Chapter 4
“Because Daniel left a note with the key.” She reached into her pocket and unfolded a piece of paper she had carried for three years. On it were six words written in Daniel’s handwriting:
**IF THEY FIND LILY, RUN. DON'T TRUST ANYONE.**
Dante read the sentence twice.
Then his phone rang.
The caller ID showed a number that had been disconnected three years ago.
He answered.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then a man's voice whispered, “You should never have taken the little girl upstairs.”
Dante's eyes hardened.
The voice continued, “Now they know where she is.”
The call ended.
Dante slowly lowered the phone and looked toward Lily.
Whatever had started three years ago was no longer hiding in the shadows.
It had come for her.
The silence in the penthouse was heavy enough to press against the glass windows overlooking the glittering skyline of Manhattan. Dante Valenti lowered the burner device, his jaw locked like granite, his cold gray eyes fixed straight on the brass key resting in Emma’s trembling palm.
Julian stepped closer without a sound, his posture tightening into that familiar, lethal readiness forged across thirteen violent years of absolute survival. He did not ask who had spoken on the dead line; he only watched his boss’s face and waited for the order to kill.
“Pack only what fits in one coat,” Dante said, his voice flat, low, and stripped entirely of hesitation. “We do not sleep in this tower tonight. If they tracked the number to my private line, someone inside our outer perimeter sold the frequency.”
Emma pulled Lily against her knees, her eyes wide with terror as she smoothed her daughter’s tangled blond hair. “Where can we possibly run? Daniel always said that if these people ever surfaced, there wouldn’t be a single safe room left in the state.”
“Your husband ran because he was alone, Mrs. Harper,” Dante answered quietly, buttoning his dark wool coat and checking the slide of the customized automatic nestled under his arm. “You are not alone anymore. Julian, bring the armored Suburban to the freight bay, not the garage.”
Lily looked up at Dante through her fringe of hair, tucking the one-eyed stuffed rabbit under her left arm. “Are you putting on your big muscles now, Mr. Dante? Are we going to go hurt the bad man who hides near the kitchen door?”
Dante paused, kneeling slowly until his cold gaze leveled with her wide, honest eyes. “We are going to make sure that man never looks at your window again, Lily. But you have to hold your mother’s hand, and you do not make a sound.”