309

309
Split Forces

The morning air at the cemetery was cold, gnawing at Val’s skin as insanity broke loose around her. Lucas answered with an impossible decision—and barking out orders on his radio in a sharp and commanding voice.

"Team Alpha, get to Safe House Beta immediately! Code red! I repeat, code red!"

Val observed Lucas's men split in half and run for their cars. Her pulse pounded in her chest, caught somewhere between wanting to deal with the dangerous man standing a few feet away from her and fear for Alecia miles across the city.

Marco’s men rose up behind the tombstones like ghosts in the morning fog. Six at least they were, all armed, all coming towards the spot in what appeared to be orderly descent.

Lucas took hold of Val’s arm, pulling her behind a large marble angel monument just as the first shot sounded. The bullet splintered stone a few inches from where her head had been.

"Stay down!" Lucas cursed and returned fire with deadly accuracy.

But Val’s gaze was fixed on Marco. The old man was backing off, retreating with unexpected speed for someone who looked so frail and had an oxygen tank that was supposed to have been holding him back. He was walking toward a black sedan parked close to the cemetery’s east gate.

Something in Val snapped. All the years of agony, all the torment he had put her mother through, the trafficking ring, the threats against her unborn child—it burned out into a single core need to stop him.

"Val, no!" “Lucas” Allie’s voice was frantic, but she had already stridden away.

She darted out from cover, running across the cemetery. Her footfalls thudded on the grass, dodging tombstones. She heard Lucas swearing behind her, the gunfire kept up it's incessant cracking, but still she didn't slow.

Marco was almost to the car. His driver had the door open, the engine running.

Val drove on, her lungs aching. Now it was her turn to close the gap, ten feet, fifteen, twenty — and then she flung herself forward and grabbed Marco by the sleeve just as his hand neared the car door.

"You're not getting away!" she snarled, yanking him backward.

He turned faster than she expected, and then there was something in his hand—syringe—and it was full of clear liquid. His eyes were wild, filled with rage and something that resembled admiration.

“Courageous, like Isabella,” he snarled. "But foolish."

He pointed the syringe at her neck. Val attempted to evade, but the iron grip on her arm held fast. The needle came closer, closer—

Then Lucas was there, smashing into Marco from behind like a freight train.

The syringe exploded from Marco’s hand, its remains clattering at the feet of a nearby tombstone. All three dropped in a writhing heap. Val twisted aside, gasping, her hand flying to her stomach—probing, reassuring herself in the baby’s weltering presence.

Lucas was kneeling on top of Marco, pinning the old man face down, his knee on the guy’s back. He had his gun against Marco's head.

"Don't move. Don’t even breathe wrong,” Lucas snarled from behind him.

Sirens were sounding overhead. The only men of Lucas who were left had taken possession of the place; those of Marco's lay dead or captive. It was over.

She rose on unsteady legs, looking down at her crouching grandfather. This man who had ruined so many, who had crushed her mother, and endangered her child—he appeared small now, pitiful.

"Get him up," Lucas ordered.

Two of his men pulled Marco to his feet. The old man looked as if all the skin had been scraped off his face, where Lucas’ blow to the pavement had landed him, blood dripping from his nose — but he was grinning like a butcher’s dog. That was the thing about Val that gave him the biggest shiver of all — he was still smiling.
\---

Alecia heard the breach alarm, and she knew that something was really, really bad.

"What the hell is that?" “Liv leapt from the couch where she’d been reading.

Kennedy was already walking back to the bedroom. "The safe room. Now!"

The front of the apartment sounded with breaking glass and then heavy footfalls. Male voices, fast Italian. Alecia's blood froze—she recognized those tones. Marco's men.

"Move!" Kennedy reached out and grabbed Liv’s hand, tugging her in the direction of the bedroom.

Alecia heard Lucas’s security team screaming in the hallway, then gunfire. The noise in the confined space was deafening. She followed Kennedy and Liv and her heaving heart jumped from her chest.

Kennedy headed for the closet in the bedroom, shoving clothes aside.

