Chapter 5 - The Safehouse in the Woods
Two hours later, Sophia’s battered Honda Civic rattled down a dirt logging road twenty miles north of Greyhaven, heading deep into the pine forests of the state reservation.
In the backseat, Emma was humming quietly to herself, her gray stuffed rabbit tucked securely under her arm.
"Mama, where are we going?" Emma asked, looking out the window at the towering green trees.
"We're going to visit Aunt Clara’s old cabin for a few days, sweetie," Sophia lied, her knuckles white as she gripped the steering wheel. Her heart was pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She had packed two suitcases in ten minutes, grabbed her life savings of twelve hundred dollars from the biscuit tin under the bed, and fled the estate before the morning shift change.
She couldn't go to the police. Damian controlled half the precinct through bribes and payoffs. If she walked into a station in Greyhaven, she’d be handing herself and her daughter directly to his executioners.
They needed to get across the state line to New York, where her cousin worked in a diner.
As the car pulled up to the weather-beaten wooden cabin, Sophia killed the engine. The silence of the forest rushed in, broken only by the wind sighing through the pine needles and the distant caw of a crow.
"Stay in the car for a second, Emma. Mama needs to check the lock," Sophia said, opening her door.
Before she could step out, a low, metallic click echoed from the shadows of the porch.
Sophia froze.
From behind the wooden support pillar, a tall figure stepped out into the daylight. He wore a dark, oversized fisherman’s raincoat over a torn shirt, his face unshaven, bruised, and caked with dried mud and saltwater. A deep, ugly gash ran along his jawline, and his left arm was wrapped tightly in a makeshift sling made from a torn linen towel.
It was Lorenzo Duca.
Sophia gasped, stumbling backward against her car door, her hands flying to her mouth. "Sir... My God... you're... they said you were dead."
Lorenzo didn't smile. His dark eyes were as cold and sharp as winter ice, but there was a profound, burning exhaustion in them.
"Dead men make fewer enemies," Lorenzo said, his voice a rough rasp. He limped slowly down the wooden steps, his bare feet caked in dirt. "And they give traitors a false sense of security."
Inside the car, the door swung open. Emma hopped out onto the pine needles, completely unfazed by the terrifying apparition standing before her. She trotted right up to the feared mafia don, held out her gray rabbit, and announced:
"I told you he was bad, Uncle Duca. But you didn't listen."
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Lorenzo looked down at the three-year-old. For the first time in thirty-eight years, the ice around his heart cracked. He knelt slowly on the wet ground, wincing as his injured ribs protested, and gently took the stuffed rabbit's paw.
"You were right, little one," Lorenzo whispered hoarsely. "I didn't listen. But I'm listening now."
