Chapter 2 - The Empty House
We searched the industrial district for eleven hours.
Nothing.
Abandoned warehouses.
Closed loading docks.
Empty factories.
Old rail yards.
Every building connected to Rossi business interests was searched.
Still nothing.
I had men checking traffic cameras, toll gates, private parking lots, hospital records, and transit stations.
I called Isabella's closest friend.
She hadn't heard from her.
I called the priest who had married us.
Nothing.
I called the one relative she still trusted.
Nothing.
Every hour that passed made my thoughts darker.
Then Marco came into my office.
“We found something.”
I stood immediately.
“What?”
He put down a tablet.
“One camera picked up Isabella's car.”
“She drove?”
“No.”
My heart stopped.
“She was inside another vehicle.”
“What vehicle?”
“A dark blue SUV.”
“Plate?”
“Fake.”
“Who was driving?”
“We don't know.”
I stared at the screen.
Isabella sat in the passenger seat.
Her hands appeared to be tied.
But there was something else.
She was looking directly toward the rear camera.
She knew she was being recorded.
Then she mouthed something.
Marco enlarged the footage.
I stared.
She was saying one word.
Run.
I felt sick.
Not because she was begging me for help.
Because she was warning me.
The kidnappers were watching.
Whoever they were, Isabella knew they wanted me to follow.
She knew it was a trap.
And yet she had been taken anyway.
I leaned over the desk.
“Find the SUV.”
“We're trying.”
“No.”
I pointed at the image.
“She knew where the camera was.”
Marco frowned.
“She was looking for me to see it.”
“Exactly.”
I understood.
Isabella was leaving clues.
Not for the kidnappers.
For me.
She knew how I thought.
She knew I would chase.
But she also knew I would become careless if I thought she was in immediate danger.
She was trying to slow me down.
That was Isabella.
Even terrified, she was thinking.
We traced the route of the SUV.
It led toward the river.
Then vanished.
The next clue came from the strangest place.
A florist.
The owner recognized Isabella.
She had visited two days before.
“She bought white lilies,” the woman said.
“Did she say where she was going?”
“No.”
“Did anyone follow her?”
The florist hesitated.
“Yes.”
My jaw tightened.
“A woman.”
“What did she look like?”
“She was blonde.”
Older?
“No. Maybe thirty.”
“Anything else?”
The florist pointed toward a security camera.
“She paid cash.”
We took the footage.
The woman was wearing a dark coat.
Her face was hidden.
But she carried a bracelet.
A silver chain with a tiny blue stone.
I recognized it.
It belonged to Isabella's mother.
I stared at the screen.
“She had that bracelet?”
Marco nodded.
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
I did.
The kidnappers wanted me to know they had access to Isabella's family history.
They weren't random criminals.
They had researched her.
Her mother.
Her childhood.
Our marriage.
My arguments with her.
They knew about the dinner.
They knew she had asked me for a ride.
They knew I had said no.
That meant someone close to us had talked.
I looked around my office.
There were only a handful of people who knew the details of that night.
I thought of my family.
My uncle.
My cousins.
My business partners.
Then I thought of Marco.
He looked at me.
“You suspect me?”
“I suspect everyone.”
He nodded.
“That is why you're alive.”
Before we could continue, the phone rang.
This time, there was no distortion.
The same woman.
“Did you find the first clue?”
“What do you want?”
“A confession.”
“From me?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“For destroying Isabella's life.”
I stood.
“She wasn't mine to destroy.”
“No?”
“You took her.”
“Because you made it easy.”
Her voice remained calm.
“You built a beautiful prison for a woman who only wanted a home.”
Something inside me cracked.
“What does that mean?”
“You'll understand soon.”
The call ended.
Seconds later, my security system flashed.
An intrusion alert.
Someone had entered my private server.
We isolated the breach.
The access point was internal.
I looked at Marco.
“Who has clearance?”
He gave me a list.
My name.
His.
The finance director.
The chief operating officer.
And Isabella.
I stared at the last name.
“That can't be right.”
Marco's expression hardened.
“Someone used her credentials.”
“Find out who.”
We traced the login.
A security terminal at the north office.
There was footage.
A man stood in the room.
I recognized him.
Thomas Rinaldi.
One of the executives who had been at dinner.
The man who had talked about solving the dispute “the traditional way.”
He had lied about being at his apartment that night.
He had been here.
He had been accessing restricted files.
I drove to his office.
He wasn't there.
His secretary said he left two hours earlier.
We tracked his phone.
It led to a warehouse.
When we entered, it was empty.
But on the floor was another note.
You are looking in the wrong direction.
Under it was a photograph.
Isabella and her mother.
On the back:
Ask what your father did.
I stared at the photograph.
My father had been dead for twelve years.
I had spent my life believing I knew everything he had done.
Now someone wanted me to question the one history I had never challenged.
I returned home that night.
The mansion felt enormous.
Empty.
Wrong.
I walked into our bedroom.
Isabella's side of the closet was mostly empty.
I sat on the edge of the bed.
Then I noticed something.
A small mark carved beneath her nightstand.
A symbol.
Three intersecting lines.
I had seen it before.
In my father's old files.
I called Marco.
“Come upstairs.”
He arrived.
I pointed.
His face changed.
“What is it?”
“That symbol belonged to a group my father supposedly destroyed before I took over.”
“Supposedly?”
I stood.
“That is the problem.”
For twelve years, I had believed the past was buried.
Now Isabella was missing.
A stranger was calling.
My own company was compromised.
And my father's enemies were appearing from the shadows.
I realized something that frightened me more than the kidnapping itself.
Whoever took Isabella was not simply trying to hurt me.
May you like
They were trying to make me uncover something.
And they knew exactly which secrets would break me.
