Chapter 5 - The Trap SpringsThe trap was sprung forty-eight hours later.
It didn't happen in a dark alley or a smoky warehouse. It happened in the bright, clinical lobby of the downtown medical center where I had gone to drop off my mother’s insurance paperwork.
I had just stepped out of the elevators when two heavy-set men in dark suits stepped out from behind a concrete pillar, blocking my exit.
“Miss Hart?” one of them asked, his voice flat and threatening.
Before I could scream or turn back toward the elevators, a handkerchief soaked in a heavy, chemical scent was clamped over my nose and mouth.
The world spun violently, the bright hospital lights melting into a sickening blur of white and black, and then… nothing.
When I woke up, I wasn't in a basement.
I was sitting in a velvet armchair in a dimly lit, high-ceilinged office that smelled of aged leather, cigar smoke, and expensive cologne. My wrists weren't tied, but when I tried to stand, my legs felt like lead—the sedative was still dragging through my veins.
“Ah, she’s awake.”
I snapped my head up.
Roberto Ferraro was sitting behind a massive mahogany desk, swirling a glass of wine, smiling like a cat that had finally caught the canary. Two armed guards stood by the heavy oak double doors behind me.
“Where is this?” I demanded, my voice raspy and dry. “If Nicholas finds out—”
“Nicholas is currently forty blocks away, looking for a ghost,” Roberto interrupted smoothly, taking a slow sip of his wine. He stood up, walking around the desk, stopping a few feet away from my chair. He crouched down so we were eye-level. “You see, Miss Hart, your little boyfriend is very predictable. When you disappear, he assumes his primary rival took you. So he’s currently kicking down doors in Little Italy, looking for a fight.”
“You’re insane,” I spat, trying to keep the terror out of my voice. “He’ll destroy you.”
“Will he?” Roberto laughed softly, reaching out to brush a strand of hair away from my face. I jerked my head back, baring my teeth. Roberto’s smile turned razor-sharp. “Nicholas is a brilliant strategist. But he made one fatal flaw. He fell for his own housekeeper. He let the world know you matter to him.”
Roberto straightened up, pulling a sleek satellite phone out of his jacket pocket. He dialed a number, put it on speaker, and placed it flat on the desk between us.
It rang three times.
Then, Nicholas’s voice crackled through the speaker, cold enough to freeze water.
“If you have her, Roberto, you’re already a dead man.”
“Ah, Nicholas,” Roberto purred, walking over to stand directly above the phone. “So dramatic. Always jumping straight to murder. Aren't you going to ask how your little Gabriella is doing?”
There was a terrifying, dead silence on the other end of the line. When Nicholas spoke again, his voice wasn't loud. It was terrifyingly calm—the voice of a monster stepping out of the dark.
“If she has a single scratch on her, Roberto… I will personally peel the skin off your bones while you’re still breathing.”
Roberto chuckled, though his eyes flicked toward the door nervously. “Tough talk for a man who is currently standing outside my shipping warehouse on the piers with three tactical teams. But you’re twenty minutes away from this location, Nicholas. And in twenty minutes… a lot of things can happen.”
“Where are you?” Nicholas roared, the icy facade finally shattering into raw, feral rage.
“Bring the Red Hook deeds, Nicholas,” Roberto said smoothly. “Sign over the waterfront parcels to my family trust, and email the notarized paperwork to my attorney. Do that before the timer on my phone hits zero… and I’ll text you the address where your precious housekeeper is waiting.”
“Roberto—don’t you dare—”
Roberto hit the red button, cutting the call dead.
He slipped the phone back into his pocket, turning back to me with a triumphant grin. “Property for property, Miss Hart. That’s all you ever were to him. A piece of real estate he had to defend.”
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“You’re wrong,” I whispered, tears burning my eyes, though I refused to let them fall. “You don't know him at all.”
Before Roberto could reply, the heavy oak double doors behind him didn't just open—they exploded inward in a storm of splintered wood, shattering glass, and blinding smoke.
