Safe House

Safe House
Isabella's POV

"I'm Don Kozlov's daughter?" I let go of Dante's phone as if it had burned me.

The words were illogical. They were incomprehensible. My name was Isabella Cross, and my parents were Vincent and Marie Cross. I had pictures, memories, and a whole life that demonstrated my identity.

However, Dante's phone message conveyed a different message. An impossibility.

"This has to be a lie," I uttered in a trembling voice. "One more ruse. The Kozlovs are merely attempting to perplex us.

Nico and Dante looked at each other once more. The one that implied they were aware of something I was not.

"Show her," Dante muttered.

Nico showed me the picture he had received earlier after taking out his own phone. Don Alessandro's handwritten list. There are six names. Five kids passed away. My name is at the bottom, along with the words "The one who survived."

"Vincent Cross saved you," Nico remarked. "Like the others, he was meant to kill you, but he was unable to do so. Thus, he adopted you and brought you up as his own daughter.

My legs failed me. With my head spinning, I took a firm seat on the floor.

"My whole life is a lie?"

"Not all of it," Dante remarked as he knelt next to me. "You were loved by Vincent. That was true. He shielded you from those who wanted you dead for twenty-five years."

"But my mother—Marie—she's not my real mother?"

"We don't know," Nico acknowledged. "Your birth parents are not mentioned on the list. simply because you were a member of the Kozlov family."

The woman who reared me came to mind. Mom, as I called her. Before she passed away, she had been afflicted with cancer for two years. She never once told me the truth during all that time and suffering.

Did she even know?

"When did they take me?" I muttered. "How old was I?"

"Based on the dates, you were probably a baby," Dante remarked. "Maybe a few months old."

A baby. I was raised by people who weren't my biological parents after being taken as a baby. The foundation of my entire identity was a lie.

The door flew open. Breathing heavily, Marco hurried in.

He declared, "The Kozlovs have the entire block surrounded." "We need to move now."

"We just got here," Dante objected.

"And they already found us." Marco drew his firearm. "They must have been tracking us somehow."

I glanced down at my attire. Marco had given me the bulletproof clothing earlier. the tracking-equipped shoes.

"It's me," I declared. "They're tracking me."

Marco's face turned white. "The attire. When we weren't looking, they must have planted something."

"Or the box," Nico remarked, indicating the location where I had placed it. "Knowing the Kozlovs would eventually come for it, Vincent might have put a tracker in it."

Grabbing the box, Dante opened it. He checked every nook and cranny inside. Then he reached into the false bottom compartment and discovered something.

A fingernail-sized chip of metal.

"Found it." Under his heel, he crushed it. "But if they were tracking us, they already know we're here."

We heard shouting from outside as if to bolster his argument. Automobile doors slamming. Steps on the stairs are heavy.

"Back exit," Marco ordered. "Now."

We dashed to a window leading to a fire escape through the apartment. Dante went first, then assisted me in getting through. Despite his injured shoulder, Nico trailed behind, followed by Marco.

Bullets began striking the surrounding metal halfway down the fire escape.

"Go!" Marco yelled and shot back.

We hurried down as quickly as we could. The rusty metal caused my hands to slip. Fear made my heart feel like it might burst.

A car was waiting for us when we got to the ground. Elena took the wheel.

She shouted, "Get in!" through the open window.

"Elena?" I was astounded by what I saw. "How did you—"

"Later on, explanations! "Go!"

We crammed ourselves into the vehicle. Before Marco had even closed his door, Elena hit the accelerator. With bullets pursuing us, we fired down the alley.

"How did you find us?" Dante insisted.

Elena said, "Luca told me to follow at a distance," while keeping her gaze on the road. "He said I should be prepared to remove you if something went wrong."

"Luca knew we'd be compromised?"

"He suspected it." I was thrown against Nico when Elena made a sharp turn. "He also gave me a message for Isabella."

"What message?"

Elena looked in the rearview mirror at me. "I should tell you the truth about your mother if things don't work out," he said. Your actual mother."

I gasped. "What about her?"

"She's not dead," Elena declared. For twenty-five years, she has been under witness protection. Luca is also aware of her location.

With the exception of the engine, the car fell silent.

"My mother is alive?" I was having trouble speaking.

"Luca said that." Elena looked in the mirror. "He added that she has spent her entire life looking for you. By threatening to kill you if she ever attempted to contact you, the Kozlovs kept her at bay.

The world seemed to be tilted sideways. My dad was still living. My biological mother was still alive. There was nothing about my family that I believed to be true.

I said, "Where is she?"

"That's the problem," Elena stated. "The only person who knew was Luca. The Kozlovs now have him.

Dante muttered obscenities. "They'll torture it out of him."

"Not if we get to him first," Marco replied.

"How?" Nico enquired. "We don't even know where they're holding him."

Elena drove into an abandoned parking garage after making another turn. After turning off the engine, she looked at us.

"Actually," she replied, "I might know where he is."

We all gazed at her.

Elena went on, "I heard the Kozlovs talking before you arrived when they had me at the apartment." They talked about transporting inmates to an abandoned warehouse near the docks. The same place where the five kids were murdered twenty-five years ago.

My stomach fell. "Are they bringing Luca to the location where kids were killed?"

"It's worse than that," Elena uttered in a trembling voice. "They told me they were preparing something for dawn. A ceremony of some sort. a custom.

"What kind of ritual?" Dante enquired.

Elena's terrified gaze was fixed on me.

"What they began 25 years ago will be completed. The sixth child will be sacrificed. She hesitated. "Isabella, you will be sacrificed. And before they kill Luca, they're going to make him watch."

In my pocket, my phone buzzed. An unknown number sent a message.

Little bird, tick tock. In three hours, dawn will arrive. We might allow the Romano brothers to live if you come to the warehouse. Everyone you love will scream as you flee.

Below the message, a picture loaded.

It depicted a big room with symbols painted in what appeared to be blood on the floor. There was a stone altar in the middle.

A woman who resembled me exactly but was older was tied to that altar.

My actual mom.

"Your mother has been waiting twenty-five years to see you again," the message went on. Don't let her down. Come by yourself, or she will perish first.