Chapter 9 - THE LAST TIME MATTEO USED MY DAUGHTER AS LEVERAGE
Rebecca answered on the first ring.
Crying.
“They took Sophia.”
The world narrowed.
Alina made a sound beside me.
Not a scream.
Worse.
“Who?”
“Two men. Utility truck. They hit Nico’s backup officer.”
“Rebecca?”
“She’s okay.”
“Sophia?”
“I don’t know.”
Alina grabbed my phone.
“Where is my daughter?”
Rebecca sobbed.
“I’m sorry.”
Alina almost collapsed.
I caught her.
She fought me.
“Don’t touch me.”
I stepped back.
Lena was already issuing alerts.
Amber alert procedures?
Difficult because Matteo could move through criminal routes.
Still.
State police.
Federal teams.
Traffic cameras.
Tolls.
Everything.
My phone buzzed.
Video.
Sophia sat in a chair.
Not tied.
Crying.
Benny in her lap.
Matteo stood behind her.
My oldest friend.
My daughter’s kidnapper.
He looked tired.
Older.
Not like the man from dinner.
“Daddy.”
Sophia saw the camera.
“Daddy, I’m okay.”
Matteo smiled.
“She’s brave.”
I wanted to kill him more than I had ever wanted anything.
Then Alina grabbed my wrist.
“Don’t let him make you stupid.”
Her own words.
Her letter.
Matteo spoke.
“Bring originals.”
The ledger.
Recordings.
Bellini material.
“And federal copies?”
I asked.
He laughed.
“I know they exist.”
“Then what good are originals?”
“They buy me time.”
“To run?”
“Yes.”
At least honest.
“Where?”
“You’ll get instructions.”
He leaned closer to the camera.
“Come alone.”
Classic.
Then Sophia said:
“Daddy.”
“Yes, baby.”
“Mommy says bad men lie.”
Matteo’s face changed.
My heart nearly burst.
“Mommy is right.”
He ended the video.
Alina cried then.
Proud and terrified.
We traced metadata.
Scrubbed.
Background details?
Brick wall.
Train horn.
Water?
Sophia’s hair moved slightly.
Industrial place.
Chicago had thousands.
Then Benny.
The rabbit’s ear was wet.
Why?
Maybe raining when moved.
Not enough.
Sophia had learned more from six years hiding than any child should.
She tapped Benny’s paw in the video.
Three times.
Pause.
One.
Pause.
Four.
314.
The lake box combination.
Was she telling us location?
No.
314 could mean something else Alina taught her.
Alina stared at the paused video.
“Three-one-four.”
“What?”
“When we were hiding, I taught her emergency numbers through games.”
“314 means?”
“Third place, first route, fourth sign.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“It was how we described moving locations without names if someone listened.”
“What is third place?”
Alina grabbed a notebook.
Her old safe-location system.
Place categories.
One: church.
Two: motel.
Three: warehouse.
First route?
South.
Fourth sign?
She looked up.
“Red star.”
Nico, bruised but alive, joined by phone.
“Red Star warehouse.”
I knew one.
An abandoned meatpacking warehouse near the river once owned by Red Star Cold Storage.
Matteo had used it years ago.
Lena mobilized.
I wanted inside.
She said no.
I said yes.
Alina said:
“You go near, not in.”
I stared.
“That’s my daughter.”
“And mine.”
She stepped closer.
“If you run through a door with a gun and Matteo panics, Sophia pays.”
I hated her.
Because she was right.
We staged three blocks away.
Agents approached.
Matteo called again.
“Drive.”
He gave a different location.
Of course.
Decoy.
But now we knew Red Star.
Agents found signs of recent occupation.
Food.
Cigarettes.
Child’s juice box.
Then a note.
NEXT TIME LISTEN.
Matteo had moved.
Sophia’s code got us close.
Not fast enough.
Then one camera nearby captured the utility truck.
License plate cloned.
Route west.
Eventually abandoned beneath an overpass.
A second vehicle picked them up.
Black Cadillac.
Old model.
Nico recognized it.
“Matteo’s father’s car.”
My chest tightened.
“He kept it?”
“Storage.”
Where?
A private garage owned by the Rizzo family in Cicero.
Agents moved.
Empty.
But paperwork showed one property still under Matteo’s mother’s estate.
A lakeside cabin near Fox Lake.
I almost laughed.
Family.
We all go back to the places where we were children.
Matteo had mocked me for sentiment.
He was driven by it too.
This time I went with Lena.
Not alone.
No dramatic hero entry.
Teams surrounded the cabin.
Thermal showed three adults.
One child.
Matteo called before they breached.
“You found me.”
“Yes.”
“Still clever.”
“Not me.”
“Alina?”
“Sophia.”
Silence.
That hurt him.
He had been beaten by a seven-year-old using the survival codes her mother taught her.
“Let her go.”
“No.”
“What do you want?”
“Car. Twenty million. Plane.”
“Impossible.”
“You have it.”
“Money? Yes.”
I looked at Lena.
“But you won’t reach the airport.”
Matteo’s voice changed.
“You’re bargaining with police now?”
“Yes.”
“Carlo would spit on you.”
“My father is dead.”
“And your empire?”
“Dying.”
He laughed.
“That should hurt.”
“It does.”
“Then why sound calm?”
I looked toward the cabin.
“Because Sophia matters more.”
Silence.
That was the final thing Matteo never understood.
He believed power always ranked first.
Even love became another power source.
He could not understand choosing loss voluntarily.
“What happened to you?” he whispered.
“You.”
He laughed bitterly.
“I made you.”
“Yes.”
I let that sit.
“You taught me exactly what this life costs.”
The cabin door opened.
A man stepped out with hands raised.
Not Matteo.
One accomplice.
Then another.
Matteo was losing them.
Inside, Sophia screamed.
Gunshot.
Alina beside me gasped.
I moved.
Lena grabbed my coat.
“Wait!”
Then radio:
“Child secure! Child secure!”
My knees almost failed.
Another:
“Suspect wounded, alive.”
I ran when they allowed it.
Sophia came out wrapped in an agent’s jacket.
“Daddy!”
I dropped to my knees.
She hit me.
Actually hit my chest.
“You took long!”
I cried and laughed.
“I know.”
“You said no disappear.”
“I’m here.”
She hugged me.
Alina reached us.
Sophia screamed again.
“Mommy!”
All three of us collapsed together in mud.
Behind us, agents carried Matteo out.
Gunshot wound through the shoulder.
He saw me.
I stood.
Alina kept Sophia.
I walked toward him.
Matteo smiled through pain.
“Do it.”
He expected death.
Wanted it maybe.
A final confirmation that he still understood me.
I looked at him.
Thirty years.
Childhood.
Friendship.
Funerals.
Blood.
Lies.
Six stolen years.
My daughter’s nightmares.
Alina’s scars.
“Do what?”
“Kill me.”
I almost smiled.
“No.”
His expression changed.
“You think prison is justice?”
“No.”
I leaned closer.
“I think living long enough to watch everything you built collapse might be.”
Hatred entered his eyes.
Good.
For once, I did not need it to disappear.
Federal agents loaded him into the ambulance.
I returned to Sophia.
She touched my face.
“Daddy mad?”
“Yes.”
“You shoot bad man?”
“No.”
She nodded approvingly.
May you like
“Good.”
That one word mattered more than every oath of loyalty I had ever received.
