Chapter 7 - The Trap Closes
Peace was an illusion that never lasted long in Dante’s world.
They returned to Chicago forty-eight hours later, under cover of darkness. The strike against the Santoro family was set for Friday night: a coordinated raid on their shipping docks that would cripple their weapons supply and force Don Salvatore to sue for peace.
Sienna was confined to the master suite in Lake Forest, guarded by four men outside her door.
On Thursday afternoon, her encrypted phone buzzed.
It was an unknown number.
Sienna frowned, picking it up. “Hello?”
“Sienna,” a weak, terrified voice wheezed over the speaker.
Her heart stopped. “Dad?”
“Sienna, baby... these men... they said you were in trouble...”
“Dad! Where are you? Who has you?” she screamed, cold panic flooding her veins.
A smooth, cruel voice took over the line. Marco Santoro.
“Hello, little bride,” Marco purred. “Your fiancé thinks he’s very clever with his private hospitals and secure wards. But unfortunately for Dante, money can’t buy absolute loyalty. A nurse on the night shift had a very large gambling debt.”
“If you touch him, I swear to God—”
“Listen to me very carefully, waitress,” Marco interrupted, his tone turning to pure venom. “You leave the estate. Right now. There is a delivery van parked by the service entrance with an open gate. Get in the back. If you alert Dante’s guards, if Dante finds out before you are in my hands, I will cut your father’s throat on a live video feed to your phone. You have ten minutes.”
The line went dead.
Sienna stood in the center of the room, her body shaking violently.
She could tell Dante. Dante would deploy his army. But Dante’s army couldn't stop a bullet already aimed at an old man’s heart. Marco was desperate, cornered, and unstable. He wanted leverage against Dante, and her father was the bait.
She couldn’t let her father die for a life she had stumbled into by accident.
Sienna wiped the tears from her face. She scribbled a single sentence on a piece of stationery on the desk, weighing it down with the emerald ring Lucia had given her.
*I’m sorry. He has my father. Don’t trade your life for mine.*
Using the service stairs she had memorized over the past week, Sienna slipped down into the laundry facility, bypassed the oblivious guard taking a smoke break by the delivery dock, and climbed into the back of the unmarked white van.
May you like
The doors slammed shut. Darkness swallowed her.
***
