Chapter 20 - The Stolen Cradle
The thunderstorm hit the cliffs of Nice with ferocious intensity, lightning splitting the black sky and illuminating the bedroom in ghostly strobes of white.
I was sitting in the rocking chair by the large panoramic window, Aurelia sleeping peacefully against my chest, wrapped in her warm woolen blanket. The rhythmic sound of the rain against the bulletproof glass had finally soothed her to sleep.
Beside my chair on the small wooden table sat a cold cup of chamomile tea and a loaded revolver Marco had given me before stationing himself outside the master bedroom door.
"Ten minutes until sunrise, little one," I whispered, kissing Aurelia’s soft cheek. "Your father will be home soon."
Suddenly, the lights flickered twice and died.
The hum of the safehouse’s heavy generators sputtered, followed by a sharp, dead silence.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. The fortress was equipped with three separate auxiliary backup power systems; they were designed never to fail simultaneously unless severed manually from the central breaker room in the basement.
"Marco?" I called out, my voice tight with sudden dread.
No answer from the corridor.
I stood up, cradling Aurelia securely against my left side with one arm, and reached for the revolver with my right hand. The metal felt ice-cold in my palm.
The heavy mahogany door to the bedroom was slightly ajar. A thin strip of darkness separated it from the hallway.
I approached silently, my bare feet making no sound on the hardwood floor. Peering through the crack, the pale lightning flashed through the hallway windows, illuminating the corridor in a brief, horrific flash.
Lying on the Persian rug outside my door was Marco.
His eyes were open, staring blankly at the ceiling, a neat, dark hole drilled between his eyebrows. Around him lay three other guards, their weapons still in their holsters, completely silenced before they could draw.
A scream caught in my throat, freezing into a choke.
Before I could retreat and lock the heavy vault bolts of the bedroom door, the shadows at the end of the hallway moved.
Two men in night-vision goggles and tactical gear stepped forward, their assault rifles leveled at my chest. But it wasn't the men who made my blood run cold.
Stepping between them, wearing a dark trench coat dripping with rainwater, was Vanessa Cole.
Her masquerade mask was gone. The ugly, jagged scar on her face twisted as her lips curled into a triumphant, psychotic grin. In her gloved hand, she held an antique, silver-plated music box that chimed a slow, haunting nursery rhyme.
"Shh," Vanessa whispered, holding a single finger to her lips. "Don't wake the princess, Elena."
I raised the revolver, leveling it directly at her heart, my hand trembling violently. "Step back! I swear to God, Vanessa, I will put a bullet through your skull!"
"You could," Vanessa said casually, taking another step forward, completely unbothered by the barrel pointed at her. "You might even hit me. But before your finger finishes pulling that trigger, my men will shred that infant into pieces. Do you want to test how fast their reflexes are, mother?"
My breath hitched. The gun in my hand suddenly felt impossibly heavy.
"What do you want?" I wept, clutching Aurelia closer to my chest, my body trembling so hard my teeth clattered. "Take the money. Take the syndicate. Take everything Adrien owns! Just leave my baby!"
"Adrien took my entire life," Vanessa hissed, her eyes blazing with a feral, terrifying madness as she stepped into the bedroom, backing me toward the panoramic window. "He took my father. He took my face. He took my birthright. And now, I am going to take his dawn."
One of the tactical operatives stepped behind me with ghost-like speed. Before I could scream, a heavy, chemical-soaked rag was clamped over my mouth and nose.
The sickly sweet smell of chloroform hit my lungs like a physical blow.
"No!" I choked, struggling with all my remaining strength, fighting to keep my grip on Aurelia. "Aurelia! No! Please!"
The room spun violently. My knees buckled beneath me. The revolver clattered uselessly to the floor.
Through the haze of encroaching blackness, I felt Aurelia being ripped from my arms. Her shrill, terrified wail echoed through the room, tearing my soul to bloody ribbons.
"Such a pretty little thing," Vanessa’s voice drifted down to me as I collapsed onto the floor, my vision tunneling into dark gray. "Adrien will tear the world apart looking for her. And by the time he finds her... she won't even know his name."
The last thing I saw before the darkness swallowed me whole was Vanessa stepping out into the storm with my daughter in her arms, leaving a single, black tarot card—The Tower—resting on the empty wooden cradle.
***
Two hours later.
The front gates of the Nice estate were pulverized as Adrien’s car smashed through the barrier, careening onto the gravel courtyard.
Adrien leaped from the vehicle before it had even fully stopped, his shotgun in hand, sprinting up the grand stone stairs two at a time. The scent of gunpowder and copper hit his nose the moment he crossed the shattered threshold.
"Marco!" he roared, flying up the grand staircase.
He found Marco’s body in the corridor. Adrien dropped to his knees for a fraction of a second, feeling the cold skin of his oldest friend’s neck, a guttural groan of agony tearing from his throat.
Then, his gaze flicked to the open master bedroom door.
"Elena!"
Adrien burst into the room.
The glass of the panoramic window had been shattered by the storm, wind and rain whipping the white silk curtains wildly into the room.
Lying unconscious on the sodden floor, bleeding from a cut on her forehead, was Elena.
Adrien dropped his weapon, falling to his knees beside her, gathering her limp body into his arms. "Elena! Wake up! Cara, please, open your eyes!"
Elena stirred, a ragged cough escaping her lips as the chloroform haze broke. Her eyelids fluttered open, dark green meeting terrified obsidian.
"Adrien..." she sobbed, clutching his soaked shirt, her fingernails digging into his flesh with wild, frantic desperation. "Adrien, she took her... Vanessa took her!"
Adrien froze. His entire body turned to stone.
Slowly, his head turned toward the corner of the room.
The white wooden cradle, carved with blooming roses, was overturned. Inside lay only the small, rain-soaked blue blanket—and resting upon it, the black tarot card.
On the nightstand, an untraceable burner phone began to ring.
The harsh, rhythmic electronic chime cut through the howling wind and Elena’s broken sobs.
Adrien stood up slowly, the grief on his face instantly freezing into a terrifying, demonic void of absolute vengeance. He walked over to the table and picked up the phone, pressing it to his ear.
"Adrien," Vanessa’s voice whispered through the receiver, backed by the faint, distant sound of an infant crying over the roar of a jet engine. "The hunt begins. You have forty-eight hours before she vanishes forever."
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The line went dead.
Adrien lowered the phone, his knuckles turning white as the plastic cracked beneath his grip. He looked down at Elena, then out into the raging, pitch-black storm over the Mediterranean, his eyes burning with a fire that promised to reduce the entire earth to ashes.
