Chapter 8 - THE BOARD VOTE
By eight the next morning, the Moretti mansion had become a command center.
Federal agents occupied the breakfast room. Daniel's security team filled the lower hall. Anna sat in the library making a list of every phone number Vanessa had ever used. Michael, against medical advice, joined by encrypted video from his hospital room.
And I sat at Luca's desk trying not to imagine Emma afraid.
That was the hardest part.
Fear likes empty space.
Give it one unanswered question and it fills the rest by itself.
Luca stood near the window speaking with a federal prosecutor named Claire Donnelly.
"If we go into the board meeting with agents, Enzo may move Emma," Claire said.
"If we go without them, he controls the building."
"We can cover the perimeter."
"He'll expect that."
Daniel entered.
"We traced Enzo's call through four relays. Last physical tower hit was near downtown, but that's not useful."
"Any traffic footage of Emma leaving the estate?"
"Yes. Service van. Plates cloned."
I closed my eyes.
Luca came to the desk.
"Lily."
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't look at me like you're deciding whether I'm strong enough to hear bad news. Just tell me."
He nodded.
"We don't have a location yet."
"Then what do we have?"
Daniel placed a photograph on the desk.
A traffic-camera still.
The service van at an intersection.
In the passenger window, barely visible, was Emma's face.
She looked awake.
Beside her sat a woman.
Vanessa.
I leaned closer.
"She's with Vanessa."
Daniel nodded.
"Which means Vanessa may not be Enzo's prisoner."
Anna stood from the sofa.
"Or she's pretending not to be."
Michael's voice came through the laptop.
"Vanessa always survives by convincing the most dangerous person in the room that she belongs on his side."
Luca looked at the screen.
"You knew her better than I did."
Michael's expression was tired.
"I distrusted her earlier. That's not the same thing."
Anna touched the screen with her fingertips.
"We all missed something. Stop competing over who should feel guilty."
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Claire said, "The board vote is our best controlled opportunity. Enzo wants the amendment because it blocks his succession plan. We bring a certified copy, not the original. We let him think he has leverage."
"And Emma?" I asked.
"We use the meeting to keep Enzo occupied while teams search locations connected to him."
I stared at her.
"Search where? Chicago has three million people."
Daniel placed another page on the desk.
"Not three million places. Enzo's companies have nineteen properties within a thirty-minute radius of the board building. We're narrowing by utilities and vehicle movement."
Nineteen.
It felt impossible.
Then Anna said, "Check kitchens."
Everyone turned.
She looked embarrassed by the attention.
"Enzo hates hotel food. Whenever he held long meetings off-site, he used properties with full commercial kitchens. He said he couldn't think on bad coffee."
Daniel stared at her.
Then started typing.
Nineteen became seven.
Seven became four.
At eleven twenty, we drove to the Moretti Holdings tower.
Luca wore a dark suit. I wore the only black dress I owned, one I had bought for our mother's funeral and never expected to use again.
My right hand was wrapped in fresh gauze.
"You don't have to go upstairs," Luca said in the elevator.
"Enzo asked for me."
"That doesn't mean he gets you."
"He already has Emma."
His jaw tightened.
"We are getting her back."
I looked at him.
"That's almost a promise."
"Almost."
The boardroom occupied the forty-second floor.
Twelve directors sat around a long glass table. Attorneys lined one wall. Security waited near the elevators.
Enzo stood by the windows.
Perfect suit.
Perfect smile.
As if he had not ordered a young woman taken from a locked room hours earlier.
"Luca," he said. "I'm glad you came."
His eyes moved to me.
"And Lily."
This time he used my name.
I wished he hadn't.
Luca took his seat.
I sat behind him beside Claire, who had entered as outside counsel under another name.
Enzo began the meeting with the calm confidence of a man who believed he had already won.
He described Luca as emotionally compromised.
He cited the engagement scandal.
He presented Vanessa's video.
He showed photographs of Luca escorting me from the bakery and entering the hospital where Michael was being treated.
"My nephew," Enzo told the board, "has allowed a domestic crisis and an inappropriate attachment to an employee to endanger this company."
I felt every face turn toward me.
Heat climbed my neck.
Luca did not look back.
"Lily Carter was assaulted in my home while trying to prevent evidence from being destroyed," he said. "If protecting an employee after that is considered inappropriate, this company has larger problems than my judgment."
A director cleared his throat.
Enzo smiled.
"And the missing funds?"
Claire slid documents across the table.
"Already traced to shell entities created by Nathan Cole and approved through authorizations linked to Enzo Moretti."
The smile disappeared.
Enzo looked at her.
