“Dad, please come get me—he hit me again.” Then my daughter screamed, something crashed, and the call ended. Twenty minutes later, I found her on a white Persian rug with a swollen cheek and torn blouse while her mother-in-law smirked beside her. I covered my daughter with my coat, photographed the room, and made one call. They saw only an old man with a battered pickup—until the lead detective entered and addressed me as “Chief.”

I ran to the open window and looked down into the dark alley below.

There was no sign of Emily or whoever had taken her.

I pulled my radio and shouted for the hospital security director to lock down the building.

I sprinted toward the central security control room on the ground floor.

I kicked the door open and shoved the startled guard away from the main console.

I rewound the security footage for the fourth-floor hallway.

I watched the grainy black-and-white video intently.

Exactly two minutes after I stepped out of her room, two men in paramedic uniforms walked in.

They rolled Emily out on a stretcher thirty seconds later.

She was completely unconscious.

I tracked their movement through the hospital cameras to the underground parking garage.

They loaded her into a private ambulance with no hospital markings.

I paused the video and zoomed in on the license plate of the ambulance.

I typed the numbers into my police database.

The vehicle was registered to a shell company owned by Jessica.

I knew exactly where they were taking her.

Jessica owned a massive, heavily fortified estate on the coastal cliffs.

I grabbed my keys and ran to my pickup truck.

I did not call Miller or the active police force.

I knew the cartel had eyes and ears inside the precinct.

I had to do this alone.

I drove the speed limit to avoid drawing attention from highway patrols.

I reached the coastal highway just as the storm intensified into a massive downpour.

The entrance to Jessica's estate was blocked by a heavy iron gate and an armed guard.

I parked my truck a mile down the road and hiked through the muddy forest.

I used my old tactical knife to cut through the perimeter chain-link fence.

I slipped through the shadows until I reached the main house.

I looked through a large glass window into the expansive living room.

I saw Jessica sitting in a high-backed leather chair.

She was pointing a silver pistol directly at someone kneeling on the floor.

“Which daughter is yours?” should have been a harmless question

The first wineglass shattered at 8:07 p.m

The moment the mafia boss’s wife called me “an illiterate servant,”

It was Michael.

He was covered in bruises and begging his mother for his life.

Chapter 5 - The Hospital Camera