“There is a panic room,” Kennedy said, her voice oddly steady for the fear that filled her eyes. "I saw it when we first arrived. Lucas showed me."

Alecia remembered as well; she had found it paranoid-sounding at the time. Now she was grateful for Lucas’s paranoia.

Kennedy's fingers pressed on the concealed latch behind a fake panel. The wall slid open to a small, reinforced room with monitors, supplies, a phone.

"Inside. Now."

They darted in as the bedroom door burst open, kicked from its frame.

Kennedy slapped her hand against the panel. With a hydraulic hiss, the false wall closed and left them in darkness for a moment as emergency lights pulsed on.

“oh god, oh god, ohgod.” Liv was hyperventilating.

Alecia drew her close and held her tight. "Shh. We're okay. We're safe."

But the security monitors were visible to her. Three men dressed in tactical gear were rifling through the bedroom, going through furniture, ripping drawers open. They were searching for something — or someone.

One of them had approached the closet. Too close. Alecia gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth.

The man stood there for what seemed like an eternity, his hand resting on the closet door. Then his radio crackled.

"Backup incoming! Abort! Abort!"

The men retreated, running. On the screens, Alecia saw Lucas’s backup stream into the apartment. There was another burst of gunfire, short and furious, before silence.

Kennedy was already on the panic room phone, dialing Lucas’s emergency line.

“We’re safe,” she said, her voice finally breaking now that the moment of terror had receded. "We're in the panic room. “The apartment is … it’s gone, but we’re safe.”

Alecia slid to the floor, pulling Liv down with her. And they sat there, Kennedy among them, three women in a reinforced box huddled together, and listened to the sound of violence just outside the walls.

"Val," Alecia whispered. "Is Val okay?"

Kennedy mumbled into the phone and then glanced up. "She's fine. They got Marco. It's over."
But Alecia could tell from the look in Kennedy’s eyes that it was not over. Not really. Not yet.

\---
Cemetery—Afternoon

The police were there already, as were federal agents Lucas seemed to have in his back pocket. Marco was led out of an armored transport van, handcuffed, surrounded by officers with weapons.

A few feet away, Val was wearing Lucas's jacket over her own. She was shaking, though not from cold and more likely due to adrenaline crash and the impact of everything that had just occurred.

Antonio had been right. Marco was dying, cancer consumed him from the inside. But that had not made him any less dangerous. If anything, it had sent him into desperation and recklessness.

Lucas was on the phone, texting back and forth with his crew at the safe house, calling Alecia. His free hand never left Val's shoulder, anchoring her.

Marco was at the front now, ready to be loaded in. He looked up, his gaze filled on Val outside the graveyard. Even beaten and defeated, there was something evil in his glare.

“You’ll never get them all,” he yelled, his voice echoing. "The council has contingencies. Plans within plans."

Lucas moved away from the pods, but Marco spoke on his tone making uglier darts heading directly to Val.

"And Valentina? They know the baby already. You have just killed your own children by not supporting us. Do you understand? Your daughter will never be protected. Never."

The officers manhandled him into the van, but the damage was done. Val had the wind knocked out of her.

Her phone was buzzing in her pocket. With trembling hands, she tugged it loose.

Unknown number. A photo.

Her ultrasound. The one with her first appointment, the private one that was supposed to be confidential. Health data that should have been protected.

The message beneath the image: ‘Congratulations on the girl. Such a pretty heartbeat. Shame if it were to pause. ‘

Val's legs gave out. Lucas grabbed her before she fell, his expression changing from worried to murderous when he saw the message displayed above her head.

“Get every goddamn man you can,” Lucas barked into his phone. I want to know who this came from. I want to know how they obtained her medical records. And I want them located before the sun sets. No exceptions. No mercy."

Val couldn't speak. She stared at the ultrasound image on her phone — her daughter’s small body, the flickering beat that had brought tears of joy when she’d first seen it.

Someone had that image. Someone was threatening her baby.

Marco's laughter reverberated from within the van as the doors banged to, and Val knew with cool certainty that her nightmare had only just begun.