Chapter 1 - THE DEAD MAN SPOKE
My three-year-old son was lying on the chest of a dead mafia boss when the heart monitor suddenly beeped.
Once.
Twice.
Then Alessandro Romano opened his eyes, wrapped his fingers around Logan’s tiny wrist, and whispered the name of the husband I had buried two years earlier.
“David Winters.”
My knees nearly gave out.
“How do you know my husband?”
Around me, six armed men went completely still.
Doctors stared at the monitor as if it had just performed a miracle.
Alessandro didn’t look at them.
He looked only at me.
“Because David didn’t die in that car.”
For a second, I forgot how to breathe.
“No.”
My voice barely came out.
“No, I buried him.”
Alessandro’s face tightened with pain.
“You buried someone.”
My son lifted his head from Alessandro’s chest.
“Mommy?”
I rushed forward and pulled Logan into my arms.
“It’s okay, baby.”
It wasn’t.
Nothing about that room was okay.
Two years ago, a drunk driver had supposedly killed my husband six weeks after Logan was born.
The police had identified the body.
A hospital had signed the paperwork.
A funeral director had closed the coffin.
I had stood beside that coffin with milk leaking through my black dress because I was still nursing our newborn son.
I had watched dirt fall onto the grave.
I had gone home alone.
And now a man who had been declared dead less than ten minutes earlier was telling me my husband had survived.
“You’re lying,” I whispered.
Alessandro slowly reached beneath his bloodstained hospital sheet.
Every guard tensed.
Then he pulled out a gold ring.
My entire body went cold.
It was David’s wedding band.
Plain gold.
A thin black groove around the middle.
Inside, the engraving I had chosen before our wedding.
D.W. + C.M.
I stared at it.
“That’s impossible.”
“No,” Alessandro said. “What happened to your husband was impossible.”
My hands started shaking.
I had personally watched the funeral director place that ring on David’s finger.
“How did you get that?”
Alessandro glanced toward one of his guards.
The man near the door.
Tall.
Gray suit.
Scar above his eyebrow.
Something flashed across Alessandro’s face.
Fear.
“Lock the door,” he ordered.
The guard didn’t move.
Alessandro’s voice hardened.
“Russo. Lock it.”
Russo slowly reached inside his jacket.
Alessandro’s eyes widened.
“GET DOWN!”
The gunshot exploded before I could move.
A bullet slammed into the wall behind Alessandro’s bed.
People screamed.
I dropped to the floor with Logan beneath me.
Another guard tackled Russo.
A second shot shattered a medical cabinet.
Glass rained across the tile.
“Mommy!”
“I’ve got you!”
I covered Logan’s head.
Two men crashed into the wall.
Russo kicked one away and raised his gun again.
This time he pointed it at me.
Not Alessandro.
Me.
“What the hell?” I screamed.
Russo’s face had changed.
No panic.
No hesitation.
He looked like a man finishing a job.
“You should’ve stayed downstairs.”
Alessandro grabbed the metal tray beside him and threw it.
The tray struck Russo’s wrist.
The gun fired into the ceiling.
A huge guard slammed Russo to the ground.
Someone ripped the weapon from his hand.
Alessandro tried to sit up.
Fresh blood spread beneath his gown.
“Keep him alive!”
The huge guard twisted Russo’s arms behind his back.
“Who sent you?”
Russo smiled against the floor.
“You already know.”
Then he looked directly at me.
“Ask your husband.”
My stomach dropped.
Alessandro swore.
“Take him downstairs.”
The guards dragged Russo away.
The doctors rushed toward Alessandro.
“You’re reopening your wounds.”
“I don’t care.”
“You were clinically dead.”
“Apparently I got bored.”
Nobody laughed.
I stood slowly, holding Logan.
The room smelled like blood and gunpowder.
I looked at the ring still sitting in Alessandro’s palm.
“Tell me where David is.”
Alessandro closed his fingers around it.
“I can’t.”
My anger exploded.
“You just told me my dead husband is alive!”
“I said he survived the crash.”
“That means he’s alive.”
Alessandro stared at me.
“No, Catherine.”
His expression changed.
“He survived the crash two years ago.”
My heart sank.
“What does that mean?”
“It means the last time I saw David Winters alive…”
He stopped.
“When?”
May you like
Alessandro looked toward the locked door.
“Forty-eight hours ago.”
