Chapter 3 - The Lake Forest Lockdown
The sickening crack of bone hitting bone echoed sharply through the therapy room.
Dominic didn't even have time to fall; the force of Vincent’s punch lifted him slightly off his feet before he crumpled backward, sliding down the mahogany bookcase and landing unconscious in a heap of scattered medical files and heavy leather volumes. Blood pooled slowly on the pale Persian rug from a deep split across his lower lip.
Nobody moved. The six medical specialists stood frozen against the far wall like statues, their mouths slightly open, wishing they were anywhere else in the world.
Vincent stood over Dominic’s motionless body, his chest heaving, his knuckles bruised and bleeding. He slowly raised his head, running a trembling hand through his silver-streaked hair, before turning his gaze toward me and my daughter, Ellie.
“Mrs. Miller,” Vincent said, his voice raw, stripped of all its haughty aristocratic distance.
“Mr. Moretti,” I managed to reply, my voice steady despite the adrenaline hammering in my veins. I wrapped my arms tighter around Ellie, shielding her eyes from the blood on the floor.
“Take Isabella and Ellie,” Vincent commanded, pointing toward the heavy oak security doors that led to the estate’s private residential wing. “Go to the master suite on the third floor. Lock the reinforced panic doors from the inside. Do not open them for anyone—not for the estate staff, not for the local police, and not for my security detail—unless you hear me give the passphrase.”
“What passphrase?” I asked, my eyes darting toward the unconscious lawyer on the floor.
Vincent looked down at Isabella, who was clutching my apron with small, white-knuckled fists, refusing to let go of me.
“*The Lake Forest ice is thin,*” Vincent said softly, his voice thick with emotion. “That’s the passphrase. If anyone else knocks—even if they sound like me—you stay inside.”
“Mr. Moretti, what about you?” I asked, hesitation warring with common sense.
“I have a phone call to make,” Vincent replied, his expression hardening into something cold and terrifyingly lethal. He reached down and retrieved the micro-cassette tape and the yellow legal sheet from Isabella’s small hands, slipping them securely into his breast pocket. “And then I have to dismantle an empire built on lies.”
He turned to his lead bodyguard. “Marco, secure the perimeter. Shut down all outbound communications from the estate. Nobody leaves Lake Forest tonight. If anyone tries to breach the gates without my express authorization, treat them as hostile combatants.”
“Understood, boss,” Marco muttered, unholstering his Sig Sauer and flipping the safety off with a sharp, crisp click.
I didn't argue. I scooped Ellie up into my arms, grabbed Isabella’s small, cold hand, and turned on my heel. We bolted out of the therapy room, running down the long, high-ceilinged corridors of the Moretti mansion as the heavy oak doors clicked shut behind us, locking us away from the storm that was about to consume the entire estate.
By the time we reached the private elevator and punched the code for the third-floor master suite, the storm outside had broken. Heavy, blinding sheets of November rain lashed against the tall, historic windows of the mansion, turning the magnificent Lake Forest lawns into a churning sea of mud and dark shadows.
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I guided the two little girls into the sprawling master bedroom, locked the heavy steel-reinforced panic door, and slid the deadbolt home.
We were safe for the moment. But as I looked out the rain-streaked window toward the front iron gates, I saw the headlights of three black SUVs turning off Lake Cook Road and beginning their slow, deliberate crawl up our private, winding driveway.
