiping his face with trembling hands. “Daddy is coming to bring you home. Right now. I’m coming right now.”
While a private jet carrying Vincent’s medical team and security detail rushed north toward Wisconsin to bring Grace home, Vincent remained behind for two hours to finish what had started on the staircase.
In the basement level of the Moretti estate—a soundproofed former wine cellar converted into a high-security interrogation suite—Richard Sterling sat bound to a steel chair.
His expensive suit was ruined. His aristocratic confidence had completely evaporated.
Vincent stood across from him behind a metal table. Between them lay the small wooden box that Richard’s men had stolen from my ransacked apartment hours earlier.
“You thought this was Daniel’s only leverage,” Vincent said quietly.
Richard looked at the box, his breathing shallow. “The box was empty. It just had that taunting note.”
“Because Daniel knew how you operated, Richard,” Vincent said. “You’re a paper pusher. You’re a lawyer who believes that destroying a document destroys the reality.”
Vincent pulled a silver thumb drive from his pocket.
“Daniel didn’t keep the digital files in his apartment,” Vincent said. “He hid this inside the frame of my late father’s portrait in the entrance hall—the very portrait you walked past every time you came to this house to drink my whiskey and plan my murder.”
Richard’s eyes widened in horror.
Vincent plugged the drive into a ruggedized laptop on the table. He hit play.
A high-definition audio recording filled the room. The audio was crystal clear.
