I stared at my phone until the screen timed out, leaving me in total darkness. The voice—smooth, cold, and utterly devoid of the gravelly warmth I had come to associate with Asher—echoed in my ears like a death knell.
Desperation clawed at my throat. With trembling fingers, I redialed the number. I needed to hear it again. I needed to demand an answer. But this time, there was no ringing. No cold voice. The line was completely dead, as if the connection had never existed at all.
I became desperately shaken, my mind spiraling toward the one person who mattered. My son.
If Asher was really dead—if he had been taken down by the Mascots or some shadow faction lurking in the wings—then the rules of engagement had changed. In the Mafia world, bloodlines were targets. If they ever discovered that Leo was Asher's heir, his life wouldn't be worth the air he breathed.
My security at the hotel was tight, but I wasn't naive. If this unknown force was capable of taking down a King like Asher Reed, my small team of guards would be a piece of cake for them. I had to act. I had to take Leo to the only place I knew he would be safe: the last safe house I had in San Francisco. It was a secret offshore property, hidden from the public record and not even in my name. It was far from Leo's school and the hospital, but it was the only fortress I had left.
I will move him first thing in the morning, I resolved. Before the sun rises.
As I sat there, the image of Asher's face flashed before me. It wasn't the hard, cold mask he usually wore. It was a memory from five years ago—Asher laughing at something his brother had shown him, a rare, genuine moment of joy before I ever heard those forbidden, hateful words from his lips.
I shook my head violently to get rid of the image. Is he really dead? I wondered, a pang of something I couldn't name hitting my chest. Stop it, Chloe. Focus.
My hands were still shaking as I stood up and walked to the window. Outside, San Francisco was a sea of shimmering lights, but all I could see was the reflection of a woman who looked like she was unraveling at the seams.
"Think, Chloe. Think like a surgeon," I whispered to the glass, trying to find my clinical coldness.
Suddenly, my phone vibrated in my palm. It was a message with an attachment from an unknown number.
I tapped the file, and for a moment, the breath in my lungs simply ceased to exist.
It wasn't a picture of a crime scene or a threat against the hospital. It was a photo of Leo.
He was at the park, sitting on the grass from our outing just days ago. He was laughing, his small hands covered in dirt, looking at something off-camera with pure, toddler delight. It was a moment I thought was ours alone—a moment where I thought we were safe.
Beneath the photo, a single paragraph of text appeared in elegant, chilling script:
"He has a beautiful smile, Doctor. It would be such a tragedy if it faded. Tell me... how would it feel if you woke up one morning and your entire world—your precious Leo—was gone, never to be seen again?"
The phone slipped from my numb fingers, clattering onto the floor. The "False Peace" hadn't just been a week of silence. It had been a week of them standing right behind us, watching my son play, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
******