Chapter 14 - The Empty Restraints
They found Serena’s restraints on the floor.
The guard assigned to her was unconscious but breathing.
Tomas swore. “Inside help again.”
Valeria was tired of that phrase.
“Check every guard’s phone. Every car. Every door.”
It took eight minutes to find the betrayal.
Marco Dane, one of Tomas’s senior men, had disabled the kitchen camera, freed Serena, and driven her out through a catering gate during the ventilation panic.
He had worked for the Romanos for eleven years.
Tomas looked personally wounded.
“Why?”
Marco’s bank records answered: six payments from a company tied to Victor Sanz.
Luca gave a bitter laugh. “Everybody has a price.”
Maya looked at him. “That’s what greedy people tell themselves so they can sleep.”
Valeria almost smiled.
Then Tomas showed her something else.
Marco had sent Victor a message twenty minutes earlier.
THE BOY IS STILL IN EAST BEDROOM. TWO GUARDS.
Valeria’s blood turned to ice.
She ran.
The east bedroom door was open.
One guard lay bleeding on the carpet. The second was gone.
“Noah!”
The bed was empty.
The window stood open.
Then a tiny voice came from the bathroom.
“Mom?”
She ripped the door open.
Noah was sitting inside the bathtub with his bear.
He threw himself into her arms.
“The guard told me to run when the other man came.”
“Which guard?”
“Mr. Eddie.”
Eddie Ruiz, twenty-six, quiet, new father, one of Tomas’s youngest men.
He had apparently fought Marco and chased him through the window.
Tomas looked outside.
Blood dotted the stone terrace.
They followed it to the hedge line.
Eddie lay there, conscious but badly hurt.
He grabbed Tomas’s sleeve.
“Marco took a radio. He knows you’re going to Pier Nine.”
Valeria crouched beside him. “You saved my son.” Eddie gave a weak smile. “That’s the job.”
May you like
His eyes shifted toward Noah’s bear.
Then he whispered, “Mrs. Romano… that bear just started transmitting again.”
