Chapter 10 - THE TEST
The hospital fire was deliberately set in a storage room.
Nobody died.
Daniel Cross disappeared during the evacuation.
The security camera outside his room stopped recording eleven seconds before the power failed.
Police called it suspicious.
Luca called it predictable.
Mara called Preston.
He did not answer.
She called again.
Nothing.
By noon, his phone had been disconnected.
Bianca claimed he had left the house after an argument.
Senator Thorne claimed not to know where he was.
Nobody believed either of them.
Mara stood in Luca’s library staring at the paternity test kit she had agreed to use.
Luca sat across the room.
“You can change your mind.”
“No.”
“You don’t need this today.”
“I do.”
“Mara.”
She looked at him.
“I need one thing in my life to be certain.”
He understood.
The test was expedited.
They received the result the next afternoon.
Probability of paternity: 99.99 percent.
Mara read the line three times.
Luca read it once.
Then he sat down.
Mara had never seen him look vulnerable.
Not at the cemetery.
Not while confronting Charles.
Not when hearing about Eleanor’s murder.
But the paper in his hand seemed to frighten him.
“You’re quiet.”
He looked at her.
“I have never been responsible for something this important.”
“The baby isn’t a business deal.”
“That is exactly what frightens me.”
Mara sat opposite him.
“You don’t have children?”
“No.”
“Ever wanted them?”
“I stopped thinking about it.”
“Why?”
Luca looked toward the window.
“My father was not a gentle man.”
Mara waited.
“He believed fear was a better teacher than love.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I survived.”
“That isn’t the same thing as being okay.”
His eyes returned to hers.
“No.”
Mara placed the test result on the table.
“I don’t want our child raised around violence.”
“Neither do I.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
“Whatever your business is.”
His face became guarded.
“Mara.”
“I don’t need details.”
She shook her head.
“But I need a promise.”
“What promise?”
“That if you want to be this baby’s father, you do not bring that world into the child’s life.”
Luca was silent for a long time.
Then he nodded.
“I have been moving away from that world for years.”
“Moving away isn’t leaving.”
“No.”
“Can you leave?”
Another silence.
“Yes.”
She studied him.
“You answered fast.”
“I decided six months ago.”
Mara blinked.
“Before you knew about the baby?”
Luca gave a small smile.
“Apparently you had an effect on me.”
She looked down.
“What happened after I left?”
“I looked at my life and realized I had built everything except somewhere I wanted to return to.”
Mara did not know what to say.
His phone rang.
Mercer.
Luca answered.
The attorney had found Preston.
His car had been abandoned near an industrial district.
There was blood on the driver’s seat.
Mara stood.
“Is he alive?”
“We don’t know.”
A second message arrived moments later.
This one was from Preston’s number.
A photograph.
Preston sat tied to a chair in a concrete room.
His face was bruised.
Behind him, a digital clock showed the current time.
Beneath the image were six words.
BRING ELEANOR’S FILES OR HE DIES.
Mara stared.
Luca’s expression hardened.
“You’re not going.”
Mara looked at him.
“They want me.”
“They want the files.”
“They know I have them.”
“And they expect you to panic.”
“Preston could die.”
“Yes.”
She stared at Luca.
“You don’t care?”
His eyes narrowed.
“I care that you are standing here carrying my child while someone tries to use your former husband to force you into a trap.”
Mara flinched.
Luca softened.
“I did not say we leave him there.”
“Then what?”
“We find him.”
“How?”
Luca looked at the photograph again.
Then he zoomed in on a tiny reflection in a steel pipe behind Preston.
A faded company logo appeared.
MERCER INDUSTRIAL COLD STORAGE.
Mara stared.
“You know where that is?”
Luca stood.
“No.”
May you like
He reached for his coat.
“But I know who does.”
