Page 66 of Cinderella and the Daddy

"What am I looking for?"

"How long it's been active. Who manufactured it? Any identifying signatures that might tell us who planted it." I pause, hating the next question I have to ask. "And find out when it was planted.”

The silence on the other end stretches too long. Dimitri's smart enough to understand the implications of what I'm asking.

"I'll do my best," he says finally.

"This happens now. Nothing else matters. Do you understand?"

“Yes, sir.”

My phone rings.Grigori.

"Boss, we have a problem."

The words hit me like ice water. "What kind of problem?"

"She's not here. The pharmacy clerk says he hasn’t seen her. No sign of her anywhere on the street."

Gone.

The word echoes in my head.

Cindy is gone, along with any certainty I had about her loyalty. Do I really know her intentions? The woman who promised she wasn't going anywhere was gone.

“Find her!" I order, though even as I say it, I know it's probably futile. If she's run, if this was all an elaborate setup, she could be anywhere by now.

"Boss—"

"Find her, Grigori. You fucked up.”

I don’t have to make threats. He knows he fucked up and what it will cost him.

I storm back into the security room. “I want Cindy found!”

Viktor looks confused. “Sir?”

“Now!”

He’s pulling out his phone and making calls.

A cold certainty settles in my chest. This isn't random. The tracker, her disappearance, the carefully orchestrated timing.

Someone is playing a longer game than I realized. And somehow, they've turned the one person I trusted completely into either a willing participant or a pawn.

The thought of Leo stops me cold. If Cindy has betrayed us, if this whole thing has been an elaborate setup, then my son is in danger.

I walk back to the kitchen, finding Leo exactly where I left him, still absorbed in his cartoons and cereal. He looks so innocent. Idon’t want to scare him. I don’t want to tell him that the woman he’s been calling Mommy for the last couple of months has betrayed him.

Then I remember the tracker on my car. Are there trackers on the other vehicles? The ones Leo is driven in? Was there already a plan in motion to take him?

I need to keep him safe.

The safe room is hidden behind a false wall in the basement. It’s only accessible through a biometric scanner keyed to my and Leo’s palm prints. Inside, it's equipped with everything needed for an extended siege: food, water, communications equipment, weapons, and enough air filtration to survive a chemical attack.

I had it outfitted to feel like a living room, complete with copies of Leo’s favorite toys.

I've never had to use it. Never wanted to.