Chapter 12 - Someone Was Watching Emma
Daniel Rossi's apartment did not look like the home of a criminal mastermind.
That made it worse.
There were books.
Coffee mugs.
A half-dead plant.
Clean kitchen counters.
Running shoes beside the door.
Photographs from ordinary places.
Boston.
Philadelphia.
Vermont.
And Emma.
Hundreds of photographs.
Not hidden.
Displayed.
First birthday.
Second birthday.
A school play.
A missing front tooth.
Halloween costume.
Emma riding a bicycle.
Emma asleep on a couch.
Emma holding Daniel's hand.
Alejandro stood in the middle of the room and felt something he did not have a name for.
Jealousy was too small.
Rage was incomplete.
Grief came closest.
Another man had watched his daughter grow.
Another man knew what cake she liked.
Had perhaps heard her first full sentence.
Taught her something.
Comforted her.
While Alejandro had believed there was no child.
Marco watched him.
“Don't.”
Alejandro looked over.
“Don't what?”
“Punish a man for being present when you couldn't be.”
Alejandro's jaw tightened.
“I didn't choose to be absent.”
“I know.”
“Does he?”
Marco did not answer.
Alejandro turned toward the strangest photograph.
A wedding image.
Daniel in a suit.
Isabella's face cut from another photograph and placed beside him.
Not professionally.
Manually.
Obsessively.
“That's different,” Marco said.
“Yes.”
They searched the apartment.
No weapons.
No explosives.
No obvious criminal records.
But there were notebooks.
Dates.
Locations.
Entries about Isabella.
SHE STILL TALKS ABOUT HIM WHEN SHE THINKS EMMA IS ASLEEP.
I GAVE HER YEARS.
HE DOESN'T DESERVE TO RETURN.
EMMA WOULD BE SAFER WITH ME.
Another page:
GABRIEL SAYS I MUST STOP.
HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND.
Alejandro turned the page.
One sentence.
IF ALEJANDRO DIES, SHE CAN FINALLY LIVE.
Marco exhaled.
“There.”
Alejandro closed the notebook.
“Daniel helped arrange the attack.”
“Likely.”
“With Dominic?”
“Maybe separate motives.”
Alejandro considered.
Two conspiracies could have intersected.
Dominic wanted control.
Daniel wanted Alejandro gone.
Rizzo wanted the old structure restored.
Each had reason.
Together they had resources.
The attack suddenly made sense.
Eleven men had died not because one enemy wanted territory, but because multiple people wanted Alejandro removed for different reasons.
His phone rang.
Isabella.
Alejandro answered.
“What?”
“Emma is gone.”
His entire body went cold.
“What?”
“She was in the garden.”
Alejandro was already moving.
“How long?”
“Two minutes.”
“Gates?”
“Closed.”
“Cameras?”
“Marco's people are checking.”
“Isabella, listen.”
She was crying.
“Alejandro—”
“Listen to me. Go inside. Lock the room.”
“I am not leaving her.”
“If somebody wants you too—”
“I DON'T CARE!”
Alejandro stopped.
The pain in her voice hit him.
He lowered his.
“Neither do I.”
Silence.
“Five minutes away.”
He ended the call.
Marco drove.
Alejandro did not trust himself to.
The Moretti gates opened before they arrived.
Security swarmed the gardens.
Isabella stood on the terrace.
“A woman from the kitchen saw her near the hedge.”
Alejandro ran.
Footprints crossed damp soil.
Small.
Then larger.
At the edge of the property, a maintenance gate stood open.
Impossible.
It required two credentials.
Marco checked the panel.
“Internal override.”
Alejandro's anger became lethal.
Emma's pink ribbon lay in the grass.
He picked it up.
Isabella made a broken sound behind him.
Alejandro turned.
For one second, everything inside him nearly collapsed.
Then training took over.
“Vehicle?”
A guard answered.
“White van seen on county road.”
“Direction?”
“North.”
Alejandro called every contact he had.
Police would be involved eventually.
But time mattered more than pride.
Highway cameras.
Toll systems.
Private surveillance.
Within nine minutes, a gas station camera caught the van.
Within fourteen, they had plates.
Within seventeen, plates connected to Daniel Rossi.
Isabella whispered, “He wouldn't hurt her.”
Alejandro said nothing.
He wanted that to be true.
At the twenty-third minute, his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Daniel.
“Hello, Alejandro.”
“Put Emma on.”
“She's fine.”
“Now.”
