CHAPTER 2 — THE LAUNDRY GIRL AND THE DEAD GIRL
CHAPTER 2 — THE LAUNDRY GIRL AND THE DEAD GIRL
The safehouse was not safe.
It never was, not when Dante Bellamy walked inside with that expression.
Norah sat on the edge of a leather couch that looked too expensive to belong in a place like this. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Lia refused to leave her side, curled into her like a shadow that had finally found warmth.
Dante stood by the window.
Watching the city like it owed him something.
Behind him, his men waited for orders that weren’t coming.
Finally, Norah spoke.
“You’re saying she’s… your daughter?”
Dante didn’t turn.
“Yes.”
One word. Final. Heavy.
Norah looked down at Lia.
The child was drawing circles on her palm like nothing in the world had ever been wrong.
“But she called me—”
“Mama,” Dante finished.
Silence dropped again.
Then Dante finally turned.
“There was an attack last year,” he said. “Car bomb. My wife died instantly. My daughter was in the vehicle.”
Norah felt her stomach tighten.
“They never found a body,” he continued. “Only fragments. Blood. A shoe.”
He stopped.
Just for a second.
Then added, colder:
“And then the case was closed.”
Norah shook her head. “But she’s alive.”
Dante looked at Lia.
Something almost unrecognizable crossed his face.
“Yes,” he said. “She is.”
Lia suddenly grabbed Norah’s sleeve again.
“Don’t let them take me,” she whispered.
Norah’s breath caught.
Dante’s eyes sharpened instantly. “Who told you someone would take you?”
The girl shrank.
“I don’t know… the bad man in the white room…”
The room went dead silent.
Every man in the safehouse straightened.
Because only one place in the city matched that description.
Bellamy Medical Facility.
Private wing.
May you like
Restricted access.
And it belonged to Dante Bellamy.
