Chapter 3 - Secrets in the Safehouse
The safehouse wasn't a house at all. It was an industrial-grade bunker disguised as a defunct shipping warehouse along the Portland docks, smelling of old salt, diesel, and rust.
As soon as the heavy steel blast doors locked shut behind us, Noah began to cry in earnest.
"I want to go home, Mama! I want my room!" he sobbed, clutching his blue plush rabbit—which I had instinctively grabbed from the stroller before we fled—so hard his knuckles turned white.
"Shh, baby, I know. I'm right here," I cooed, rocking him back and forth against my chest as we stood in the middle of a high-tech surveillance room lined with monitors flickering with live feeds of the city streets.
Daniel stood by the main console, barking orders into a secure satellite phone, his voice cold, clipped, and utterly devoid of human warmth. Watching him command his men sent a familiar shiver down my spine. This was the man who controlled the East Coast docks, the man who could make a person vanish with a single nod.
And he was my son's father.
"Secure the perimeter, double the watch on the north loading bay, and find out who leaked our location in the district," Daniel barked, hanging up the phone with a sharp click.
He turned around, his dark eyes instantly finding us. He walked over slowly, his footsteps echoing in the cavernous room. When he stopped a few feet away, he looked down at Noah, who was still burying his face in my neck, trying to hide from the terrifying stranger.
"Is he... is he okay?" Daniel asked, his voice dropping an octave, losing its predatory edge and sounding, for the first time, uncertain.
"He’s terrified, Daniel," I snapped, my protective instincts flaring up like wildfire. "Which is a direct result of you and your bloody syndicate tracking us down! If you had just stayed away—"
"Stayed away?" Daniel’s voice flashed with sudden, suppressed fury. He took a sharp step closer, towering over me. "You ran away while I was recovering from a hit that nearly took my life, Emily! You took a piece of my soul with you and spent four years hiding in the shadows, leaving me to wonder if my child was even alive!"
"I protected him!" I screamed back, tears finally breaking free and spilling down my cheeks. "You were bleeding out on a warehouse floor in Brooklyn when I found out I was pregnant! Your enemies were blowing up your cars, hunting your inner circle, and tearing your empire apart! What was I supposed to do? Raise a baby in the crossfire of a mafia war?"
Daniel froze.
The anger drained out of him, leaving behind a hollow, haunted expression. He looked at Noah, then back at me, his chest rising and falling heavily.
"You thought I wouldn't protect you?" he whispered, his voice cracking slightly. "You thought I wouldn't burn the entire world to the ground to keep you both safe?"
"I couldn't take that risk," I said, my voice dropping to a trembling whisper. "Not with a baby."
Before Daniel could answer, a loud, jarring beep echoed through the room.
Marcus bolted upright from the monitoring station, his face pale. "Boss... we've got movement on the thermal cameras outside the west sector."
Daniel’s head snapped toward the screens.
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On the monitor, three thermal heat signatures were cutting through the dense fog near the water, moving with terrifying speed and precision straight toward our hidden entrance.
"They didn't just follow us," Daniel muttered, his eyes narrowing into slits of pure ice. "Someone on my own payroll gave us up."
