Chapter 4 - The Second AbductionVincent broke every speed limit between Beacon and Brooklyn.
Once, she had been the most trusted investigator in the Moretti organization.
Then she had accused Daniel Moretti of stealing money.
Vincent had refused to believe her.
Their argument had ended with Sofia throwing her access card onto his desk and telling him he would regret choosing blood over truth.
He had ordered her out of New York.
Six years later, Sofia walked into the Brooklyn brownstone wearing a black coat, carrying a laptop, and looking exactly like the kind of woman who had never forgotten an insult.
She saw Vincent first.
“You look terrible.”
“Good to see you too.”
Then she noticed Luca.
For several seconds, Sofia forgot how to speak.
Luca was sitting on the floor, building a tower from old wooden blocks Evelyn had found in a closet.
Sofia’s hand rose to her mouth.
“Jesus.”
Luca looked up.
“Who are you?”
Sofia crouched several feet away.
“My name is Sofia.”
“You know my dad?”
She glanced at Vincent.
“Unfortunately.”
Luca almost smiled.
The tiny expression tore through Vincent.
He had not realized how badly he wanted to see his son smile.
Sofia turned serious.
“DNA?”
“Confirmed.”
“Independent lab?”
“Yes.”
“Dental history?”
“Evelyn matched two childhood fillings.”
“Fingerprints?”
“He was six when taken.”
“Medical markers?”
“Same congenital heart murmur.”
Sofia nodded.
“Then we start from the assumption that this is Luca until somebody proves otherwise.”
Vincent’s eyebrow lifted.
“He is Luca.”
“And if you want to protect him, you will let evidence speak louder than emotion.”
There it was.
The reason Vincent had once trusted her.
Sofia asked Luca whether he was willing to talk.
He looked at Vincent.
“You don’t have to,” Vincent said.
“I want to.”
They sat around the kitchen table.
Sofia did not interrogate him.
She asked about smells.
Sounds.
Rooms.
Seasons.
Things a frightened child might remember when names and addresses disappeared.
Luca described the first house.
Wooden walls.
A blue barn.
Freight trains at night.
A church bell at noon.
A lake nearby.
A woman called Edith Bell.
A man who brought groceries every Thursday.
After three hours, Sofia pushed back from the table.
“I think I know the county.”
Vincent stared.
“How?”
“Freight lines and church schedules. Plus he remembers a yellow-and-black school bus with a district number.”
Luca had never attended the school.
But he had watched the bus through a window for years.
“Give me twelve hours.”
She stood.
Vincent followed her into the hallway.
“What do you need?”
“Access to your old financial records.”
“You’ll have it.”
“Security logs from the year Luca vanished.”
“Yes.”
“And one more thing.”
“What?”
“Do not confront Daniel or Marcus.”
“I already had dinner with them.”
Sofia stared at him.
“You what?”
“They know I left the cemetery early.”
“Vincent.”
“They suspected something before I arrived.”
“Then Luca’s window just got smaller.”
“He’s protected here.”
Sofia lowered her voice.
“By whom?”
Vincent frowned.
“People I trust.”
“That sentence is how your son disappeared.”
It landed hard.
Sofia continued.
“You don’t know how deep this goes.”
“Then tell me.”
“I can’t yet.”
“What aren’t you saying?”
She studied him.
“Six years ago, when I accused Daniel of stealing money, that wasn’t all I found.”
Vincent waited.
“I found payments to three companies. They looked like construction firms. They weren’t.”
“What were they?”
“Shell corporations.”
“For?”
“I didn’t know.”
“And now?”
Sofia glanced toward Luca.
“Now I think they funded his captivity.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“How much?”
“Over six years? Around twelve million dollars.”
“Twelve million to hide one child?”
“Exactly.”
Vincent understood immediately.
The money was not merely for guards.
Someone had been paying officials.
Doctors.
Records clerks.
Maybe police.
Maybe the medical examiner.
“A conspiracy.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“That’s what bothers me.”
Sofia opened the front door.
“If this was about ransom, nobody ever demanded one.”
“They wanted me to believe Luca was dead.”
“Which means Luca himself wasn’t the real target.”
Vincent felt a coldness settle over him.
“I was.”
Sofia nodded.
“Or something attached to you.”
That night, Vincent slept in a chair beside Luca’s bed.
At three in the morning, Luca woke screaming.
“No! Please!”
Vincent was on his feet immediately.
Luca kicked against the blankets.
“Don’t put me back there!”
“Luca.”
“No!”
“Little Wolf.”
The boy froze.
Vincent crouched.
“It’s me.”
Luca stared at him.
Then wrapped both arms around his father.
“I dreamed Marcus found me.”
“He won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
Vincent couldn’t lie.
“No.”
Luca looked at him.
“Mrs. Bell used to say promises were how adults trick children.”
Vincent felt shame despite having done nothing to teach him that lesson.
“Then I won’t promise what I can’t guarantee.”
Luca waited.
“I can promise I will not stop looking for the truth.”
