Chapter 6 - The Hunt
I do not remember screaming.
Marcus later told me I did.
He said I ran into the garden barefoot, calling Lily’s name so loudly that birds flew from the trees. He said Leo followed me, shouting orders into his phone, his voice controlled only because losing control would have terrified everyone else.
But I remember none of that clearly.
I remember the open door.
The empty chair.
The purple paint.
And the feeling that the world had split down the middle.
“Check every camera,” Leo said.
“Already doing it,” Marcus replied.
“Lock down the roads.”
“Done.”
“Call the police.”
“They’re on their way.”
Leo looked at me.
“Beatrice.”
I could not stop shaking.
“Beatrice, look at me.”
I did.
“She wants panic,” he said. “She wants us to make mistakes.”
“She took Lily.”
“I know.”
“She took her because of me.”
“No.”
“She knows Lily trusts me. She knew I would leave the room—”
“This is not your fault.”
I wanted to believe him.
But guilt had always been easier than helplessness. If it was my fault, then maybe I could have prevented it. Maybe I could have done something different.
Marcus called from the security room.
“Leo. We have footage.”
We ran.
The screen showed the back garden camera from twenty minutes earlier. A woman in a white coat entered through the side gate with a medical bag. Her face was partly hidden by a mask.
Lily had been sitting near the flowerpots.
The woman crouched beside her.
At first, Lily looked uncertain.
Then the woman held up something.
Pickles.
Not Lily’s rabbit.
A small green dinosaur keychain she had once seen in a gift shop.
Lily stood.
The woman took her hand.
Victoria.
She led Lily through the garden and into a white van parked beyond the trees.
The van’s license plate was fake.
But Marcus had another angle from the gate camera.
“Vehicle is heading south,” he said. “We have a likely route.”
Leo reached for his coat.
I grabbed his arm.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“She will ask for me.”
“Beatrice—”
“She took Lily while I was supposed to be watching her. Victoria hates me. If she wants something from you, she may use me to get it.”
Leo looked at my hand on his sleeve.
Then at my face.
For a moment, I expected him to order security to drag me to the safe house.
Instead, he said, “Stay beside me.”
The drive into Chicago felt endless.
Marcus coordinated with police while Leo spoke to people whose names were never introduced. The kind of people who could find abandoned warehouses, private garages, and false identities before the police paperwork had finished printing.
I sat in the back seat, gripping Lily’s purple hair ribbon.
Victoria had dropped it near the garden gate.
I kept seeing Lily’s face when she asked whether Victoria was mad at her.
I kept thinking of all the times I had told her to be polite. To be quiet. To ignore Victoria’s sharp comments because I did not want trouble.
I should have protected her sooner.
Then Leo’s phone rang.
Victoria.
He put it on speaker.
“Tell me where she is,” he said.
“No greeting?” Victoria asked.
“Tell me where my daughter is.”
“You were never very romantic.”
“Victoria.”
Her voice hardened.
“You humiliated me. You chose a maid over me.”
“I chose my child.”
“You chose weakness.”
Leo’s fingers tightened around the phone.
“What do you want?”
“A signed trust transfer. The Kensington trust will receive control of the Rossi family holdings if you die or become incapacitated.”
Marcus looked at Leo.
“That document is worthless,” Leo said.
“Not after the secondary agreement you keep in your private archive.”
Leo became still.
I saw Marcus’s face change.
Victoria continued, “Yes, Leo. I know about the contingency clause. Sign it. Send it to the email address I provide. Then you may see Lily.”
“And if I refuse?”
Victoria was silent for a moment.
Then Lily’s voice came through the phone.
“Daddy?”
Leo closed his eyes.
“I’m here, piccola.”
“I want Bea.”
I covered my mouth.
Victoria took the phone back.
“Two hours,” she said. “No police. No games.”
The call ended.
Marcus spoke first.
“She knows about the archive clause. Someone gave her inside information.”
Leo looked out the window.
“Graham.”
“Her brother?”
“He has been trying to gain access to Rossi assets for years.”
Marcus nodded grimly. “Then this was never about marriage.”
“No,” Leo said. “It was about control.”
We traced Victoria to an old lakeside hotel outside the city. The property had been closed for renovations for nearly a year. One of Leo’s contacts found a security camera feed from a nearby gas station showing the white van entering the abandoned service road.
Police units surrounded the area quietly.
Leo refused to wait in the car.
Marcus argued with him.
“You go in, she may panic.”
“She already has my daughter.”
“We need a plan.”
Leo looked at him.
“We have one. We bring Lily home.”
Then he turned to me.
“You stay with Marcus.”
“No.”
“Beatrice.”
“She asked for me.”
His eyes changed.
Not anger.
Fear.
The kind he had spent his life hiding.
“I cannot lose both of you,” he said.
The words stopped me.
He had not said he loved me.
Not exactly.
But the truth was there anyway.
I stepped closer.
“You won’t,” I whispered.
Outside, rain began to fall again.
The same cold rain from the night Victoria locked Lily in the cellar.
Only this time, I was no longer running alone toward a locked door.
May you like
This time, we were going to break it down.
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