Chapter 6 - The Inside Man
Hannah stared at her glowing phone screen, completely frozen by the unexpected caller ID.
She had specifically left her location services on because Peter always checked in after her late shifts.
Dominic noticed her hesitation and aggressively snatched the phone from her trembling hand.
He told her that answering any calls right now could allow the Moretti hackers to triangulate their exact position.
He brutally crushed the cheap smartphone beneath the heel of his expensive leather shoe.
Hannah angrily pushed him, demanding to know why he had to destroy her only connection to the outside world.
She argued that Peter was just a harmless restaurant manager who was probably worried about her disappearance.
Dominic looked at her with a mixture of pity and deeply ingrained cynicism.
He coldly explained that innocent bystanders did not usually call someone who had just been kidnapped by the mafia.
He walked over to a dusty crate in the corner and pulled out a heavy, encrypted military radio.
He tuned the frequency to a secure channel, trying to contact his most loyal lieutenants for immediate backup.
Static hissed violently through the speaker, indicating that their signal was being intentionally jammed.
Hannah sat down on a rusted metal folding chair, pulling Emma onto her lap for comfort.
Lily and Grace immediately huddled against her legs, completely exhausted by the endless terror of the night.
She looked at Dominic, who was pacing the floor like a caged, dangerous animal.
She realized that beneath his terrifying exterior, he was just a desperate father trying to protect his children.
She softly told him that they needed a real plan because they could not hide in this warehouse forever.
Dominic stopped pacing and looked at her, clearly surprised by the sudden strength in her voice.
He admitted that his entire security network had been compromised from the inside.
Someone highly placed within his organization had sold all of his security codes directly to the Morettis.
He needed to get Hannah and the girls out of the country on a private cargo ship by dawn.
Suddenly, a loud, metallic clank echoed from the rear loading dock of the abandoned warehouse.
Dominic instantly raised his weapon, gesturing for Hannah to stay perfectly quiet and hide behind the heavy crates.
He crept silently toward the shadows, his finger lightly resting on the trigger of his gun.
The heavy metal door slowly creaked open, revealing a familiar, terrified face in the dim moonlight.
It was Peter, her manager from the restaurant, holding a suppressed pistol with shaking hands.
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Peter looked directly at Hannah’s hiding spot and whispered a chilling apology.
He said the Morettis had promised to pay off his massive gambling debts if he simply planted a tracker on her uniform.
