"My former in-laws are up to their necks in debt. I had no idea, but my dead wife had been regularly slipping them money that we could easily spare to keep them afloat. She didn't talk to me about it at all. And when she died, they lost their gravy train."

"That's terrible." Elia touches my hand, trying to comfort me even though both of us are still devastated by the sudden kidnapping of our baby.

I swear and use an expletive that I can't use around my infant son. "If she'd told me about it, I probably would've kept up the payments. It wasn't as if I wanted to see my son's grandparents on the street. They had always had a mountain of debt behind them. They'd raised my dead wife as a princess without having the money to do so. They'd borrowed themselves into a hole that was hard to get out of." "Then she married you..."

"I wasn't a billionaire when we got married. It's mostly paper wealth, as you know. But I've always trusted...well, I always used to trust her. I knew that she liked to spend a lot but had no idea she was a lifeline for her parents."

"My primary concern is Danny," Elia says. "I want him back."

"So do I. I'm not sure if we should call the police or not." "They abducted our son. I think that merits a call to the police."

"He's not being hurt. They haven't presented a demand yet."

"Still," she says. "I don't want to wait around for them to get in contact with us. Let's be proactive."

I look at her and then call the police on my cell phone.

"Not an emergency, but my son has been kidnapped," I tell the dispatcher.

"Please hold," she tells me. In a few minutes, there's a sympathetic officer listening to what I have to say.

"And when did this happen?"

"Two hours ago."

"And they haven't returned your son, Danny?"

"Correct." My voice breaks on that one word. They stole the sun out of the sky.

"Do you have their home address?" the officer asks.

"Yes." "So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to ask you to give an official statement at the police station. Then I'm going to their home to see what I can see. You said that they dismissed the case against you?" "Yes."

"Okay. Here's the address of the station. The sooner you get here, the sooner we can get started."

"See you soon."

I hang up the phone, go to my car, key in the address, and motion for Elia to hop in.

"We're going to make a statement and she's going to get our baby back."

Elia scrambles into my car and barely

buckles her seatbelt before we go tearing out of the driveway. The car seat in my car feels incredibly empty.

I feel like I've failed my son by letting him be abducted. It wasn't as if we'd let him out of our sight. Elia was holding him when that team of men literally pulled him out of her arms. I didn't know what kind of men would tear a baby from his mother's arms, but they obviously had.

I have a military background. Women and children are off limits. Always. But those guys apparently didn't have a moral compass or could shut it off for enough money. The funny part was that my in-laws didn't have the money to pay them, so I didn't know what exactly they were working for.

Chapter 25

Hot Tub

Elia

ONE HOUR LATER

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