Chapter 12 - The Kidnapping at Wicker Park
The hospital room smelled of sterile bleach and plastic.
Victor lay in the high-dependency bed at Northwestern Memorial, hooked up to an
IV drip and a heart monitor.
His broad chest was wrapped in thick white surgical dressings.
His burns had been treated, the bullet removed from his shoulder.
He looked human for the first time—vulnerable, exhausted, but alive.
I sat in the vinyl chair beside him, wearing borrowed hospital scrubs.
My cuts had been stitched.
My hands were bandaged.
The silver necklace sat on the bedside table.
Cleaned of blood.
Its obsidian center gleamed under the fluorescent lights.
Victor stirred, his dark eyes fluttering open.
He looked at the ceiling, then turned his head slowly toward me.
"You didn't leave," he rasped, his voice rough.
"Where would I go?" I smiled faintly, reaching out and gently taking his
uninjured hand.
"My apartment has no door. My studio is half-burned. And the FBI has spent the
last four hours asking me about a father I barely remember."
Victor squeezed my fingers with surprising strength.
"Adrien?"
"He’s in federal custody at the downtown detention center," I answered softly.
"They denied bail. Attempted murder, conspiracy, federal witness tampering. He’s
never seeing daylight again."
Victor let out a long, heavy exhale.
The tension that had locked his massive shoulders for years seemed to evaporate
in a single breath.
"And Antonio?"
"Your father’s lawyers are already cutting a deal," I said.
"He turned state’s evidence against the Chicago syndicate to save his own skin.
The Duca empire is finished, Victor."
Victor looked at the silver necklace on the nightstand.
"Good," he murmured.
"It was built on blood anyway."
He turned back to me, his gaze softening in a way I had never seen before.
"What about the ledger, Lena? Did the feds find it?"
"No," I shook my head.
"They searched the burned ruins of the studio. Nothing. They think my father
spent the money before he died."
Victor studied my face.
He didn't say a word, but his sharp, perceptive eyes saw right through me.
He knew.
"You know where it is, don't you?" he whispered.
I swallowed, glancing at the closed door of the hospital room.
"It wasn't forty million dollars, Victor," I murmured, leaning close to his ear.
"My father didn't steal money. He was an auditor. He stole the original shipping
manifests proving Antonio was trafficking weapons through the Great Lakes thirty
years ago."
Victor’s brow furrowed.
"Where did he hide them?"
"When I was five years old, my father gave me a carved wooden jewelry box," I
whispered.
"He told me to never open the false bottom unless a man with scarred hands came
to ask for it."
Victor’s breath caught in his throat.
His heart monitor beeped slightly faster.
"Marcus knew me?"
"My father worked directly under you when you were just a boy, Victor. He told
my mother that if the family ever turned completely rotten, there was only one
Duca who possessed an honorable soul."
Tears welled in my eyes.
"He meant you."
Before Victor could speak, the hospital room door clicked open.
A federal agent in a dark suit stepped in, holding a manila folder.
"Ms. Vance? Special Agent Miller. We need you to come with us to the federal
courthouse. The grand jury needs your sworn deposition immediately."
I stood up, letting go of Victor’s hand.
"I have to go," I told him.
"I’ll be back tonight."
Victor watched the agent carefully.
Something shifted in his eyes—that razor-sharp predator instinct flaring back to
life.
"Agent Miller?" Victor questioned, his voice gravelly.
"Which field office?"
The agent didn't answer.
Instead, he reached into his jacket.
Victor didn't hesitate.
Despite his torn shoulder, despite the IV lines hooked to his arm, Victor ripped
the needles from his flesh and hurled the heavy metal bedside table across the
room.
CRASH.
The table slammed into the man’s chest just as a silenced pistol cleared his
lapel.
A muffled shot shattered the television mounted to the wall.
"Lena, run!" Victor roared.
Two more men dressed as orderlies burst through the door.
One held a taser; the other lunged directly at me with a chloroform rag.
I kicked the heavy vinyl chair into the first man’s knees, but the second
grabbed me from behind.
The sweet, chemical stench hit my nose.
I fought, clawing at his face, but the room began to spin.
My vision blurred into dark edges.
The last thing I saw before blacking out was Victor tearing the heart monitor
May you like
cords from the wall, throwing his broken body at the gunmen to reach me.
Then, darkness swallowed me whole.
