Chapter 14 - The Betrayal Upstairs
I was out of the chair before anyone else.
Elias caught my arm.
“Wait.”
“My babies.”
“Marco is with them.”
“Then call him.”
Elias did.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
My chest tightened until every breath hurt.
We ran.
Council security tried to stop Elias from carrying a weapon out of their secure locker before protocol cleared it.
He looked at the guard once.
The guard wisely moved.
The drive back to the brownstone took eleven minutes.
It felt like eleven years.
“Call the nurse,” I said.
Naomi dialed.
No answer.
“Call everyone.”
Elias was already doing it.
One guard answered from the street.
“Exterior secure.”
“Interior?”
“Marco ordered us out twenty minutes ago.”
Elias went still.
“What?”
“He said you wanted the building cleared for a private family meeting.”
“I gave no such order.”
My stomach dropped.
Marco.
No.
I remembered him carrying June’s bassinet. Standing between me and doors. Finding Lou’s family.
“He wouldn’t.”
Elias said nothing.
The SUV stopped before the brownstone.
I ran before the guards could form a perimeter.
“Ava!”
I ignored them.
The front door stood open.
Inside, a chair had been overturned.
“Mara?” I called for the nurse.
No answer.
“Mom?”
Nothing.
Elias caught up.
We climbed the stairs.
The nursery was empty.
Two bassinets.
Two blankets.
No babies.
I made a sound I had never heard from myself.
Elias grabbed my shoulders.
“Look at me.”
“No.”
“Ava.”
“No!”
I shoved him away and searched the room as if two newborns could hide beneath furniture.
Ivy’s cap lay on the floor.
June’s bottle sat half-full beside the rocking chair.
“Where are they?”
Elias’s face had become terrifyingly blank.
“Find Marco.”
His men scattered.
I picked up the cap.
“He took them.”
“We don’t know that.”
“His phone is off.”
“We still don’t know.”
Then someone coughed from the bathroom.
Elias turned with his gun raised.
“Mara?”
The nurse lay behind the door, wrists tied, a bruise on her temple.
Alive.
She gasped.
“Marco.”
My knees nearly failed.
“What did he do?”
“He came in with your mother. Said there was an emergency evacuation.”
“My mother?”
“She had the girls.”
I stared.
“Evelyn took them?”
Mara shook her head.
“I don’t know. I heard arguing in the hall. Then someone hit me.”
Elias’s men found blood on the staircase.
Not much.
A broken phone near the back door belonged to Marco.
On its screen was an unfinished message.
BOSS EVELYN ISN’T—
That was all.
My rage shifted.
“Someone took all three.”
Elias nodded.
A security camera across the street had captured a van leaving seven minutes after we received the photograph.
Marco was visible in the passenger seat.
Unconscious.
My mother sat in the back.
She held both bassinets.
A man beside her aimed a gun at her ribs.
“They’re hostages,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
The van’s plates were stolen.
Traffic cameras lost it near the Queensboro Bridge.
Victor denied involvement.
Caleb disappeared from the Council club before security could detain him.
Teresa Moretti offered men.
I did not trust them.
By dawn, the brownstone looked like a command center.
Maps covered walls. Phones rang. Elias had not sat down.
Neither had I.
Naomi approached gently.
“You should rest.”
“Say that again and I’ll fire you.”
“I’m your attorney, not your employee.”
“Then I’ll find a legal way to fire you.”
She almost smiled.
“Good. Anger is better than collapse.”
“I’m not collapsing.”
“I know.”
A phone rang.
Everyone froze.
Elias answered.
Caleb.
He put the call on speaker.
“Ava.”
“Where are they?”
“Your daughters are safe.”
“If you touched them—”
“I didn’t.”
“Where?”
“Dad has gone too far.”
Victor.
I looked at Elias.
Caleb continued.
“He thinks he can force you to resign the Vale seat.”
“What does he want?”
“The original trust document and Gabriel’s ledger.”
“We don’t have the ledger.”
“Evelyn knows where it is.”
My blood chilled.
“That’s why he took her.”
“Yes.”
“And Marco?”
“Insurance against Vance.”
Elias leaned toward the phone.
“You have thirty seconds to give me a location.”
Caleb laughed nervously.
“You can’t threaten me anymore.”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Elias,” I said.
He stopped.
Caleb breathed.
“Ava, meet me.”
“No.”
“Alone.”
“No.”
“I can get you inside.”
“Inside where?”
Silence.
Then he gave an address.
A hospital.
The same private hospital where I had delivered the twins.
My stomach turned.
“Why there?”
“Because Victor owns the closed maternity wing through a shell company.”
Of course he did.
Everything kept circling back to the room where my daughters had entered the world unwanted.
Caleb whispered, “I’ll help you get them out.”
“Why?”
“Because my father is going to kill me too.”
I almost laughed.
“You expect sympathy?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I expect you to understand survival.”
I looked at the empty bassinets.
“I understand it better than you ever will.”
The call ended.
Elias said, “It’s a trap.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not going.”
“I am.”
He slammed his palm against the table.
“No.”
Every guard went silent.
I stepped close.
“Do not shout at me.”
His expression changed instantly.
I continued.
“You found me because I put my body between my daughters and winter. Do you really think I’m going to sit in this room while Victor has them?”
“He wants you emotional.”
“He succeeded.”
“He wants you reckless.”
“Then make me useful.”
We stared at each other.
Finally he nodded.
“Fine.”
The hospital’s closed maternity wing had been under renovation for months.
Dust sheets covered furniture. Old painted clouds remained on the walls.
Caleb waited beside an elevator.
He looked terrible.
“Where are they?”
“Sixth floor.”
“Victor?”
“With Evelyn.”
“Marco?”
“Basement.”
Elias’s men were entering through service tunnels below.
Caleb handed me a keycard.
“Take the stairs. Cameras are on a loop for four minutes.”
I took the card.
“Why help me?”
His eyes filled with something I had never seen before.
Shame.
“I heard Ivy crying.”
My heart stopped.
“You know which one is Ivy?”
“Your mother told me.”
“You learned their names from a hostage.”
He flinched.
“Go.”
I ran.
On the sixth floor, a door stood open.
My mother sat tied to a chair.
Victor stood behind her.
Two bassinets were beside the window.
Ivy.
June.
Alive.
I moved toward them.
Victor raised a gun.
“Stop.”
I stopped.
My mother looked at me.
“Ava, don’t give him anything.”
Victor smiled.
“She always was dramatic.”
“Let me take the girls.”
“Sign away the Vale seat.”
“No.”
His smile vanished.
“I can make you.”
“You tried through your son.”
“I chose poorly.”
“Obviously.”
His gun shifted toward June’s bassinet.
The world inside me went silent.
“Don’t.”
“Then sign.”
He placed documents on a table.
I walked toward them.
My hand closed around the pen.
Then the lights died.
Elias.
I dropped.
A gunshot shattered glass.
My mother screamed.
Men rushed the room.
When emergency lights came on, Victor was gone through a service door.
Again.
But I was on the floor with both babies in my arms.
Alive.
Safe.
Elias entered seconds later.
There was blood on his knuckles.
He stopped when he saw us.
For a moment, the feared Elias Vance simply stared.
Then he crossed the room, dropped to his knees, and wrapped one arm around all three of us.
No one spoke.
I felt his breath against my hair.
June began to cry.
Elias laughed once, shakily.
“Good,” he whispered. “Be loud.”
Behind us, my mother said, “Marco.”
We turned.
He had not been found in the basement.
May you like
Instead, on the wall beside the elevator, someone had written a message in blood.
NOT ALL BETRAYALS COME FROM ENEMIES.