A pause.
Then Emma's voice.
“Dad?”
Alejandro closed his eyes.
“I'm here.”
“Uncle Danny said Mama is coming.”
“Listen to me.”
“Okay.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Scared?”
“A little.”
Daniel took the phone.
Alejandro's voice changed.
“If you touch her—”
“I would never hurt Emma.”
“Then bring her back.”
“I need Isabella.”
“No.”
“She chooses.”
“No.”
“You don't own her.”
“Neither do you.”
Silence.
Daniel's breathing changed.
“You left her.”
“I didn't know where she was.”
“She cried for you.”
Alejandro's throat tightened.
“I know.”
“I held her.”
“And I'm grateful you did.”
Daniel stopped.
The answer had disarmed him.
Alejandro continued.
“You were there when I couldn't be. Thank you.”
Marco looked at Alejandro.
Isabella covered her mouth.
Daniel whispered, “Don't.”
“Don't what?”
“Act like you're better than me.”
“I'm not.”
“Then why does she still love you?”
There it was.
Alejandro understood the man now.
Not a strategist.
Not an heir.
A wounded obsessive who had convinced himself love could be earned through waiting.
“Daniel.”
“What?”
“Isabella doesn't owe either of us love.”
Silence.
“She chose me.”
“No. Six years ago she did. Today is different.”
Daniel's breathing grew uneven.
“You think you can come back and become a family?”
“I don't know.”
“You always win.”
“This isn't winning.”
“You have everything.”
Alejandro looked at the ribbon in his hand.
“No.”
His voice broke slightly.
“I missed her first six years.”
Daniel said nothing.
“I will never get those back.”
Silence.
“Bring Emma home.”
“I need Isabella.”
Isabella stepped forward.
“Give me the phone.”
Alejandro shook his head.
She took it anyway.
“Daniel?”
He exhaled.
“Bella.”
“Bring my daughter back.”
“Our daughter should have had—”
“She is not our daughter.”
Daniel went silent.
Isabella continued.
“You were good to her once.”
“Alejandro ruined everything.”
“No.”
“You loved me.”
“I cared for you.”
“You loved me.”
“No.”
Her voice softened.
“And pretending otherwise was cruel of me.”
Alejandro looked at her.
Daniel whispered, “Then come.”
“I will come if you release Emma first.”
“No.”
“Then you don't love me.”
Silence.
“You want to possess me.”
“That's not true.”
“Then prove it.”
The call ended.
Marco traced enough signal to narrow location.
An old cabin near the Canadian border.
Alejandro recognized the area.
One of Father Gabriel's former safe houses.
They drove.
No sirens.
No visible convoy.
Two tactical teams approached from separate roads.
Alejandro and Isabella went to the front.
Daniel stood on the porch.
Emma beside him.
He had no gun pointed at her.
Alejandro felt the first real breath in nearly an hour.
Emma saw them.
“Dad!”
She ran.
Daniel grabbed her arm instinctively.
Alejandro's body tightened.
Daniel released her.
Emma sprinted down the steps.
Alejandro fell to one knee.
She crashed into him.
He held her so tightly she laughed.
“Too tight!”
He immediately loosened.
“Sorry.”
Emma hugged Isabella next.
Daniel watched.
Tears ran down his face.
Isabella approached him.
“You need help.”
He shook his head.
“You came back to him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Isabella looked toward Alejandro.
“Because I never really left him by choice.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Then a shot exploded from the trees.
Alejandro moved.
He threw Emma and Isabella behind the vehicle.
Daniel jerked backward.
Blood appeared on his shoulder.
Marco's team returned fire toward the ridge.
Rizzo.
This had not been Daniel's plan.
He had been followed.
Dominic's people had used him.
Alejandro dragged Daniel behind cover.
Daniel stared.
“Why are you helping me?”
Alejandro pressed cloth against the wound.
“Because Emma called you Uncle Danny.”
Daniel began crying.
Another shot struck the vehicle.
Marco shouted, “Move!”
Alejandro looked toward the ridge.
A figure disappeared among the trees.
Rizzo had escaped again.
But now one fact was clear.
Daniel had helped arrange surveillance.
Maybe even the convoy information.
Yet somebody else intended to kill him too.
This conspiracy had begun consuming its own people.
May you like
And back at the Moretti house, a traitor still possessed enough access to open a locked maintenance gate.
That night, Alejandro discovered the internal override had been issued from Marco Ferraro's personal security account.
