My husband ripped my blanket off in the middle of the night sneering that I was just faking illness for attention, until his eyes locked on the dark bruises covering my legs and he heard me whisper please don’t let them take my baby.

Detective Alvarez called us an hour later.

"We watched the DVD," she said, her voice grim. "You need to see this. But I'm warning you—it's not easy to watch."

She sent a digital copy to our secure laptop.

Ryan and I sat down on the couch, Emma playing on the floor nearby. I took a deep breath and pressed play.

The screen was black for a moment. Then Daniel's face appeared.

He looked terrible. His hair was longer, unkempt. He had a beard. His eyes were wild, bloodshot. But there was no mistaking the hatred in them.

"Hello, Claire," he said, his voice low and raspy. "Hello, Ryan. I bet you thought you'd won. That you'd destroyed the great Whitmore family and built your little empire on the ashes."

He laughed, a harsh, bitter sound.

"But you forgot something. Whitmores don't lose. We adapt. We survive. And we get even."

The camera pulled back, and I saw where he was. He was sitting in a small, dimly lit room. The walls were bare. There was a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.

And there was someone else in the room.

A woman. Tied to a chair, gagged, her face bruised and swollen.

I recognized her immediately.

Emily Voss.

"You remember Emily, don't you, Claire?" Daniel said, grabbing a handful of Emily's hair and yanking her head back. She whimpered, tears streaming down her face. "The little rat who betrayed my family. She thought she could hide. She thought witness protection would keep her safe."

He released her hair and turned back to the camera.

"Here's the deal, Claire. You have something I want. The Bennett Group. My father's company. You're going to sign it over to me. All of it. Every share, every asset. And then you and Ryan and that little brat of yours are going to disappear. Leave the country. Never come back."

He leaned in close to the camera, his face filling the screen.

"If you do that, Emily lives. If you don't..."

He pulled out a knife and held it to Emily's throat. She whimpered louder, struggling against her bonds.

"I'll send you pieces of her. One by one. And then I'll find you. And I'll do the same thing to your daughter. Slowly. While you watch."

The screen went black.

I sat there, frozen. Ryan's hand was gripping mine so tight it hurt.

Emily. Daniel had Emily.

He was using her to get to us. To get to the company.

"We have to call Detective Alvarez," Ryan said, his voice shaking with rage. "We have to find her. Before he hurts her."

I nodded, fumbling for the phone. But before I could dial, it rang.

It was a blocked number.

I answered it, my hand trembling.

"Hello?"

"Did you enjoy my little movie?" Daniel's voice. Cold. Amused.

"Where is she, Daniel?" I demanded. "What have you done with Emily?"

"She's fine. For now." Daniel laughed. "But she won't be for long if you don't do exactly what I say."

"You know we can't just sign over the company," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "It's a public corporation. There are shareholders, boards—"

"Don't play games with me, Claire," Daniel snapped. "You control fifty-one percent of the shares through the family trust. You can do whatever you want. And you will. Because if you don't, Emily dies. And then your daughter dies."

I looked at Emma, who was now crawling toward us, completely unaware of the danger we were in.

"You'll hurt her anyway," I said. "Even if we give you the company. You'll kill Emily. You'll come after us."

"Maybe," Daniel said, his voice casual. "But if you do what I say, at least you'll have a head start. And Emily gets to live. For a while, anyway. The choice is yours, Claire. Save the company, or save the woman who helped put me in prison. Which is it going to be?"

The line went dead.

I stared at the phone.

Ryan was on his feet, pacing. "We can't give him the company, Claire. We worked too hard. Too many people depend on us."

"And we can't let Emily die," I said, standing up too. "She came forward because it was the right thing to do. She risked everything to help us. If we give her up now, what does that make us?"

"There has to be another way," Ryan said.

We called Detective Alvarez immediately and told her about the phone call. She was already working on tracing the number, but she knew it was useless—Daniel would be long gone from wherever he had called.

"We're doing everything we can to find Emily," she said. "But Daniel is smart. He's had months to plan this. He could have her anywhere. A cabin in the woods. A warehouse. A basement. We're searching, but it's like looking for a needle in a haystack."

"And in the meantime?" I asked. "He's going to keep calling. Keep pressuring us. What do we do then?"

"Buy us time," Detective Alvarez said. "Pretend you're considering his demands. Stall him. Every hour you give us is another hour we have to find him."

It was our only option.

Over the next three days, Daniel called us repeatedly. Each time, he demanded we sign over the company. Each time, I stalled him, telling him I needed time to arrange the transfer, to get the paperwork in order, to convince the board.

Each time, he grew more impatient. More angry.

He sent us more videos. Short ones. Emily looking more terrified, more injured. In one, he cut her arm with the knife, just deep enough to draw blood. Emily screamed.

I watched it, my heart breaking, knowing that every second I stalled was another second of suffering for her.

But I also knew that if I gave in, Emily would die anyway. And then Daniel would come for Emma.

On the fourth day, we got a break.

Detective Alvarez called us, her voice excited.

"We found something," she said. "A property. Registered to a shell company that we traced back to one of Margaret's old associates. It's a warehouse on the docks. Abandoned. It fits the profile—isolated, easy to secure, hard to find."

"Are you sure?" Ryan asked.

"Nothing's sure," Detective Alvarez said. "But it's our best lead. We're sending a team in. Tactical units. SWAT. But we need you to do something for us."

"Anything," I said.

"Daniel is going to call you again. When he does, we need you to keep him on the line as long as possible. Our techs can try to pinpoint his location from the cell tower signals. Even if it's not exact, it might tell us if he's at the warehouse or somewhere else."

"Okay," I said. "We'll do it."

Daniel called an hour later.

I answered, putting the phone on speaker so the techs could trace it.

"Claire," Daniel said. "I hope you have good news for me."

"I do," I said, stalling. "The board agreed. We're preparing the paperwork now. But it's complicated, Daniel. There are regulatory filings, shareholder notifications—"

"Don't lie to me," Daniel snarled. "You're stalling. You're waiting for the police to find me. Well, good luck with that. They'll never find this place. And by the time they do, Emily will be dead. And so will you."

"Daniel, wait—"

But he had already hung up.

I looked at Ryan, frustrated. "That was less than a minute. They couldn't have traced anything in that time."

Before Ryan could answer, the phone rang again. Detective Alvarez.

"We got something," she said. "Not an exact location, but we got a general area. The call came from the docks. The same area as the warehouse."

"Then that's where he is," Ryan said.

"We're going in," Detective Alvarez said. "Stay where you are. We'll call you as soon as we know something."

We waited.

The next hour was the longest of my life.

Ryan paced. I held Emma, who could sense my tension and fussed in my arms. Every minute felt like an hour.

Finally, the phone rang.

It was Detective Alvarez.