Chapter 4 - The Captive Light
The safehouse on the North Side was a heavily fortified penthouse apartment above a closed luxury automotive dealership. For three days, Isla lived in a state of suspended animation. Marco was with her, safe but confused by the constant presence of armed men at the doors and the strict rules about staying away from the windows.
Dominic had vanished. There were no calls, no messages—only the occasional grim nod from Carter when she asked if his boss was still breathing. The television news was filled with reports of "gangland violence" across the warehouse districts, fires breaking out near the shipping channels, and corporate resignations within the city’s major logistics firms.
On the fourth night, the silence broke in the worst way possible.
Isla was preparing dinner for Marco when the heavy steel door of the penthouse buckled inward with a small, localized explosion.
The security guards at the door didn't even have time to raise their weapons before a flashbang grenade blinded the main living space with a deafening roar and a wall of white light. Isla scrambled through the smoke, her arms wrapping around Marco as they threw themselves behind the marble kitchen island.
Footsteps rushed through the debris. Before Isla could find a weapon, a hand caught her by the hair, dragging her backward onto the floor. Marco screamed, fighting against a large man who pinned him down with a heavy boot.
“Well, well,” a voice sneered through the settling smoke.
A man in a sharp gray suit stepped into the kitchen, his dark hair slicked back, a gold ring glittering on his pinky finger. Leo Moretti—the younger, more brutal heir to the Moretti syndicate. He looked down at Isla with a cold, appreciative gaze.
“So this is the little nurse who fixed the king,” Leo said, kicking aside a broken chair. “Dominic has turned the entire West Side into a graveyard this week looking for me. He’s smart. He’s fast. But he made one mistake—he left his medical records in the estate database.”
Leo dropped to his knees in front of Isla, his hand catching her jaw in a painful grip, forcing her to look up at him. “He paid you a lot of money to keep him alive, sweetheart. Let’s see how much he’s willing to pay to keep you from breaking.”
“Leave her alone!” Marco cried out, his young voice cracking with terror.
“Shut the kid up,” Leo ordered without looking back. One of his men brought the butt of a rifle down near Marco’s head, making the boy go silent with fear.
Isla’s jaw ached under Leo’s grip, but she didn't cry out. She looked him directly in the eye, her gray eyes cool and unyielding, despite the terror screaming through her veins.
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“He won't stop until you’re dead, Moretti,” she said quietly, her voice steady enough to make the mobster’s smile falter. “I’ve seen him survive three bullet wounds and stand up the next morning to run a city. You think kidnapping me will make him stop? It will only make him faster.”
Leo laughed, a sharp, ugly sound, and threw her back against the cabinets. “We’ll see about that, nurse. Take them both to the South Branch warehouse. Let’s see how brave the Phantom King is when I start sending him pieces of his favorite employee.”
