Chapter 6 - The Kidnapping
Phase two began at 11:40 on a rainy Tuesday.
Claire left a board meeting with Dominic's security team.
She was supposed to go directly home.
Instead, a delivery truck blocked the street.
One of the guards stepped forward.
Another car approached from behind.
The moment the team reacted, three men emerged.
Claire was pulled backward.
She screamed.
“Adrian!”
But the city swallowed her voice.
A hood covered her face.
The world went dark.
When she woke, she was in a warehouse.
Her wrists were tied.
Her stomach hurt.
She immediately panicked.
“My baby.”
A man stepped forward.
“Relax.”
Claire glared at him.
“If you touch me—”
He laughed.
“You still think Adrian can save you?”
“You have no idea who you're dealing with.”
“Oh, I do.”
He placed a photograph in front of her.
Adrian.
Her.
The ultrasound.
“You're the one thing he can't afford to lose.”
Claire realized something.
They didn't want her dead.
They wanted Adrian to surrender.
“What do you want?”
“The ledger.”
“I don't have it.”
“You know where it is.”
“Yes.”
She lied.
The man smiled.
“We'll see.”
In New York, Adrian knew within four minutes.
He had never moved so fast.
Security footage showed Claire being taken.
Adrian watched the recording once.
Then again.
His hands shook.
Dominic stood beside him.
“We'll find her.”
Adrian's voice was cold.
“No.”
Dominic looked at him.
“This time I won't be the man who hides behind other people.”
He picked up his phone.
“Lock down the city.”
Within hours, every Moretti asset was searching.
Banks.
Cameras.
Vehicles.
Warehouse leases.
Shipping records.
Claire's disappearance became the most important operation Adrian had ever ordered.
But he remembered her words.
I don't want our child raised around this.
So he called the police.
Then federal investigators.
Then every legal contact he had.
No bodies.
No executions.
No disappearing suspects.
He wanted Claire back alive and clean.
At the warehouse, Claire had learned something important.
Her captor was Elliot Crane.
She recognized him from the financial files.
“You.”
He smiled.
“You found my numbers.”
“Yes.”
“I should have known you would.”
He crouched beside her.
“Your father was brilliant.”
Claire stared at him.
“You knew my father?”
“I knew of him.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
Elliot smiled.
“You're asking the wrong question.”
“What question should I ask?”
“Why did your father trust the Moretti family with the ledger?”
Claire froze.
“What?”
“Because he thought Adrian's father would eventually change.”
Elliot stood.
“He was wrong.”
Claire felt a terrible realization.
Her father hadn't hidden the ledger to destroy the Morettis.
He had hidden it because he believed one Moretti might someday use it to destroy the people who had corrupted the family.
Adrian.
The ledger was never meant to be a weapon.
It was meant to be a key.
A key to ending the cycle.
At midnight, Adrian found the warehouse.
He entered alone.
Elliot had expected twenty armed men.
Instead, Adrian walked through the door unarmed.
“You want the ledger.”
“Yes.”
“Take me instead.”
Claire stared at him.
“No.”
Adrian looked at her.
“I said take me.”
Elliot laughed.
“The great Adrian Moretti offering himself for his wife.”
Adrian's eyes never left Claire.
“She is my wife.”
The words echoed through the warehouse.
Three years late.
But true.
Elliot demanded the ledger.
Adrian said, “It's with me.”
Claire knew he was lying.
Elliot didn't.
He ordered one of the men to search Adrian.
Nothing.
Then police sirens sounded outside.
Elliot panicked.
The lights went out.
Chaos erupted.
Dominic's team breached through the side.
Police entered from another direction.
Claire was grabbed by one of the guards.
Adrian tackled him.
She fell.
Adrian caught her.
“Claire.”
She clung to him.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“The baby?”
“I think we're okay.”
He closed his eyes.
For one moment, the feared Adrian Moretti disappeared.
He was simply a terrified husband holding the woman he almost lost.
Elliot escaped.
But only temporarily.
Three days later, authorities arrested him at the Canadian border.
The evidence was overwhelming.
He had financed the kidnapping.
He had worked with Halstead.
And he had murdered at least one man tied to Thomas Bennett.
But Victor Halstead was still free.
More importantly, he now knew the ledger existed.
Claire told Adrian everything.
The locket.
The hidden sheet.
The messages.
“My father wanted you to find it.”
Adrian stared at her.
“Why?”
“Because he thought you might be different.”
Adrian shook his head.
“I wasn't.”
Claire looked at him.
“You are now.”
That night, Adrian sat on the floor beside the bed.
Claire looked down at him.
“You don't have to sleep there.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you?”
He looked up.
“Because I still don't know if I deserve to stand beside you.”
Claire's heart hurt.
“That isn't your decision.”
He stared at her.
“What?”
“You don't get to decide whether you're worthy.”
She took his hand.
“You show me.”
He squeezed her fingers.
“I will.”
May you like
Outside, the city remained dangerous.
But the distance between them was finally shrinking.
