Chapter 3 - THE NAME HER FATHER BURIED
Clara demanded to leave the hospital before sunrise.
The doctors refused.
Dominic refused more aggressively.
Clara responded by throwing a plastic cup at him.
It missed his head by six inches.
Enzo, standing near the door, stared at the cup rolling across the floor.
No one threw things at Dominic Rossi.
Men had been shot for less.
Dominic calmly bent down, picked up the cup, and placed it back on Clara's tray.
"Finished?"
"No."
"Excellent."
"I hate you."
"Get in line."
"My mother has been kidnapped."
"Which is exactly why you're not ripping open twenty-eight stitches and bleeding to death in an elevator."
Clara's eyes burned.
"You don't get to decide what happens to me."
"No. Your surgeon does."
Dominic gestured toward Dr. Hannah Levin, who stood with her arms crossed.
The trauma surgeon looked at Clara.
"If you leave this ICU today, there's a very real chance you'll die."
Clara looked away.
Dr. Levin softened.
"You survived injuries most people don't survive. One bullet damaged your lung. Another fractured two ribs. You lost enough blood that your heart stopped for forty-three seconds on the operating table."
Clara's face went still.
Forty-three seconds.
She had been dead.
Almost.
"And I know you're terrified for your mother," Dr. Levin continued, "but right now the fastest way to help her is to stay alive."
After the doctor left, Clara didn't speak for nearly a minute.
Dominic remained near the window.
Finally she whispered, "Why did my father tell my mother not to trust your family?"
Dominic's expression changed.
"He believed one of us betrayed him."
"Did one of you?"
"Yes."
Clara looked at him.
"We just don't know who."
Dominic pulled a chair closer.
"Your father started working for mine when he was twenty-nine. Michael hated violence. He refused to carry a weapon. He once told my father that anyone who needed a gun to win an argument wasn't intelligent enough to deserve the victory."
Clara's eyes filled.
"That sounds like him."
"He used to bring you to the Rossi house."
Her mouth opened.
"What?"
"You were little."
Dominic's gaze seemed to travel backward in time.
"Four, maybe five. Your mother would leave you in Isabella's garden while Michael met with my father."
Clara searched her memory.
A garden.
White roses.
A fountain with a stone angel.
A boy standing beneath a tree.
She had always thought it was part of a dream.
"You were there."
Dominic nodded.
"I was fifteen."
Clara stared at him.
"You knew me?"
"I knew a loud little girl who stole peaches from my mother's kitchen."
Despite everything, Clara blinked.
"I hate peaches."
"You ate four."
"I don't believe you."
"You threw the fifth at Enzo."
From the doorway, Enzo muttered, "Hit me directly in the forehead."
For one impossible second Clara almost laughed.
Then reality returned.
"My dad took me there?"
"Until he stopped coming."
Dominic leaned forward.
"Then my father died. Michael vanished. My mother believed your family had been killed too."
"Why?"
"Because somebody burned your apartment."
Clara swallowed.
She had never heard that.
"We lived in Cleveland."
"Before Cleveland, you lived in Brooklyn under another surname."
"What surname?"
Dominic hesitated.
"Bell."
Elena Bell.
Clara looked at the ceiling.
Her mother had lied about everything.
Her childhood.
Her father's job.
Their names.
Maybe even the reason they left New York.
"Why did you find us now?"
Dominic pulled an envelope from inside his jacket.
"Because of this."
He handed her a photograph.
It showed Ellen entering St. Vincent Heart Institute in Cleveland three weeks earlier.
Clara's stomach tightened.
"Someone took this?"
"One of Costa's men."
"How do you know?"
"The photographer was found dead in Newark."
Clara looked up.
Dominic's face gave nothing away.
"My people recovered his phone."
"There were pictures of my mother?"
"And you."
He gave her another photograph.
Clara walking out of a Queens diner carrying two coffees.
A man across the street had photographed her without her knowing.
Another showed her unlocking her apartment.
Another showed her boarding the subway.
Her skin crawled.
"They were watching me."
