Chapter 8 - Beneath Saint AgnesSaint Agnes no longer looked like a hospital.
It looked like a mistake the city had tried to forget.
The old church structure above it had been demolished years earlier, leaving behind a fenced-off lot between two luxury developments and a half-finished parking garage. Snow gathered over cracked concrete. A faded sign warned trespassers away in three languages.
Roman stood across the street beneath the shadow of an abandoned warehouse, wearing a black coat and no expression.
Emma watched from inside the SUV with Lily asleep against her lap.
She hated herself for being there.
She hated Roman for being right that she had to be close enough to identify Caleb if he appeared.
Most of all, she hated Caleb for being alive somewhere in this city while their daughter slept without knowing whether she was about to lose him again.
Vincent sat in the driver’s seat, monitoring four separate screens.
“No movement yet,” he said.
Roman’s voice came through the earpiece Emma had reluctantly accepted. “They’ll wait until midnight.”
Emma looked at the dashboard clock.
11:46 p.m.
Every minute felt like a hand around her throat.
Roman had not allowed Lily to be used. He had made sure of that. A second SUV had left his building with a decoy car seat, three guards, and a child-sized bundle wrapped in Lily’s coat. If anyone was watching, they would follow the wrong vehicle.
Lily herself had been dressed in plain pajamas and hidden beneath Emma’s coat while they exited through a laundry service tunnel connected to a neighboring building.
It was absurd.
Terrifying.
The kind of thing Emma would have laughed at yesterday.
Yesterday, her biggest fear had been getting fired.
Now she was sitting near an abandoned hospital foundation waiting for criminals to trade the father of her child for a two-year-old girl.
“Tell me about Caleb,” Roman said suddenly through the earpiece.
Emma looked toward the warehouse. She could see him only as a silhouette.
“This is not the time.”
“It may be the only time.”
She swallowed.
Lily stirred but did not wake.
Emma looked down at her daughter. “He fixed things.”
Roman was silent.
“Cars mostly,” she continued. “But also cabinets, broken heaters, a neighbor’s wheelchair ramp. He pretended to hate being asked, then showed up with tools before anyone finished explaining.”
Roman’s face was hidden, but Emma imagined the pain.
“He was always hungry,” she said. “Not normal hungry. Like he forgot meals were a thing until he smelled food. I used to tease him about it.”
Roman’s voice came softly. “He used to hide dinner in napkins. Save it for later.”
Emma closed her eyes.
Of course he had.
A boy locked in cellars learned to save food.
“He never told me,” she whispered.
“He wouldn’t.”
“Did you?”
Roman did not answer right away.
Then he said, “No.”
Something passed between them then. Not forgiveness. Not trust. Something more fragile.
A recognition of two people who had loved the same man and been lied to by him for different reasons.
Vincent leaned forward. “Movement.”
Emma’s heart seized.
On the screen, headlights appeared near the lot.
A white van rolled to a stop beside the fence.
Two men stepped out.
Then a woman.
Emma’s fingers tightened around Lily.
The woman wore red gloves.
Roman’s silhouette shifted.
Vincent muttered, “Hold position.”
The woman in red removed the chain from the gate as if she had every right to be there. The men opened the back of the van.
A chair came into view.
Someone was tied to it.
Emma stopped breathing.
Even on the small monitor, she knew.
Caleb.
His head hung forward. His hair was longer, his face bruised. But it was him.
Alive.
The woman checked her watch.
Roman walked out of the shadows.
Emma’s breath caught.
He crossed the street alone.
No guards visible.
No weapon in his hand.
The woman smiled when she saw him.
“Roman Callahan,” she called. “Still arriving like the world owes you silence.”
Roman stopped ten feet from the gate. “Where is my brother?”
She stepped aside.
One of the men slapped Caleb hard enough to lift his head.
Emma covered her mouth.
Caleb’s eyes opened halfway.
Even through the monitor, Emma saw the moment he recognized Roman.
His mouth moved.
No sound reached the SUV.
Roman’s voice remained calm. “You asked for the child. You got me instead.”
The woman laughed. “That is why Caleb always said you were arrogant.”
Roman tilted his head. “And yet here you are talking instead of leaving.”
Her smile thinned.
Vincent whispered, “She’s buying time.”
Emma looked around the street through the window. “For what?”
Then Lily woke.
“Mommy?”
Emma gently covered her mouth. “Shh, baby. Quiet game.”
On the monitor, the woman in red stepped closer to Roman.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?”
Roman said nothing.
She removed one glove.
On her wrist was a small crescent-shaped scar.
Roman went still.
Emma heard the change in his breathing through the earpiece.
“No,” he said.
The woman’s smile turned cruel.
“Yes.”
Vincent stared at the screen. “Who is she?”
Roman answered, but his voice sounded far away.
“Clara.”
Emma frowned. “Who is Clara?”
Vincent’s face drained.
Roman’s voice came through the earpiece like broken glass.
“My sister.”
Emma’s blood turned cold.
Sister?
There had been no sister in any story Roman told.
On the screen, Clara Callahan laughed softly.
“Father erased me better than he erased our mother,” she said. “But Caleb found me. Sweet Caleb. Always digging up graves that were not ready to open.”
Roman’s posture changed.
For the first time that night, he looked uncertain.
Clara saw it and smiled wider.
“Did he not tell you?” she asked. “Of course he didn’t. He knew you would try to save me too.”
Caleb lifted his head weakly. “Roman… don’t…”
One of the men struck him again.
Emma gasped.
Roman took one step forward.
Clara raised a gun and pressed it against Caleb’s temple.
“Careful,” she said. “You were always too late. Try not to be early for once.”
Roman stopped.
Emma’s entire body shook with the effort not to scream.
Clara looked around. “Where is the child?”
“She isn’t coming.”
“Then Caleb dies.”
“No,” Roman said. “Because if Caleb dies, you lose the only person who knows where he hid the Saint Agnes key.”
Clara’s smile flickered.
Vincent whispered, “Roman is bluffing.”
Emma looked at him. “Is he?”
Vincent did not answer.
Roman reached into his coat and removed the blue music box.
Emma’s stomach dropped.
He had brought it.
Clara’s eyes locked on it.
“There it is,” she whispered.
Roman held it up. “You emptied it. But you didn’t find the lock beneath the lock.”
Clara’s face changed.
Roman turned the music box upside down, pressed two hidden panels, and a tiny silver key dropped into his palm.
Emma stared.
Caleb, even battered and tied to a chair, smiled faintly.
Clara’s voice sharpened. “Give it to me.”
Roman closed his fist around the key.
“Trade.”
Clara laughed. “You still think this is a negotiation.”
“No,” Roman said. “I think you’re angry enough to make mistakes.”
The ground beneath the lot suddenly shook.
A metal door hidden in the concrete slid open behind Clara.
Everyone froze.
From the darkness below Saint Agnes came the sound of a child crying.
Not Lily.
Another child.
Then another.
Emma’s heart stopped.
May you like
Caleb lifted his head and whispered the words no one was ready to hear.
“They never stopped.”
