THE RETURN OF THE HIDDEN HEIR

Chapter 010: Hidden Enemy

The remaining masked men instinctively shifted backward, the faint scrape of their boots being the only sound in the room.

Slowly, Derrick lifted his gaze from the dead man, the other masked men meeting his eyes with total awe.

That man on the floor wasn't just their leader. He was one of the syndicate's top enforcers, a name that had slipped through nationwide manhunts and left mass graves behind. He was not the kind to die in a club.

And yet he lay there now, neck broken, eyes glassy–killed like he was nothing.

A gun clattered to the floor.

One of the kidnappers had raised it out of reflex, but the moment Derrick took a single step toward him, the man's courage melted. He stumbled back, then dropped the weapon and collapsed to his knees.

"Please–don't–" His voice cracked, words dissolving into sobs. "I didn't know. I swear I don't know–"

The other masked men followed, and soon they were all on the ground, their masks coming off. They pleaded in shaking voices, bodies curling inward as if trying to disappear.

"Spare us"

"We'll talk."

"Anything. Just don't kill us please!"

Derrick stopped in front of them, then asked in a calm voice, "Who sent you?"

The answer spilled out immediately–overlapping and desperate.

"Vincent–Vincent Maguire!"

"We were ordered to take the girl. Just the Lorenzo girl!"

A ripple moved through the room as whispers began to spread.

"Vincent Maguire?"

"As in Christopher Maguire's son?"

Christopher Maguire wasn't just a crime boss–he was 'the' crime boss. The kind whose shadow decided careers, lives, disappearances. Ivy was in big trouble if he knew about her.

Dora watched it all from the floor, her chest heaving as she pushed herself onto one elbow. Blood-tinged saliva slipped from her lips as she spat it aside, and her eyes burned with realization.

So this was it.

That earlier fight replayed itself in her mind with brutal clarity–the hesitation and restraint, also the way Derrick had yielded ground that didn't need to be yielded.

He hadn't been struggling. Instead, he'd been playing all through.

Her jaw clenched. She'd been made a damned fool of– paraded in front of a crowd while he hid the depth of his strength behind courtesy and control. The humiliation burned hotter than the bloody pain in her ribs.

She had underestimated him badly.

Ivy took a step forward, disbelief cutting through her fear. "Vincent Maguire?" she said slowly. "I've never met him. I've never had anything to do with–"

One of the kidnappers let out an almost hysterical laugh.

"You think all that matters?" he said hoarsely. "The Maguires take who they want. You don't get a special invitation. You get grabbed."

Ivy's hands curled into fists as memory surged. She slowly remembered how those men attacked and drugged her back in the forest path, and how she was almost killed before Derrick came to the rescue. Her breath caught. That surely couldn't have been random.

"That's enough," Derrick suddenly said, his expression darkening.

The kidnappers flinched.

He turned slightly, angling his shoulder toward Ivy. "Call the cops."

She nodded, fingers shaking as she reached for her phone.

The rest of the kidnappers huddled tighter in a corner now, fear totally overwhelming bravado.

"Big brother, please. We were forced into this. We don't even know why she was the target!"

"We just follow instructions," another added.

Before anyone could speak again, the sound of hurried footsteps echoed from the distance as the club owner burst in.

The surveillance team had sent an alert straight up the chain of authority that the security system automatically recognized Derrick. There were only two reasonable explanations–either Dominic Santiago had walked in, or the true and ultimate power behind the group had finally decided to reveal himself.

Either way, none of them should be kept waiting, and the club owner came in as soon as the information reached him.

He had come running, rehearsing apologies and wonderful pleasantries in his head, ready to make a good impression that might save his future.

But just as he crossed the threshold, the words vanished.

His eyes caught the shattered tables lay strewn across the floor, blood smearing the expensive tiles, and lights hanging broken and sparking from the ceiling. The smell of gunpowder was thick in the air.

His stomach dropped.

'I'm done for,' he thought numbly. 'My career is over.'

Then he looked closely again. Masked men. Firearms scattered on the ground. Wealthy guests leaning against the wall and filled with fear.

He instantly knew what was going on–a criminal case.

"Oh God," he gasped, placing a hand on his chest as his knees threatened to give him away.

His vision slowly dimmed and he would have collapsed outrightly if his secretary hadn't rushed in and slipped an arm around his waist.

"Sir," she murmured urgently, close to his ear. "Stay with me. Breathe."

The owner swallowed hard and forced air into his lungs.

He stood there for a moment longer, letting the worst of his fears pass. His secretary kept her arm firm around his waist until he slowly straightened up.

The room came back into focus–the faces first, then the full weight of the devastation.

He studied the half–masked men, noting that they were no longer threats as some lay sprawled and unmoving. Their weapons were discarded several feet away, and they seemed no longer interested in them. One of them was even laying dead. Whatever fight they'd come in with had been methodically stripped from them.

But by who?

The owner was still turning that over in his mind when a voice cut through the silence.

"Mr. Halvorsen?"

He looked up.

A man near the bar had straightened, recognition dawning across his face.

"That's the owner," he said louder now. "That's him!"

The effect was immediate, as voices rose all at once–overlapping, urgent and strained. People who had been frozen minutes earlier suddenly found their tongues again.

"Some guys tried to kidnap Ivy Lorenzo–"

"They had guns–"

"I thought we were all dead–"

The noise swelled, each person trying to be heard over the others. They all saw the club owner as the saviour they all needed to help them out of the night's mess.

But was he?