Chapter 11 - Kidnapped from the Servant’s Quarters
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The darkness beneath the canvas hood smelled of coarse burlap, motor oil, and dried blood.
Every jolt of the vehicle tossed my body against cold, diamond-plated steel. My wrists were bound tightly behind my back with heavy industrial zip-ties that bit mercilessly into my skin every time the tires slammed through Chicago’s potholed side streets. My ears were still ringing violently from the triple flashbang detonation in the bunker, and an agonizing throb pulsed behind my temples.
"Keep your foot down, Carlo," a harsh, venomous voice barked from the front seat. Vanessa. "If Moretti realizes Navy Pier was a decoy, his intercept teams will close every drawbridge across the Chicago River within twelve minutes."
"He won't realize it in time, Miss Bellini," a man with a gravelly, heavy New York accent replied. "The Bishop set up an automated radio repeater inside Silo Four. It’s broadcasting a scrambled loop of Arthur Pendelton's voice on the private channel. Moretti will spend at least twenty minutes clearing every empty floor with his assault squad before he figures out he’s hunting a ghost."
A cruel, mocking laugh echoed inside the cabin.
"Twenty minutes is all we need," Vanessa purred. I heard the unmistakable, sharp *clink* of precious stone striking glass. She was playing with the *Moretti Star*. "Sixty million dollars in loose carbon. With this, Don Salvatore Rossi will finance my father's election to the Port Commission, Dominic will wipe out Luca’s soldiers on the Southside, and this wretched, thieving little maid will take the fall for all of it."
I kept my breathing shallow, feigning unconsciousness.
When you grow up around high-stakes jewelers, you learn that the person who panics first is the person who loses everything. My mother had faced three armed robberies during her twenty-three years behind the counter at Kaufman & Sons. Once, a gunman had held a snub-nosed .38 revolver against her temple for forty-five minutes while the time-lock on the safe ran down. She had survived not by crying or screaming, but by counting—counting heartbeats, counting breaths, mapping the architecture of the room, and looking for the one microscopic flaw in the robber's plan.
I began to count.
The vehicle had turned sharp left four times, followed by an immediate right onto an elevated roadway. The rhythmic *thump-thump, thump-thump* of concrete expansion joints beneath the chassis told me we were heading northbound on the elevated lanes of the Kennedy Expressway. Approximately six miles. Then a long, descending spiral ramp, followed by the sudden, heavy dampness of subterranean air and the hollow echo of a massive tunnel system.
We were entering the Lower Wacker Drive freight corridors—the labyrinthine underworld of subterranean tunnels, service ramps, and forgotten rail spurs that ran directly beneath the glittering towers of downtown Chicago.
Suddenly, a rough hand grabbed the canvas hood and ripped it from my face.
The glare of overhead industrial halogen bulbs stabbed into my retinas. I blinked frantically, gasping as the cold, damp air flooded my lungs.
We were inside a reinforced transport van parked inside a cavernous, abandoned freight terminal beneath the Merchandise Mart. Decades-old industrial machinery stood silent around the perimeter, covered in greasy canvas tarps. Standing in a semicircle around the van were eight men in full tactical armor, their weapons slung low, bearing the silver hawk insignia of the New York Rossi family.
And standing right in the center, leaning casually against a folding metal table, was Dominic Moretti.
His left shoulder was heavily bandaged beneath a clean black turtleneck sweater. His rose-gold Audemars Piguet watch was gone, replaced by a combat chronograph, but the smug, arrogant sneer on his bruised face remained entirely intact.
"Well, well," Dominic drawled, stepping forward as Carlo hauled me roughly out of the van by my upper arms, dumping me onto my knees on the cold concrete. "Look at Arthur Kaufman’s brilliant little prodigy. The eagle-eyed maid who brought down my yacht."
I raised my chin, ignoring the fire burning in my wrists, and looked Dominic dead in the eye.
"You're still a second-rate thief, Dominic," I said, my voice steady, deliberately stripped of fear. "You couldn't even steal the real diamond without hiring a rogue chemist, a dirty jeweler, and a desperate woman to do the heavy lifting for you."
Vanessa stepped up beside Dominic, her eyes flashing with murderous fury. Before I could flinch, her manicured hand struck my cheek with a resounding *CRACK!*
The blow knocked my head sideways, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth.
"Watch your tongue, you pathetic little peasant!" Vanessa hissed, crouching down until her face was inches from mine. She held up the dazzling, six-carat *Moretti Star*, waving it mockingly in front of my eyes. "Do you see this? This is real power. This stone built Luca's empire, and now it’s going to bury him. You thought you were so clever at the dining table, exposing my 925 silver replica? That silver ring was just a prop, you stupid bitch. A distraction to keep Luca looking at me while Dominic's men breached the basement vaults!"
"And what happens when Luca finds this terminal?" I spat, wiping the blood from my lip against my shoulder. "You think he doesn't know about Lower Wacker? You think Marco hasn't already traced this van's transponder?"
Dominic laughed—a dry, grating sound that echoed off the damp concrete pillars.
"This van doesn't have a transponder, sweet cheeks," Dominic said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small, blinking electronic device. "And Luca isn't coming to Lower Wacker. Because in approximately seven minutes, a live video broadcast will be sent directly to Luca’s secure satellite phone. He’s going to watch his beloved father’s legacy—and his father’s sacred debt—be liquidated right before his eyes."
Dominic turned to the folding table. Resting upon the metal surface was a portable, high-frequency induction furnace, connected to a heavy generator humming in the corner. Beside the furnace sat a thick graphite crucible and two large canisters of pressurized oxygen.
My blood ran cold.
"What are you doing with an induction furnace?" I breathed, the horror finally cracking through my composure.
"You told Luca that a diamond can't be traced if it’s recut," Dominic sneered, walking over to the table and flipping a toggle switch. The induction furnace hummed with a deep, terrifying magnetic drone, the coils inside the heating chamber glowing dull orange, then violent crimson. "But Barlowe is in Luca’s cellar, and the laser cutting rig is gone. We don't have time to recut a sixty-million-dollar stone. And we don't need the money anymore. The Rossi family has agreed to fund our takeover with sixty million in clean, untraceable bearer bonds."
Dominic picked up a heavy pair of stainless-steel foundry tongs and tapped the rim of the glowing crucible.
"The *Moretti Star* is the spiritual heart of the Moretti family," Dominic whispered, his eyes glittering with unhinged malice. "My uncle believed that as long as that stone remained intact, the Moretti bloodline would rule this city forever. So we aren't going to sell it, Emma. We are going to burn it. At one thousand degrees Celsius in pure pressurized oxygen, pure carbon doesn't melt. It vaporizes. It turns into carbon dioxide gas. Gone. Erased from the face of the earth."
"No..." I gasped, struggling against the zip-ties. "Luca will tear you apart with his bare hands."
"Luca will be dead before sunset," Vanessa laughed, stepping toward the furnace with the diamond balanced delicately between her fingers. "And the best part? Before we incinerate the stone, we're going to put that phone in your hands. You are going to read a prepared confession to Luca. You will tell him that you were working for the Rossis all along. That you stole the diamond, that you framed me at the gala, and that you burned the stone out of revenge for your mother’s miserable, forgotten life."
"I will never say that," I said, locking my jaw.
Dominic walked over, reaching behind his back, and pulled a long, serrated combat knife from his belt. He pressed the cold, razor-sharp flat of the blade against the side of my neck, right over my carotid artery.
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"You will read it, Emma," Dominic whispered into my ear, his breath hot and foul. "Or I will carve Helena Reed's initials into your throat while the camera rolls, and Vanessa will read it for you."
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