The chief laughed once. The sound was broken and empty. He let it hang, then he pulled the gun back a little as if deciding something.
"Say your last word," he said again, but the laugh made it hollow.
Angelina's hands trembled where the rope bit. Her mouth was dry. For a second she was certain this would be the end. She saw Lucia's smile and Gloria's laugh. The old grief rose up and pressed at her throat. Life and death crowded the same small place in her chest.
The chief stepped forward. He looked at Paul, at Roland, then at Angelina. He had a small hard smile. Around him, the others stood like men in a plan. They had the calm of people who expected no mercy.
"All right," he said. "I give you a second chance."
The room went cold with that phrase. The chief scanned them like a man reading a list. He looked pleased.
"You have twenty-four hours," he said. "Raise five hundred million dollars. You raise it, you live."
The number landed in Angelina's head like a stone. Five hundred million. The thought spun her. We can't, she thought. We are just beginning to rebuild. We have nothing. The words were too large to hold.
She could not speak. Fear pulled at the edges of thought. Her mind closed around one small thing: survive.
Paul tried to answer. "I can't—" he began, voice tight.
The chief moved like a man who never hesitated. He stepped in close and slapped Paul across the face. Once hard. Then again. And a third time. The sound cut the room. The slaps left a red line.
"If you're a man," the chief said, "say you can't pay."
Paul stood stunned. He did not speak. The room held his silence like a weight. Angelina felt the slap in her ear like a drum beat. Rage flared and died. She thought of jumping up, of tearing at the ropes, of biting and clawing free. For a beat she imagined herself fighting them all. The image evaporated; the ropes held; the men were many and steady. Her thoughts stayed trapped in her head.
They dragged the old man's body across the floor and covered him with a blanket. His blood left a dark smear. The smell of powder and iron burned at Angelina's nose. The gang re-banded their mouths tight. They checked knots and the locks on the door. The chief walked around once, then he pressed the lock. Footsteps faded away.
Silence closed like a lid. The three of them sat in the dark with ropes across their wrists and cloth in their mouths. The house smelled of smoke and old plaster. Angelina's throat felt raw. Her hands tingled where the rope had rubbed. Time moved by in small noises: a drip, a scrape, the slow creak of the ceiling.
Night came. Cold crept along the window. Angelina tried to count the minutes. She thought about the office papers her father had kept. She thought of Gloria in the car and the way the road had turned that night. Plans were small and brittle in her head. There was no way to test them. There was only waiting.
***
When the light outside shifted toward evening, the door opened. The gang returned in the same calm way. One by one they cut the ropes from Angelina and Roland. Paul stayed bound. The men did not say why. One of them smiled like a judge. The chief came close and leaned down so Angelina could hear him.
"Do you know why I free you and your brother only?" he asked.
Angelina tried to breathe. Her voice came thin. "No," she said.
The chief's lips made a small smile. He did not look like a man who had changed his mind. He looked like one who had played a hand and won.
"Do you know what?" he said. "Your father will be free on one condition."
He tapped the gun against her knee, a light, patient sound.
"Angelina," he said, "you must marry Dan Sanchez. From inside his household you will extract a specified set of Sanchez trade files and deliver them to me."
Dan Sanchez. The name tasted like poison. Angelina felt cold all at once. Dan had chased her for months with flowers and invitations and soft apologies. She had kept him at arm's length. She had said no. She had hated what his family had done. His adoptive mother had been part of a takeover that had ruined Lucia's business. That wound still bled.
"Why Dan?" she whispered, not sure she wanted an answer.
The chief's smile tightened. "Do you hear me?" he asked.
Angelina thought of Edmund. She thought of the way Edmund trusted her and the way he had smiled at her earlier that week. She felt hot shame. The answer slipped from her lips before she meant it. "Yes. I hear you," she said. The word felt wrong in her mouth. It was like signing a sentence.
The chief nodded. "Better," he said. "Finish the mission in seven months. Fail, your father dies."
He slid a grainy photo into her hands. Under the weak light she could make out the house, the back porch, a shuttered window. The picture had a time stamp. It looked like a still from a security camera.
"We watch you," he said. "This is from your home camera. We can see your movements."
The photo felt like proof. It was not just a threat now. It was evidence. Angelina stared at the black and white image and felt cold and accurate fear settle in her gut.
"If you involve the police," he warned, "Paul will die. We are everywhere. You cannot escape us."
He did not need to shout. The words were machines. They measured out the cost.
Angelina's head throbbed. The choice sat like a stone: betray one man and save another, or refuse and lose Paul. Her mind reached for Edmund and for a quick, honest life. She imagined telling Edmund and seeing his face fall. She imagined the shame of marrying a man she hated. Then Paul's face in the dim room, the rope marks, the old man's body on the floor. The image swallowed the rest.
Marry Dan. Use his access. Steal the files. Save Paul.
She hated the plan. She hated the idea of acting like a wife for any reason. She hated Dan for a hundred small, bitter things. But the chief watched her face and smiled like a man reading the final line of a play.
"Decide," he said. "Remember—twenty-four hours for money or seven months for the file. Either way, do not call the police."
Two men stepped forward. They handed their phones back to Angelina and to Roland, they also handed Angelina's eyeglasses to her. The screens glowed with missed calls and small icons. The life she had left lay in their palm. The men pushed them toward the door and into a cheap cab that waited on California Street.
The driver did not ask questions. The city moved past in a blur of light and cheap signs. Angelina kept her phone clutched in her palm as if it were a relic. Roland sat close and rubbed his wrists where the rope had been. Neither of them spoke much.
They were dropped near their father's house. The driver did not wait. The night air struck Angelina like a cold hand. She kept looking over her shoulder, waiting for a man to come out of the dark. No one came.
The house sat with dark windows. Angelina thought of her father, Paul in that room with the ropes and the smell of smoke. She thought of the old man who had died and of the camera photo now in her pocket. She thought of Edmund's face and of the way hope could be a small dangerous thing.
Tears came without warning. She cried out loud once. The sound rang on the empty sidewalk. "Why is this world so cruel?" she said.
Roland put his hand over hers. He did not have words. He only held her and let the night pass.
Angelina pressed the cold phone to her palm and felt the rough edge of the picture inside her jacket. The chief had used the ransom to make them fear quickly. That much was clear. He had seen how panic could move them. But the thing he wanted was not money. It was the file. The ransom was a test and a scare. He had already set his true plan.
Marry Dan—was it going to be possible?