A few days later...CLARAI woke to sunlight filtering through gauzy curtains, the warmth of morning settling softly around me. For the first time in days, I did not brace for danger. The familiar tremor in my chest ever since my abduction had finally loosened its grip. I lay still for a moment, listening to the slow, even breathing of my son, Alessandro, curled against me. His tiny hand on my arm was the sweetest alarm clock I’d ever known.I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake him, and padded barefoot into the hallway. The house felt alive with light and soft sounds. From the kitchen came the hum of conversation and the faint scent of coffee and fresh fruit. I followed the trail to find Antonia, Mateo’s mother, arranging sliced strawberries on a platter while humming a tune.“Buongiorno, cara,” she greeted me without turning. For some reason, she was determined to teach me Italian. "Did you sleep well?"“Buongiorno,” I whispered. “I… I slept well.”She smiled, still focused on
MateoThe night was too quiet. The kind of quiet that screamed of traps and unresolved bloodshed.My SUV roared through the unpaved road like a beast unleashed, headlamps slicing through the darkness. My hands were clenched tight around the wheel, but my mind was elsewhere, my thoughts thinking of one thing only, Clara.Dominic’s last ping had come from somewhere around these woods. That was over ten minutes ago. Ten minutes too long. I’d told him to focus on getting the girls to safety. This one was mine. Finding Clara was mine.I decided to change up the plans at the last minute. Like I said, I don't believe in coincidences and it was definitely not a mistake that Clara was missing the night Renzetti’s trafficked girls were set to arrive.No. This was an ambush and I'll be damned if I let them get one over me. Not when my woman's life was on the line.Because if anything happened to her…No. I wouldn’t allow myself to go there.I pressed harder on the gas. My eyes scanned the bush,
CLARAThe coldness of the concrete floor bit through my clothes as I shifted against the pillar I was chained to. My wrists throbbed from the metal cuffs.They felt tight, rough, and unforgiving. Not to talk of the fact that I had lost track of time. How long have I been here?Hours? Maybe a day? I had no way of knowing. My phone was gone. My purse, too. All I had were my thoughts and the echoing sound of footsteps outside the metal walls.To make matters worse, I was starving. These people were terrible hosts that's for sure. Apart from water that's been fed to me through a straw, I haven't had anything to eat. My boobs felt engorged and uncomfortable. I haven’t pumped in a while which only made me miss my son.Then there was this annoying human that I had the misfortune of meeting.Martha.Her presence filled the warehouse like a venomous fog, charming on the outside, but seething with cruelty underneath. She had walked in earlier, perfectly put together like someone attending a ch
MATEOClara was gone. Her phone, off. Her car, abandoned. Her scent still lingered in our bedroom like a cruel memory.I hadn’t heard from her in over twelve hours.And every second that passed was a second I could not get back.“Still no movement on street cams around where the car was found,” Dominic said, pacing beside me. “The vehicle was clean. No prints. Whoever took her knew what they were doing.”The moment I got the call, I mobilized Bruno and Dominic and we were currently at our safe house. Only a handful if people knew about this location but it was our main operation centre. It was also the location that had the most weapons, most especially our last weapon shipment.The only thing on my mind now was getting Clara back and making whoever made the mistake of taking her wish they were never born.Bruno entered, carrying a folder. “I’ve got something.”I turned to him, every muscle tense. “What is it?” I asked.He handed me a photo of a soldier. Stocky, buzzcut, a quiet face
MATEOThere are things you can't unsee.Like the glint of a rosary that should never have left your neck. The one that’s been missing for months, a family heirloom, a symbol, a legacy. A piece of myself I thought lost forever.And yet, there it was among Clara’s things.I hadn’t spoken a word. I couldn’t. My voice had dried up somewhere between disbelief and devastation after Clara explained things to me. I don’t even remember walking out of the room, only the weight of betrayal pressing against my chest, thick and unforgiving.The drive to the office was quiet as I went over everything that happened in my head over and over again. If I could turn back the hands of time, I wondered if I would have wanted to know but then I realized that there was no use worrying about something that's already happened.The good thing that's come out of this was finding out that Alessandro was my biological son but I had already thought of him as mine from the moment I first laid eyes on him. But the
CLARAI couldn’t sleep.The sheets felt like chains. The walls felt too close. And Mateo’s silence that unbearable, cutting silence echoed louder than any words ever could.I had rehearsed so many versions of that moment in my head, the moment when he’d find out about the rosary. But I never imagined it happening the way it did. I never expected the look on his face, not rage, not heartbreak, but something far worse... betrayal.After all we'd been through, hiding something like this from him was huge so I couldn’t even blame him for how he reacted.That rosary had been a secret I buried so deep within me, I almost convinced myself it didn’t matter anymore. I thought the past was just that, the past. But now, it was here, clawing at the present, tearing at the foundation we’d barely begun to build.I needed to breathe. To get out of the house. To see someone who could bring me back to myself, even for a little while, so I texted Lucaa asking her to meet for coffee.It was a bit early