“Even if it’s Uncle Daniel?”
Vincent hesitated.
“Yes.”
The next morning, Sofia returned with photographs.
The first showed an abandoned farmhouse near Beacon, New York.
Luca’s face changed instantly.
“That’s it.”
Vincent looked at Sofia.
“You’re certain?”
“Property records show it belonged to Hudson Agricultural Holdings.”
He knew the name.
One of Daniel’s shell companies.
The house had been sold eighteen months earlier.
The buyer?
A corporation controlled by Marcus Reed’s sister.
They drove north in two vehicles.
Luca remained with Evelyn under heavy protection.
Vincent wanted to take twenty armed men.
Sofia refused.
“If they know we’re looking, they burn everything.”
So Vincent brought only Sofia and an old friend named Samuel Price.
Samuel had once been an NYPD detective before becoming Vincent’s private security consultant.
Unlike Marcus, Samuel had never worked inside the Moretti organization.
They reached the property shortly after noon.
The farmhouse looked empty.
Broken windows.
Peeling paint.
Dead grass.
Inside, the rooms had been stripped.
No furniture.
No documents.
Nothing.
Vincent walked upstairs.
At the end of a hallway was a bedroom with metal brackets outside the door.
For a lock.
His son had lived behind it.
His breathing changed.
Sofia opened a closet.
“Vincent.”
Scratches covered the inside wall.
Lines.
Dozens of them.
A child marking days.
Near the floor were letters carved into the wood.
DAD WILL FIND ME.
Vincent touched them.
His eyes closed.
For five years his child had believed that.
And for five years Vincent had brought flowers to an empty grave.
Samuel called from downstairs.
“You need to see this.”
They entered the basement.
Behind an old furnace, Samuel had found a loose section of drywall.
Inside was a plastic bag.
Sofia put on gloves and removed its contents.
Photographs.
Receipts.
A flash drive.
And a newspaper clipping from Luca’s funeral.
On the photograph, Vincent stood beside the grave while Daniel held his shoulder.
Someone had written across the image in red ink.
PHASE ONE COMPLETE.
Vincent’s eyes hardened.
Sofia inserted the flash drive into an isolated laptop.
There were twenty-three files.
Most encrypted.
One opened.
A scanned letter.
Sofia read silently.
Then stopped.
“What?”
She turned the laptop toward Vincent.
The document was dated two months before Luca’s disappearance.
At the top was a law firm’s letterhead.
RE: ELENA MORETTI FAMILY TRUST.
Vincent frowned.
Elena had died two years before Luca vanished.
“What trust?”
Sofia looked at him.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
The document continued.
Upon Luca Moretti’s tenth birthday, controlling interest in Belladonna Holdings would transfer irrevocably to the beneficiary.
Vincent stared.
Belladonna Holdings controlled nearly forty percent of the legitimate Moretti business empire.
Real estate.
Hotels.
Shipping.
Construction.
Assets worth nearly $3.8 billion.
Vincent whispered, “Elena did this?”
Sofia scrolled.
At the bottom was another clause.
In the event Luca Anthony Moretti is deceased before reaching age ten, voting control shall pass to…
She stopped.
Vincent already knew.
“Daniel.”
Sofia nodded.
The room became silent.
Luca had not been taken because someone hated him.
He had been taken because his death made Daniel a billionaire.
But something still made no sense.
“Luca turned ten last year.”
“Yes.”
“If Daniel needed him legally dead, why keep him alive?”
Sofia’s face darkened.
“Maybe because whoever designed the plan needed something from him.”
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
All three looked toward the ceiling.
Samuel drew his weapon.
Someone was inside the house.
Vincent heard footsteps.
Then smelled smoke.
Sofia swore.
“Fire.”
Flames appeared at the basement stairwell.
Someone had poured accelerant across the first floor.
Samuel ran toward a small window.
“Blocked.”
Black smoke rushed downward.
Vincent grabbed the flash drive.
Sofia wrapped the documents inside her coat.
The basement filled rapidly.
Samuel kicked at an old coal chute.
Once.
Twice.
The wood broke.
Cold daylight appeared.
“Go!”
Sofia climbed through first.
Vincent followed.
Samuel emerged seconds later.
They rolled into dead grass as flames exploded through the farmhouse windows.
A black SUV tore away along the distant road.
Vincent memorized the license plate.
Sofia coughed beside him.
“They knew we were here.”
Vincent looked at the burning room where his son had carved hope into a closet wall.
“No.”
He stared after the disappearing SUV.
“They knew we were coming.”
Which meant the betrayal was closer than Daniel.
Closer than Marcus.
Someone inside Vincent’s newly rebuilt circle was already feeding them information.
His phone rang.
Evelyn.
Vincent answered immediately.
Her voice came in a frightened whisper.
“Vincent.”
“What happened?”
“There’s someone outside.”
His blood stopped.
“Where is Luca?”
“With me.”
“Lock the room.”
“I did.”
A crash sounded through the phone.
May you like
Then Evelyn screamed.
The line went dead.