"Who are you?"
"Someone who reads footnotes."
Michael appeared on the boardroom screen.
The room erupted.
Several directors stood.
One woman covered her mouth.
Enzo's face changed for the first time.
Michael looked pale but steady.
"Hello, Uncle."
Enzo stared at the screen.
"You should be resting."
"You would know. You paid for the medication."
Luca placed the original security stills on the table.
Then the Bellweather records.
Then the notarized amendment from their mother.
Enzo's lawyer leaned toward him and whispered urgently.
Enzo ignored him.
"You think this proves kidnapping?"
Michael answered.
"The federal agents who recovered me from Building C think it proves enough to ask questions."
The boardroom doors opened.
Two men entered.
For one hopeful second, I thought they were agents.
Then I saw Daniel's face.
He did not know them.
They wore building security uniforms.
One walked behind me.
Something hard pressed against my ribs beneath his jacket.
"Stand up," he whispered.
My body went cold.
Across the table, Luca saw my face.
His expression changed.
"Lily?"
The man gripped my arm.
"Tell him to stay seated."
I looked at Luca.
"Stay where you are."
He started to rise anyway.
The second fake guard locked the boardroom doors.
Enzo did not look surprised.
Claire reached slowly toward her bag.
"Don't," the man behind me said.
Enzo sighed.
"This could have been handled quietly."
Luca's voice was ice.
"Where is Emma?"
Enzo smiled.
"Close enough."
Daniel shifted one inch.
The second guard pointed toward him.
"Hands visible."
My phone vibrated in my purse.
The man holding me did not notice.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
A pattern.
Emma and I had used it since we were children.
Three short vibrations meant one thing.
I'm okay.
My breath caught.
Emma had my old smartwatch connected to my phone's family account.
If the signal was reaching me, she was close.
Very close.
I looked toward the windows.
Across the street stood another Moretti property.
An old private club with a restaurant kitchen on the top floor.
One of the four locations Daniel had narrowed down.
I met his eyes.
Then I looked deliberately toward the building across the street.
Once.
Twice.
Daniel understood.
His hand moved toward his cuff.
Not a weapon.
A silent transmitter.
Enzo was still talking.
"Give me the amendment, Luca, and I will end this."
Luca opened the leather folder in front of him.
"You want it?"
"Yes."
"Then release Lily."
"After."
"Now."
Enzo's smile thinned.
"You are in no position to negotiate."
Luca looked at me.
Not at the man holding me.
At me.
"Yes," he said quietly. "I am."
Then every fire alarm in the building began screaming.
Red lights flashed.
The board members shouted.
Sprinklers burst from the ceiling.
The man behind me turned toward the door.
I drove my heel down onto his foot and dropped my weight.
His grip loosened.
Daniel moved.
So did Claire.
Everything happened at once.
The second fake guard was tackled by building security coming through the emergency stairwell. The man behind me stumbled, and Luca reached me before I hit the floor.
"Are you hurt?"
"No. Emma is across the street. Top floor, I think."
Daniel heard.
He ran.
Enzo moved toward the side exit.
Claire blocked him.
"I wouldn't."
He laughed.
"You're not a police officer."
"No."
The main doors opened again.
Federal agents entered.
Claire smiled.
"They are."
Enzo's face finally lost all color.
My phone vibrated again.
This time it was a call.
Emma.
I answered.
"Emma?"
She was crying.
"Lily, I'm locked in a pantry. Vanessa is here. She helped me get my watch back."
I looked at Luca.
"Is she with you?"
"She was. Then she heard people in the hall and went outside."
"Emma, stay inside. Lock the door."
A sound came through the phone.
A crash.
Then Vanessa screamed.
The line went dead.
May you like
Luca squeezed my shoulder once before running toward the stairwell. "Stay with Emma." This time I did not argue. My sister was breathing too fast, her face pale from whatever she had heard outside the pantry door. I sat on the floor beside her and made her count backward from twenty, the same trick our mother used when thunderstorms shook the windows of our childhood apartment. At eleven, her voice steadied. At seven, the shouting in the hall stopped. At three, Daniel called that the floor was secure.
At one, Emma opened her eyes and whispered, "I hate rich people." I laughed despite everything. "Fair." Then the crash came from the corridor, followed by Vanessa's scream. Emma gripped my wrist. I rose carefully, putting myself between my sister and the door even though my knees were shaking. The line on my phone had gone dead, but one thing was suddenly clear: Vanessa had not brought Emma here merely as leverage. Something had changed, and whatever choice Vanessa had just made might decide whether she left the building as Enzo's accomplice or his next victim.
