Chapter 3 - The Price of Survival
The stranger on the phone laughed and hung up before Adrian could say another word.
I slammed on the brakes and brought the heavy SUV to a screeching halt in an empty alleyway.
Panic seized my chest and made it impossible to breathe.
My mother was the entire reason I had signed the surrogacy contract in the first place.
I grabbed Adrian’s shirt and demanded to know who had taken her.
His expression hardened into a mask of pure lethal intent.
He swore to me that he would burn the city to the ground to get her back.
I rested my forehead against the steering wheel and tried to stop my hands from shaking.
We were completely alone in the dark with a newborn baby and a dangerous cartel hunting us.
Adrian guided my hand to the gearshift and told me to drive to an address on the edge of the industrial district.
It was a hidden safe house that even his traitorous bodyguard did not know about.
We arrived at a rundown warehouse that looked abandoned for decades.
I helped Adrian into a spare wheelchair we found inside the heavily fortified security room.
The space was stocked with medical supplies, weapons, and a secure computer server.
I gently laid my sleeping baby into a makeshift crib made from soft blankets.
I turned to Adrian and told him I was going to trade myself to the cartel for my mother.
I argued that I was the last Romano and the only prize they truly wanted.
He grabbed my arm and strictly forbade me from throwing my life away.
He reminded me that our son needed a mother and he could not raise him alone.
I screamed that I could not let my mother die for my mistakes.
I turned away from him and reached for the heavy metal door handle.
A sudden mechanical hum echoed through the silent room.
I turned around and gasped in absolute shock.
Adrian was standing perfectly upright without holding onto his wheelchair.
He looked down at me and confessed he had regained the use of his legs months ago.
He had faked his paralysis to weed out the traitors hiding in his inner circle.
Before I could process this massive deception, the computer monitor flared to life.
An incoming encrypted video call flashed urgently on the screen.
I answered the call and saw my mother tied to a chair in a dark basement.
The man holding the camera stepped into the light to reveal his face.
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Adrian collapsed to his knees as he recognized the attacker.
It was his older brother who had supposedly died in a car explosion ten years ago.
