Chapter 3 - The Man Watching My Daughters
Griffin moved faster than I had ever seen him move.
He called Elias.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
He reached the door.
I caught his sleeve.
“My girls.”
“I know.”
“Don’t go alone.”
He looked at me.
For eight years I had built my life around the assumption that Griffin Drake solved danger by becoming more dangerous than everyone else.
That night, I saw something different.
Fear.
Pure.
Parental.
He nodded.
Then called hospital security and Seattle police simultaneously.
By the time we reached the family lounge, it was empty.
Hazel’s coloring book lay open on the sofa.
Iris’s backpack sat on the floor.
The flash drive had been delivered.
The girls had not.
I stopped breathing.
“No.”
Griffin picked up Hazel’s sweater.
“Where are they?”
A nurse rushed in.
“The gentleman said you wanted them moved upstairs.”
“What gentleman?”
“Mr. Kane.”
My knees weakened.
Griffin’s face became terrifyingly calm.
“When?”
“Five minutes ago.”
Cameras showed Elias escorting Hazel and Iris toward the staff elevators.
The twins looked relaxed.
They trusted him.
Of course.
He had been kind.
Brought juice.
Told them their mother would be fine.
Then the elevator camera showed something else.
A second man entered on level three.
Not hospital staff.
Baseball cap.
Face partially hidden.
Elias turned.
The stranger pressed something against his side.
Gun.
Griffin leaned toward the monitor.
“Elias isn’t taking them.”
He was being forced.
Relief lasted less than a second.
“Parking garage,” Griffin said.
Security sealed exits.
Police moved.
The elevator opened on P2.
Elias stepped out with the twins.
The gunman followed.
Hazel noticed something wrong.
She pulled Iris closer.
Then the footage cut.
“Why?”
Hospital security answered.
“Camera failure.”
“Failure?”
“Manual disconnect.”
Inside job.
Again.
Griffin’s phone rang.
Unknown.
He answered.
Vittorio Caruso.
I recognized the voice despite eight years.
Smooth.
Polite.
“Griffin.”
“Where are they?”
“Straight to business.”
“Where are my daughters?”
The word.
My daughters.
No hesitation anymore.
Vittorio laughed.
“So Sloan finally told you.”
I stepped closer.
Griffin placed the call on speaker.
“Let me speak to them.”
“You will.”
Hazel’s frightened voice came through.
“Mom?”
I grabbed the phone.
“Hazel!”
“Mommy, we’re in a car.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Iris?”
“I’m here!”
I almost collapsed from relief.
Then Vittorio returned.
“You have something that belongs to my family.”
“The drive,” Griffin said.
“Yes.”
“You get it when I get them.”
“Not quite.”
“What do you want?”
“The original ledger.”
Griffin frowned.
“I have a flash drive.”
“The flash drive contains photographs and copies. Pierce kept the signed ledger somewhere else.”
“We don’t have it.”
“Then find it.”
“How?”
Vittorio laughed softly.
“Ask Sloan.”
My blood chilled.
“I don’t know anything.”
“You know more than you realize.”
The call ended.
Then a text.
A photograph of the twins inside a black SUV.
No visible injuries.
Behind them, through the window, an industrial waterfront.
Deadline:
MIDNIGHT.
Five hours.
Griffin looked at me.
“What did Pierce ever give you?”
“Nothing.”
“Think.”
“I barely knew him.”
“You designed his office renovation.”
I stared.
Eight years earlier.
Yes.
Pierce had hired my firm to redesign his city office.
He insisted on a strange custom bookshelf.
Deep compartments.
False back panels for cable management.
Except maybe they were not for cables.
“His office.”
“Demolished six years ago,” Griffin said.
“Furniture?”
He called someone.
Records.
Auction.
The custom bookshelf had been sold after Pierce disappeared.
Buyer?
St. Agnes Community Library.
I laughed from disbelief.
Of all places.
We went.
Police informed.
Griffin wanted to storm Caruso locations instead.
I refused.
“Our daughters need us thinking.”
He looked at me.
Our daughters.
This time I said it too.
The library director found the shelf in a basement reading room.
We removed the rear panel.
Nothing.
Griffin slammed his hand against the wood.
“Think.”
I stared at my old measurements.
Then remembered Pierce had requested one shelf be three inches deeper than the rest.
Not visible from front.
We removed a side molding.
Inside was a narrow steel tube.
Documents.
A handwritten ledger.
Signatures.
Officials.
Caruso men.
Drake men.
And one name that shocked Griffin.
Marcus Drake.
His father.
Griffin stared.
“My father died ten years ago.”
The ledger showed Marcus had secretly partnered with Matteo Caruso for years.
Illegal shipments.
Bribes.
Political protection.
Then one entry:
Contingency — If Griffin assumes control, remove Sloan Mercer before inheritance transfer.
I felt sick.
“Inheritance?”
Griffin continued reading.
His father had structured a massive offshore trust.
If Griffin died without children, control passed to a consortium of old Drake associates.
If Griffin had biological descendants, they inherited automatically.
Same old story.
Blood.
Money.
Power.
Hazel and Iris were not merely emotional leverage.
They represented legal control over hundreds of millions.
Griffin looked at me.
“This is why they were tracking your pregnancy.”
“They knew before you.”
“Yes.”
“What would they have done?”
He did not answer.
Did not need to.
My decision to run might have saved the girls.
Just not forever.
At 9:40, Griffin received a message from Elias.
Only three words:
TRACK MY WATCH.
He was alive.
His smartwatch had emergency GPS.
Location pinged near an abandoned ferry maintenance warehouse.
Police could move.
But Griffin hesitated.
“Vittorio will have watchers.”
“We wait for tactical.”
His eyes snapped toward me.
I surprised him.
“You thought I’d tell you to go kill everyone?”
“No.”
“Maybe eight years changes people.”
He looked at me.
“Maybe children do.”
At 10:25, teams surrounded the warehouse.
I was ordered to remain in the command vehicle.
So was Griffin.
He hated it.
I did too.
Gunfire sounded inside.
I grabbed his hand without thinking.
He squeezed mine.
Radio.
Movement.
Suspect down.
Another detained.
Children located.
My entire body shook.
Then:
“Two juvenile females secure.”
I started crying.
Griffin closed his eyes.
Elias emerged first on a stretcher, wounded in the shoulder.
Then Hazel.
Iris.
They ran.
“Mom!”
I ignored doctors and climbed from the vehicle.
Both hit me at once.
Griffin stopped several feet away.
They looked at him.
Hazel reached first.
“Dad!”
He froze.
Then crouched.
She hugged him.
Iris followed.
His arms went around both.
The most feared man in Seattle closed his eyes and cried against his daughters’ hair.
No shame.
No hiding.
Then Elias was wheeled past.
Griffin stood.
Their eyes met.
“You okay?” Griffin asked.
Elias nodded weakly.
“They found the payment.”
“I saw.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“Then who used your name?”
Elias swallowed.
“My brother.”
Griffin frowned.
“Your brother is dead.”
Elias looked frightened.
“No.”
Everyone went still.
“He’s alive.”
“Who?”
Elias whispered:
“Jonah Kane.”
Griffin staggered as if struck.
Jonah Kane had been Griffin’s best friend before me.
His mentor in the criminal world.
And the man supposedly killed in the same waterfront explosion that started the Drake-Caruso war nine years earlier.
May you like
If Jonah was alive, then almost everything Griffin believed about the war could be a lie.
And somewhere in Seattle, the dead man was still moving pieces around our daughters.
