Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN THEY FAILED TO TAKE
By the time Adrian was told I had been kidnapped, I was sitting inside a twenty-four-hour laundromat three miles away.
Alive.
Bleeding from one elbow.
Furious.
And completely certain somebody inside my husband’s organization had just tried to take me.
An elderly woman folding sheets kept glancing at me.
I probably looked insane.
Bare feet.
Oversized housekeeper’s uniform.
Wet hair.
A bruise forming along my shoulder.
“Phone?” I finally asked.
She pointed toward the counter.
The clerk let me use his.
There was only one number I trusted myself to remember.
Mara Whitmore answered on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
“Mara.”
Silence.
Then:
“Claire?”
“I need you to come get me.”
My college roommate had become one of Chicago’s least patient divorce attorneys.
She asked no questions.
Twenty-seven minutes later, her old Subaru stopped outside.
The second I climbed in, she looked at me.
“Do I call the police, an ambulance, or somebody with a shovel?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That’s concerning.”
I told her enough.
Not everything.
Not the kiss.
I couldn’t say that part aloud yet.
Mara drove me to a small condo she kept near Lincoln Park for clients who needed somewhere private during ugly separations.
Nobody in Adrian’s world knew it existed.
At least, I hoped not.
Meanwhile, Adrian stood inside the abandoned bakery truck.
The blood was not mine.
That was the first thing his doctor confirmed.
“Male. Probably the driver.”
Adrian turned to Nicholas.
“Where is Frank Bellini?”
The regular delivery driver had never reached the estate.
His wife said he left home at 3:50.
His truck was found forty minutes later.
Frank was discovered bound inside the bakery’s walk-in storage room.
Alive.
A different man had driven his truck through Adrian’s gate.
A man Adrian’s security had waved inside because the license plate was authorized.
Someone had replaced the driver.
Someone had disabled the camera.
Someone knew exactly what time I would leave.
Elena stood near the truck, shaken.
“This happened because of me.”
Adrian turned.
“No.”
“She left because she saw me kiss you.”
“Yes.”
The word hit Elena harder than denial would have.
Adrian continued.
“But Claire wasn’t supposed to become somebody else’s target because I failed her.”
He looked at Nicholas.
“Tell every man in this organization one thing. Claire is not running from Bellandi protection.”
His jaw tightened.
“She is running from me.”
Nicholas looked confused.
Adrian held up my note.
“And there is a difference.”
Back at Mara’s condo, I showered and borrowed clothes.
When I opened the housekeeper’s coat to throw it away, something fell from the lining.
A phone.
Not mine.
Tiny.
Black.
Disposable.
It began ringing.
Mara and I stared at each other.
“Please tell me you put that there.”
“No.”
I answered.
Nobody spoke.
Then a distorted voice said:
“You weren’t supposed to get out of the truck.”
My blood turned cold.
“What do you want?”
“Something your husband’s father left behind.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You will.”
The call ended.
A message followed.
One photograph.
Elena Russo sitting across from a man in a Chicago restaurant two nights before she came to our estate.
I recognized him instantly.
Marco Bellandi.
Adrian’s cousin.
His consigliere.
The man who had stood beside Adrian at our wedding.
May you like
Under the photograph were six words.
ASK WHY THEY NEEDED YOU GONE.
