Chapter 7 - AMELIA STOPS RUNNINGDominic reached for the phone.
Amelia turned away.
“No.”
Raymond chuckled.
“Daddy still trying to save you?”
“Let me hear Jasmine.”
“You don’t make demands.”
“I’m not doing anything until I know she’s alive.”
A pause.
Then rustling.
Jasmine’s voice came through.
“Amelia, don’t—”
The line muffled.
Raymond returned.
“She’s alive.”
Amelia closed her eyes briefly.
“Where?”
“Bring the original ownership agreement.”
“I don’t have it.”
“Don’t play games.”
“I have copies.”
“You have enough.”
Detective Ortiz, summoned upstairs by Dominic’s security chief, began writing instructions on a pad.
Keep him talking.
“Why Jasmine?”
Raymond laughed.
“Because taking your father would be difficult.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“And you’ve always cared too much about people who are nice to you.”
The sentence revealed more than Raymond intended.
He still thought kindness was weakness.
He had never understood Amelia at all.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Come alone.”
Detective Ortiz shook her head.
Raymond gave an address.
An abandoned restaurant property on the far Southwest Side.
One of North Lake’s repossessed buildings.
“Thirty minutes.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Then drive fast.”
He disconnected.
Dominic immediately said, “You are not going.”
Amelia looked at him.
“I am.”
“No.”
The word came out too forcefully.
Amelia stiffened.
Dominic saw it.
Regret crossed his face.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t get to order me around.”
“I know.”
“But Jasmine is there because of me.”
“She is there because Raymond kidnapped her.”
“He wants me.”
“And if you walk into that building alone, he has both of you.”
Detective Ortiz stepped between them.
“Amelia goes nowhere without us.”
“He said alone.”
“He expects her to involve police. Men like Fletcher always say ‘alone’ because they want the victim scared enough to make mistakes.”
Ortiz looked at Amelia.
“We do this correctly.”
Twenty-six minutes later Amelia drove toward the location.
Alone, as far as Raymond could see.
A tactical team tracked her from several blocks away.
A microphone was hidden beneath her shirt.
Dominic waited in an unmarked vehicle with Evelyn.
He had argued until Ortiz threatened to remove him from the operation entirely.
The abandoned restaurant stood beneath an old neon sign that no longer worked.
Amelia parked.
Her legs shook as she stepped out.
For a moment, she was twenty-four again.
Standing outside Raymond’s apartment after trying to leave.
Remembering his hand around her throat.
Then Detective Ortiz’s earlier words returned.
Being scared and being helpless are not the same thing.
Amelia entered.
The dining room smelled like dust and old grease.
Raymond stood near the kitchen.
Jasmine sat in a chair several feet away.
Her wrists were bound with plastic ties.
Otherwise she appeared unharmed.
“You came,” Raymond said.
Amelia looked at Jasmine.
“I’m okay,” Jasmine said quickly.
Raymond grabbed her shoulder.
“Quiet.”
Amelia’s fear burned into anger.
“You wanted the documents.”
“Where are they?”
“In the car.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You’re lying.”
“Yes.”
Raymond stared.
Amelia had never lied to him openly before.
She used to lie badly because fear made her over-explain.
Not anymore.
“There are no originals in my possession.”
“You froze my accounts.”
“A judge froze them.”
“Because of you.”
“No. Because you forged documents.”
Raymond moved closer.
He looked exhausted.
His designer coat was wrinkled.
His eyes bloodshot.
For the first time, Amelia saw him without the mythology she had built around him.
He was not unstoppable.
He was simply a violent, frightened man accustomed to other people surrendering.
“My father spent his whole life trying to recover what Dominic stole.”
“Your father stole from him.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know he threatened my pregnant mother.”
Raymond smiled.
“She was dramatic too.”
The phrase struck her.
Three nights earlier, after knocking Amelia onto the restaurant floor, Raymond had said:
You always were dramatic.
Words inherited from his father.
Hatred passed from one generation to another.
Amelia looked at him sadly.
“You became him.”
Raymond’s expression changed.
“Shut up.”
“You spent your whole life hating Dominic for hurting your father.”
“I said shut up.”
“And then you became exactly the kind of man you claimed to hate.”
He crossed the space between them.
Fast.
His hand struck Amelia across the face.
Outside, police heard it through the microphone.
Dominic lunged for the vehicle door.
Ortiz’s partner grabbed him.
“Not yet.”
Inside, Amelia tasted blood.
Raymond stared at her.
He seemed shocked she had not fallen.
Amelia looked directly into his eyes.
“That’s all you have.”
His breathing quickened.
She remembered once believing his anger was enormous.
Now she understood it was hollow.
“You hit people who can’t hit back.”
“Stop.”
“You threaten women.”
“Amelia.”
“You stalk them.”
His fist tightened.
“And when you lose control, you blame somebody else.”
“Stop talking.”
“My mother wasn’t afraid of your father forever.”
Raymond grabbed her collar.
“And I’m not afraid of you forever either.”
He shoved her toward the wall.
That was enough.
Detective Ortiz gave the command.
Doors exploded inward.
“POLICE!”
Raymond spun.
Jasmine dropped sideways with her chair.
Amelia ducked.
Officers poured into the building.
Raymond grabbed Amelia from behind.
Something cold pressed against her neck.
A knife.
Everything stopped.
Dominic entered despite orders.
His face drained when he saw the blade.
Raymond laughed breathlessly.
“There he is.”
“Let her go,” Dominic said.
“Twenty-seven years.”
“What?”
“My father spent twenty-seven years hating you.”
“This has nothing to do with Amelia.”
“It has everything to do with her.”
Dominic stepped forward.
Raymond pressed the blade harder.
Amelia felt its edge.
“Stop!” Dominic shouted.
He did.
Raymond’s eyes glittered.
“You care about her?”
“Yes.”
“More than your company?”
“Yes.”
“More than Castellano’s?”
“Yes.”
“More than everything?”
Dominic did not hesitate.
“Yes.”
Raymond smiled.
“Then sign North Lake back to me.”
Evelyn, standing behind police, called out.
“He can’t. Dominic doesn’t own Amelia’s shares.”
Raymond’s face twisted.
“I wasn’t talking to him.”
He looked down at Amelia.
“Sign them.”
“No.”
The word was quiet.
Raymond froze.
“What?”
“No.”
“You think this is the moment to be brave?”
“No.”
Amelia’s breathing steadied.
“I think this is the moment you finally hear me.”
The knife trembled.
She said the words she had been unable to say three years earlier.
“You don’t own me.”
Raymond jerked her backward.
Then Jasmine moved.
Still tied to the chair, she kicked a metal serving tray across the floor.
The crash made Raymond turn instinctively.
Amelia drove her elbow backward.
Raymond grunted.
His grip loosened.
She dropped.
Police rushed him.
The knife hit the floor.
Within seconds Raymond was face-down on the tile, wrists cuffed behind his back.
He screamed.
Threatened.
Cursed.
Called Amelia every name he knew would once have hurt her.
She stood several feet away, trembling.
Dominic approached.
Then stopped.
He did not touch her.
“Are you hurt?”
Amelia stared at him.
Then something inside her finally gave way.
She stepped forward herself.
Dominic caught her.
For the first time in twenty-seven years, Amelia Hayes let her father hold her.
And for the first time in three years, she cried without being ashamed of anyone seeing it.
Raymond watched from the floor.
May you like
He had spent years believing Amelia’s greatest weakness was that she wanted people to love her.
He never understood that love, when freely given, was the reason he had finally lost.
