Chapter 8 - The Burner Phone
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The tension in the penthouse hung heavy after the capos left. Luca remained by my side, working on a laptop, his presence a constant, brooding anchor. I tried to focus on a book, but my mind kept circling back to the word bloodbath.
Around 8:00 PM, I asked Dante to retrieve my purse from the guest room. I needed chapstick, a pathetic attempt to find something normal in this chaotic new reality.
As I rummaged through the worn fabric of my bag, my fingers brushed against a cold, hard piece of plastic tucked into a zippered side pocket.
It was an old, prepaid burner phone.
I had bought it a year ago when a creepy regular at the diner wouldn't leave me alone, just to have a backup emergency number. Nobody had the number except Mrs. Chen.
Suddenly, the cheap plastic phone vibrated violently against my palm.
My blood ran entirely cold. The screen lit up with an unknown caller ID.
I slowly pulled it out of the bag. Luca, sensing the shift in my posture, looked up from his laptop. His eyes narrowed instantly when he saw the phone.
“Ava, do not answer that,” Luca commanded, standing up quickly. “We have signal jammers active on your main phone. Whoever is calling that burner knows your emergency contacts.”
But my thumb moved on its own. I hit the green button and slowly raised the phone to my ear.
“Hello?” I whispered, my voice shaking.
“You’re a hard bitch to find, Ava.”
The voice on the other end was raspy, arrogant, and slurred. It was the voice that had haunted my nightmares for eighteen months.
“Jake,” I choked out.
Luca crossed the room in two massive strides, his face hardening into a terrifying mask of pure murder. He signaled Dante to immediately trace the call.
“Where is my kid, Ava?” Jake slurred over the line, the sound of traffic blaring in the background. “I went to the old bat’s apartment and she was gone. You think you can hide from me? I have friends now. Powerful friends.”
“You stay away from Emma,” I cried, gripping the phone so hard my knuckles turned white. “You abandoned us! You have no right to her!”
“I need her, Ava,” Jake snapped, his voice turning desperate and vicious. “Castellano is hunting me. If I have his new favorite waitress and her brat, he’ll have to negotiate. You meet me at the old shipping yards at midnight, alone. If you don't, I swear to God I will burn Marino’s Diner to the ground with everyone inside.”
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The line went dead.
I dropped the phone, covering my face as a sob tore through my chest. Jake wasn't just a deadbeat anymore. He was a desperate monster.
