Chapter 5 Confrontation

(Emmeline)

I can’t breathe properly. 

I can’t think. 

My heart is beating so fast I’m worried I may pass out and there’s no time for that now. 

Jackson’s been gone for over an hour. They waited to call me until they’d searched the entire school.

I knew he was up to something this morning, I should have pushed him for an answer. 

Where could he have gone?

What if he was kidnapped?

Jackson is such a beautiful boy and there are so many predators. 

He’s smart as a whip, but he’s still 4 years old and he’ll trust anyone.

My head seems to be filled with static, thoughts coming and going arbitrarily. 

I have to do something. Anything. 

What if he’s trapped somewhere, screaming for me?

I’ll die if anything happens to him. He’s my entire life. 

The moment they put him in my arms the day he was born, I knew my heart would be living outside my chest for the rest of my life.

He wants to find his dad. He saw him on television and he has a name now, but it’s not like mafia bosses publish their addresses online. 

I type Asher Giordano into the search bar on my phone and I’m inundated with results. None of them telling me where he lives.

“I’m going to drive around and see if I can’t find him,” I tell Rosa, grabbing my keys. 

“Honey, the police are already doing that. Maybe you should go home and see if he hasn’t gone back to the apartment?” she suggest gently.

She’s right. Why didn’t I think of that? 

I can’t allow panic to get the better of me. I have to stop spinning in circles right away. I’ll find Jackson. 

Going off the rails won’t help anyone.

Tears pour silently down my cheeks and I keep scanning the sidewalks for any sign of him. 

He’s so small, would I even see him amongst the sea of people? 

His hair is like a beacon, as fiercely red as mine, but if he’s behind someone taller, that won’t help me.

I’m out of the car before it comes to a full stop, my hands shaking so badly it takes me 3 tries to get the security door downstairs unlocked. 

We’re on the 4th floor and the elevator in this old building is fickle and slow.

Taking the stairs 2 at a time, I start calling Jackson’s name when I’m on the last landing. 

There’s no response, but my heart leaps in my chest when I see the front door of our apartment is ajar. 

Maybe the super let him in? He should have called me, but I’m too grateful to really care.

“Jackson, baby, you scared me half to-” 

The words die in my throat when I rush inside and find Asher standing in the middle of my living room.

Asher.

I can’t tell whether I’m shivering or just falling apart. 

Every breath tastes like ash and panic.

“What have you done with Jackson?” I demand.  

“My son?” Asher asks calmly, looking around my small apartment disdainfully. “The one you’ve been hiding from me and forcing to live in this…pigeonhole, when I could have been taking care of him?”

My heart is a trapped bird, slamming against my chest. 

“Our son, not yours. And you’re the one who disappeared without as much as a ‘see you later’. If you left me a forwarding address to contact you at, I must have missed it.”

Asher’s brows shoot up as he regards me coldly. 

I don’t know this person. 

The boy I fell in love with was warm, giving and open. 

This man is frostier than the arctic. 

He hardly seems human to me as I stare into his glacial eyes.

“You can’t take Jackson from me, he’ll never forgive you,” I warn Asher. 

I don’t know what else to do. Asher has money, connections and hitmen. 

All I have is the desperate love of a mother for her child.

“I’m not letting him come back here,” Asher informs me with great finality. “If you want to see Jackson again, you’ll do what I say and I’ll take you to him.”

All that matters now is getting to my son. “What do you want?” 

Asher nods at me condescendingly, like I’m a pet who’s come to heel, and I want to fly at him in fury. 

I hate feeling this helpless when Jackson needs me to be strong.

“I believe you work at the DA’s office,” Asher says, his brow wrinkled in distaste. “If you wish to be reunited with Jackson, you’ll resign with immediate effect and tell me exactly what they think they have on me.”

“I need that job. I can’t just resign-” 

I start to protest, before Asher abruptly interrupts me. 

“You have one minute to decide. Do as I say, or never see Jackson again. The clock is ticking.”