Chapter 9 - THE SAFE HOUSE TRAITOR
Marisol led them through the tunnel to an abandoned maintenance building.
A second police team arrived twenty minutes later.
One officer had been killed in the ambush.
Three were injured.
The attackers escaped.
Someone had known the altered route.
Only five people possessed that information.
Marisol.
Gabriel.
Luca.
The federal safe-house coordinator.
And Bianca.
Luca did not believe Bianca had warned Salvatore after exposing the threat.
Marisol investigated the coordinator.
His bank account showed a recent deposit from a construction company controlled by Salvatore.
The betrayal had reached federal protection.
They abandoned the official safe house.
Elena chose a place no one in Luca’s world knew.
A small dance studio owned by her friend, Mariah Collins.
The studio occupied the second floor of an old brick building above a closed bakery.
Maya had taken lessons there since she was four.
Luca entered through a freight elevator.
There were no marble floors.
No armed guards in visible positions.
No servants waiting for instructions.
For the first time in years, Luca slept in an ordinary room with a folding table beside his bed.
Maya slept nearby on a pile of dance mats.
Tommy took the space closest to the stairwell because he believed that made him a guard.
Before sunrise, Luca woke to pain in his left foot.
Not the dull pressure he sometimes imagined.
A sharp, burning pain.
He called Naomi Chen.
She arrived with portable testing equipment.
After examining him, she smiled.
“The compound level is falling.”
“Why does that hurt?”
“Because your nerves are transmitting signals they have not carried in years.”
Luca stared at his foot.
“Can I walk?”
“Not today.”
“Eventually?”
“I cannot promise.”
“But there is a possibility.”
Naomi explained that treatment would require months or years.
His muscles had weakened severely.
Some nerve pathways might never recover.
Luca looked toward Maya.
She was standing near the mirrored wall, practicing the same turn she had repeatedly failed on the baseball field.
She spun.
She stumbled.
This time, she did not fall.
Luca placed both hands on the arms of his chair.
He tried to move his left foot.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
A small tremor passed through his shoe.
Maya saw it in the mirror.
She turned with a smile.
“I told you.”
The moment lasted only seconds.
Then Tommy’s phone vibrated.
He owned an old prepaid device used only to contact his aunt.
A photograph appeared on the screen.
It showed his aunt tied to a chair inside the abandoned greenhouse.
May you like
A message followed.
“BRING MAYA, OR TOMMY LOSES HIS LAST FAMILY.”
