Chapter 5 - The Kidnapping Attempt Happened Before Midnight—But My Daughter Saw the Man No Adult Could IdentifyThe estate went into lockdown.
Every door was secured.
Every vehicle checked.
Every guard replaced.
At 11:43 p.m., the nursery alarm activated.
Lorenzo ran upstairs.
Isabella's bedroom window was open.
No broken glass.
No forced entry.
Someone had entered through the roof access.
The security camera showed a man wearing black.
His face was covered.
He moved directly toward Isabella's bed.
But before he could reach her, Emma appeared in the hallway.
She had woken because of a nightmare.
The intruder froze.
Emma pointed at him.
“You're the man from the kitchen.”
He turned.
Then fled.
Vincent chased him.
The man escaped through a service tunnel.
But Emma had seen his face for a second.
I knelt beside her.
“Sweetheart, what did he look like?”
She frowned.
“He had a red mark.”
“Where?”
She pointed at her own neck.
“Here.”
Vincent found the abandoned jacket.
Inside was a photograph.
A scarred man.
His name was Cole Mercer.
A former enforcer who had worked for Gabriel Varga.
And beside his photograph was another document.
A medical history.
Cole had been hired to kidnap Isabella.
But the strange part was this:
Someone had paid him from inside Lorenzo's company.
The account belonged to Vincent.
For the second time that day, suspicion turned toward him.
Lorenzo looked at his chief of operations.
“Did you hire him?”
Vincent shook his head.
“No.”
“Your account paid him.”
“Then someone accessed it.”
Lorenzo's voice was cold.
“You said the same thing about the footage.”
Vincent stared at him.
“I know.”
He reached into his coat.
Pulled out a gun.
Every guard raised their weapons.
Vincent dropped it immediately.
“I want you to see something.”
He opened his phone.
A photo appeared.
It showed a man inside a secret warehouse.
The man was Mateo.
Alive.
Standing beside Gabriel Varga.
And between them sat Mrs. Carlisle.
The three people behind the entire operation.
But Vincent had one more revelation.
“Mateo isn't working against you.”
Lorenzo stared.
May you like
“Then what is he doing?”
“Trying to protect Isabella.”
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