Chapter 5 - The Empty Bed
Damian reached the third floor in seconds.
The apartment door stood open. A lamp lay shattered beside the bed, and the pink blanket had fallen to the floor.
Sophia was gone.
Rosa screamed her daughter’s name.
Bruno burst past Damian, claws scraping against the marble as he raced down the corridor. He stopped at the service stairs, sniffing frantically at the air, then bolted toward the eastern exit.
“Lock every gate!” Damian shouted. “Nobody leaves this property!”
Mateo dispatched guards to the garages and garden paths. Two men ran toward the main driveway, while another hurried to the security room.
Rosa stood motionless in the bedroom.
On the pillow lay a folded piece of paper.
Damian picked it up.
Three words were written across the center in black ink.
BRING THE LEDGER.
Beneath them was a photograph of Sophia, taken that morning outside the school.
Rosa pressed both hands over her mouth.
“They knew where she was.”
Damian crumpled the paper in his fist.
“Whoever did this has made a mistake.”
“They have my daughter!”
“And they have challenged me inside my own house.”
His voice was terrifyingly calm.
“That's a mistake they will never make twice.”
He turned to Mateo.
“Trace every vehicle that entered or left the grounds in the last hour. Find the blind spots. Get me the security feeds from the road, the neighboring properties, everything.”
Mateo nodded and ran.
Damian looked at Rosa.
“What is the ledger?”
She shook her head.
“I don't know.”
“Victor mentioned documents. Elena mentioned a trust. Someone has taken my daughter and demanded something specific.”
Rosa looked toward the open window.
A cold breeze stirred the curtains.
Then she remembered.
The small red door.
The hidden room beyond the old service staircase.
Elena had once shown her a narrow compartment behind a loose stone, explaining that it was where the family kept documents too dangerous to leave in a bank.
Rosa had never seen what was inside.
But she remembered Elena saying that if anything happened to her, Damian would need the ledger to understand why.
“I know where it might be,” Rosa whispered.
Damian stepped closer.
“Where?”
“The mountain residence.”
His face hardened.
The house had burned six years earlier. The remaining structure had been declared unsafe, and he had forbidden anyone from entering the property.
Rosa had never visited it again.
Until now.
They left within fifteen minutes.
Damian drove himself, with Mateo in the passenger seat and two security vehicles following behind. Rosa sat in the back, clutching the silver crescent pendant.
Bruno occupied the space beside her, restless and alert.
The city disappeared behind them. Buildings gave way to empty roads, then forests and steep hills. The farther they traveled, the tighter Rosa held the pendant.
“Tell me about the ledger,” Damian said.
She stared through the window.
“Elena said it contained the names of people who had helped your father build the business. Accounts, payments, hidden ownership. She believed someone was using the family companies to move money outside the country.”
“My father?”
“Not necessarily. She thought he had discovered it shortly before his death.”
Damian tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
His father had died in a car accident when Damian was thirty. The official report blamed an icy road. Damian had never fully believed it, but he had found no evidence of murder.
“Why didn't she tell me?”
“She was afraid the people involved were close to you.”
“Victor.”
Rosa said nothing.
The road curved sharply around a wooded ridge.
Suddenly, Bruno began barking.
Damian slowed.
The dog pressed his nose against the window, whining and scratching at the door.
“What is it?” Mateo asked.
Bruno barked again.
Then a gunshot struck the windshield.
The glass cracked into a spiderweb.
Damian swerved, narrowly missing the guardrail. Mateo ducked and returned fire through the open passenger window.
A black SUV emerged from the trees behind them.
“Keep driving!” Mateo shouted.
A second bullet struck the rear panel.
Rosa dropped to the floor as Damian accelerated around the bend. The pursuing vehicle followed, headlights bouncing over the uneven road.
Bruno threw himself toward the rear window, snarling.
Then the SUV suddenly veered off the road.
It crashed through a wooden barrier and disappeared down the steep embankment.
Damian slammed on the brakes.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Mateo checked the road behind them.
“Could have been a hired crew. Could have been a warning.”
“No,” Damian said.
He looked at the bullet hole in the windshield.
“They knew exactly where we were going.”
His gaze shifted to Rosa.
“Someone heard us talking.”
Rosa’s face went white.
“Victor.”
Damian stared toward the forest.
For six years, he had trusted his brother more than any other living person.
Now Victor had taken his daughter, ordered a hit on his car, and turned a childhood home into the center of a war.
Damian restarted the engine.
“This ends tonight.”
But as they continued toward the mountain, none of them noticed the small tracking device attached beneath the rear bumper.
May you like
Someone was following them.
And the person controlling that device already knew they were arriving.
