Chapter 3 - The Safehouse
The silence in the freezing woods was heavier than the gunfire we had just escaped.
I snatched Lily’s carrier away from Roman, my maternal instincts flaring defensively.
“You’re out of your mind,” I snapped, backing away from the billionaire crime boss.
“I found her abandoned at a hospital in Queens seven months ago.”
Roman stared at my daughter with an intensity that made my blood run cold.
“My wife, Victoria, was kidnapped by Kincaid’s men eight months ago while pregnant with the triplets,” Roman explained, his voice hollow.
“She escaped a month later, but she was never the same.”
Dante interrupted, crashing through the brush with the two other screaming newborns strapped to his chest.
“Boss, they are sweeping the woods with thermal scopes,” Dante warned urgently.
“We need to reach the bunker now.”
Roman broke his gaze away from Lily and took the lead, guiding us deeper into the treacherous terrain.
We marched for another agonizing hour until we reached a camouflaged steel door built directly into the side of a rocky hill.
Roman punched a code into the keypad, and the heavy door hissed open.
We hurried inside the underground safehouse, and Dante instantly engaged the deadbolts.
The bunker was highly advanced, stocked with medical supplies, weapons, and a fully functioning nursery.
I immediately set to work, helping to feed and change the three exhausted newborns while Lily slept in a nearby crib.
Roman watched me work with a strange, softening expression on his hardened face.
Once the babies were settled, I walked over to the command desk to find a clean towel.
My hand brushed against a thick manila folder labeled with the name of the Queens hospital where I had found Lily.
I opened the folder, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Inside was a stack of security photographs taken from the hospital's nursery wing on the exact night I found my daughter.
The images showed a woman in a dark coat placing a baby in a basket near the door.
I flipped to the clearest photo of the woman’s face and let out a sharp gasp.
It was the same woman from the newspaper clippings about Roman’s tragically deceased wife.
May you like
But she wasn't just dropping off a baby.
In the final photograph, Victoria Vale was looking directly at the security camera, holding a gun to the head of a terrified nurse.
