Chapter 4 - THE SECRET IN THE INK"Carmine! Carmine, answer me!" I screamed into the phone, but only the low drone of a disconnected line answered back.
I threw the phone onto the passenger seat, my chest heaving with desperate gasps. The rain continued to beat against the windshield, each drop sounding like a ticking clock counting down the end of my life.
He was alive. Carmine was somehow still breathing, but he was trapped, injured, and surrounded by corrupt forces. And his final words burned into my brain: Look at the check. Look under the stamp.
I snatched my purse from the floorboards, pulling out the $100,000 check Carmine had written me back in the kitchen.
My hands shook so violently I could barely hold the paper under the overhead cabin light. I scanned every inch of the crisp blue paper. The handwriting was sharp and precise. The amount was clearly written. But down in the bottom right corner, over Carmine's bold signature, was a small, raised dark red seal—the DeLuca family crest, stamped in wax and red ink.
I tilted the check toward the light.
Underneath the thick red ink of the seal, faint microscopic numbers were embedded into the fibers of the paper. They weren't part of the bank's routing info. They were geographical coordinates.
43.6150° N, 116.2023° W.
I pulled up the SUV's built-in GPS screen and punched in the numbers.
The screen calculated the route instantly. The coordinates led to a point just five miles outside downtown Boise: The abandoned Old Idaho State Penitentiary.
Why would Carmine hide coordinates to a historic, abandoned prison on a check he gave to me?
Suddenly, another notification flashed on the dashboard screen. An emergency news broadcast hijacked the local radio frequency:
"Breaking News from Boise Police Department. A massive fire has broken out at the private estate of businessman Carmine DeLuca. Authorities report multiple casualties. DeLuca is currently named as the prime suspect in a massive multi-state organized crime investigation. Authorities warn the public that DeLuca is armed, extremely dangerous, and believed to be traveling with an abducted female employee, Ivy Vance..."
I stared at the radio dial in sheer disbelief.
They were framing him. The media was spinning the story to make Carmine look like a rogue killer who had kidnapped me. The police weren't investigating a crime—they were covering it up for the Moretti syndicate.
And worse: they used my real last name. Ivy Vance.
They knew who I was. The entire city was now a giant trap designed to squeeze the life out of us both.
I threw the G-Wagon into drive, executed a sharp U-turn on the empty highway, and headed back toward the glowing city lights of Boise. I wasn't running to Seattle. I wasn't hiding in the shadows anymore. If Carmine had taken a bullet to protect me, I was going to pull him out of the fire—even if I had to tear the city apart to do it.
Twenty minutes later, I pulled the armored vehicle into the shadow of an overgrown gravel pit half a mile from the abandoned penitentiary. The heavy stone walls of the old prison rose against the night sky like a decaying fortress, framed by rusty watchtowers and tangled barbed wire.
I grabbed the silver revolver, tucked it into the waistband of my scrubs, and threw a black raincoat over my shoulders.
I crept through the tall weeds, slipping through a tear in the rusted chain-link fence. The air smelled of wet earth, rot, and old limestone.
"Carmine?" I whispered, my voice lost in the sighing wind.
I made my way through the dark courtyard toward the main cellblock. The heavy iron doors hung off their hinges, groaning softly in the breeze. I flicked on the small flashlight built into the key fob, sweeping the narrow beam across the crumbling concrete walls.
blood drops lined the floor.
Fresh, thick blood, trailing down the dark corridor toward the solitary confinement section known as "The Hole."
My breath hitched. I followed the crimson trail, stepping over scattered debris and broken rusted iron bars.
The trail ended at a heavy iron door at the end of the hall. The door was slightly ajar.
I pushed it open, raising the revolver with both hands. "Don't move!"
Sitting against the far wall, illuminated by a solitary hanging bulb powered by a portable generator, was Carmine DeLuca.
His shirt was completely soaked in blood, his face pale, his breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. A makeshift tourniquet was tied tightly around his thigh, and his left hand was wrapped in a torn strip of cloth.
Standing over him, holding a silenced pistol pointed directly at Carmine’s forehead, was a man in an expensive tailored navy suit.
The man turned around slowly, a dark, wicked smile spreading across his polished face.
"Well, well, well," the man purred, his voice dripping with condescending delight. "Look who finally decided to join the party. Elena's little girl."
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My eyes widened in terror as I recognized the face from the local news broadcasts.
It was District Attorney Marcus Hayes—the most powerful law enforcement official in the state of Idaho.
