Chapter 2 - FORTY-EIGHT HOURS AGO
I slapped him.
I didn’t think.
I didn’t care that he was Alessandro Romano.
I didn’t care that armed men surrounded us.
My hand simply moved.
The sound cracked through the room.
“Mommy!” Logan gasped.
Alessandro turned his face back toward me.
Nobody touched me.
“You saw my husband two days ago?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re just telling me now?”
“I wasn’t planning on getting shot three times tonight.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Convenient.”
His jaw tightened.
“You want the truth?”
“I want my husband.”
“The truth may be the only way you get him.”
A doctor stepped between us.
“He needs surgery again.”
Alessandro shook his head.
“Five minutes.”
“You don’t have five minutes.”
“Then make them.”
The doctor looked at the armed guards and apparently decided medicine had limits.
He backed away.
Alessandro pointed to a chair.
I stayed standing.
“Two years ago,” he began, “David came to me because he found something he wasn’t supposed to find.”
“What?”
“Money moving through companies that didn’t exist.”
“That makes no sense. David worked in insurance.”
Alessandro almost smiled.
“No. He told you he worked in insurance.”
My stomach twisted.
David had traveled often.
Philadelphia.
New York.
Washington.
He had always called them regional audits.
“What did he really do?”
“He traced money.”
“For you?”
“At first.”
The answer disgusted me.
“My husband worked for the mob?”
“Your husband worked around people like me.”
“Don’t play word games.”
“I’m not.”
He winced, pressing one hand to his abdomen.
“David was a forensic accountant.”
I stared at him.
“For who?”
“That’s where things get complicated.”
A phone vibrated.
One of the guards checked it.
His face changed.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We have a problem.”
Alessandro looked irritated.
“We have several.”
“The hospital cameras just went down.”
Silence.
The guard continued.
“Whole building.”
A cold feeling moved through me.
Alessandro immediately looked at Logan.
“Get them out.”
I hugged my son tighter.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me—”
“Catherine.”
His voice became deadly serious.
“The man who shot at you wasn’t trying to silence me.”
I looked toward the door.
“He was trying to kill you.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody knows David contacted me.”
The overhead lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then went out.
Emergency lights came on, painting the room red.
Logan started crying.
“I don’t like this.”
“I know, baby.”
Alessandro’s huge guard stepped beside us.
“Name’s Matteo.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will if you want to get downstairs alive.”
Alessandro pulled a key from around his neck.
He threw it to Matteo.
“Garage C. Car seventeen.”
Matteo nodded.
Then Alessandro looked at me.
“Your husband left something for you.”
My heart jumped.
“What?”
“In the hospital.”
“Where?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
I nearly screamed.
“You expect me to believe this?”
“He said you’d know.”
“I don’t.”
“He said one sentence.”
I stared at him.
“What sentence?”
Alessandro looked directly at me.
“Tell Catherine to remember where Logan took his first steps.”
The air left my lungs.
No.
Nobody knew that place except David and me.
Logan hadn’t taken his first steps at home.
He had taken them in this hospital.
In a quiet rehabilitation garden on the fifth floor.
David had brought me lunch during my maternity leave while I visited a sick coworker.
Logan had been barely ten months old.
He had let go of a bench.
Taken three shaky steps.
And fallen straight into David’s arms.
I whispered, “The garden.”
Matteo grabbed my shoulder.
“We move now.”
Footsteps thundered outside.
Not running doctors.
Not nurses.
Heavy boots.
Alessandro’s face hardened.
“Go.”
I picked Logan up.
Matteo opened a service door at the back of the trauma suite.
We entered a narrow corridor.
Behind us, Alessandro shouted to his remaining men.
“Hold that door!”
I ran.
Logan buried his face against my shoulder.
“What’s happening?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
That was the biggest lie I had told him since his father’s funeral.
We reached the stairwell.
Matteo stopped suddenly.
“What?”
He held up one hand.
Voices drifted from below.
“Third floor clear.”
“Check pediatrics.”
“Find the woman and the boy.”
My blood froze.
Matteo quietly drew his gun.
Then my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
I almost ignored it.
Instead, I opened the message.
Three words filled the screen.
CATHERINE. DON’T RUN.
May you like
A second message appeared.
MATTEO WORKS FOR THEM.