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"At least seventeen days."
Clara looked toward the guards outside.
For the first time, she understood why Dominic had acted so quickly.
Not because she saved Isabella.
Not only because of that.
A hunt had already started.
"Why didn't you warn me?"
"I intended to."
"When?"
"Last night."
Her eyes narrowed.
"The ballroom."
Dominic nodded.
"My mother asked the hotel to assign you to our section."
Clara's anger flared.
"So meeting you wasn't an accident."
"No."
"Isabella knew?"
"Only that I wanted to speak to you."
Clara closed her eyes.
Every normal part of that evening had just been erased.
"So I was bait."
"No."
Dominic's voice hardened.
"I didn't know Costa planned an attack."
"But you brought me near your mother knowing I was being followed."
"That's why I had thirty-two security personnel in that building."
"Seven bullets got through thirty-two security personnel."
The words hit.
Dominic's jaw clenched.
Clara immediately knew he blamed himself.
Good.
Part of her wanted him to.
Another part hated seeing it.
"Someone inside your security team helped the shooter," she said.
Dominic's gaze sharpened.
"Why do you say that?"
"The shooter was dressed like staff."
"We know."
"He came through the service hallway."
Dominic leaned closer.
Clara concentrated.
"He had something blue around his wrist."
Enzo stepped forward.
"What?"
"A wristband."
"What kind?"
"I don't know. Blue plastic. He pulled his sleeve down when he entered."
Enzo looked at Dominic.
"Hotel security bands were silver."
Dominic's expression turned deadly.
"But Rossi security bands were blue," Enzo finished.
Silence.
Clara whispered, "So someone gave him access."
Dominic stood.
"Get me every name issued a blue band."
Enzo immediately left.
Clara watched Dominic.
"Your traitor isn't some mystery from fourteen years ago, is he?"
He looked at her.
"Maybe not."
Four hundred miles away, Ellen sat tied to a wooden chair.
Victor Costa paced slowly around her.
He had silver hair, an expensive charcoal suit, and the calm manner of a man who had ordered violence so often it no longer excited him.
"Michael always overestimated loyalty," Victor said.
Ellen said nothing.
Victor placed a photograph on the table.
Michael Evans.
Younger.
Smiling.
Holding five-year-old Clara.
"You loved him."
Ellen's eyes flickered.
"Still do."
Victor smiled thinly.
"Romantic."
"He was twice the man you'll ever be."
Victor's smile vanished.
He crouched beside her.
"Where is the ledger?"
"I told you. Michael didn't hide it."
"He gave it to a five-year-old child?"
"He hid pieces."
Victor's eyes narrowed.
"Pieces?"
Ellen looked at him.
"He knew one hiding place could be found."
Victor stood slowly.
"What did he do?"
"You'll have to ask a dead man."
Victor struck the table with his fist.
Ellen didn't flinch.
"What does Clara know?"
"Nothing."
"Then why did you say she hid it?"
"Because technically, she did."
Victor's expression hardened.
Ellen almost smiled.
"That's all you're getting."
Victor turned toward a man standing by the door.
"Bring me the box."
A black case was placed on the table.
Victor opened it.
Inside were several syringes.
Ellen's face changed.
"Your heart is weak," Victor said. "The wrong medication could become uncomfortable."
"Kill me and you lose your leverage."
"Who said anything about killing you?"
Victor picked up a syringe.
"I only need your daughter to believe you're dying."
Back in New York, Clara was sleeping when Isabella entered her room.
The older woman wore no jewelry and no makeup.
She looked tired.
Human.
Clara opened her eyes.
"You're okay."
Isabella smiled sadly.
"Because of you."
She came beside the bed.
"I don't know how to thank a woman who took seven bullets for me."
"Start by explaining why your son married unconscious women as a hobby."
Isabella laughed despite herself.
"I promise you're his first."
"Wonderful."
Isabella looked at the gold ring.
"My husband gave Dominic that ring."
Clara glanced down.
"It's not new?"
"No."
"It belonged to your husband?"
"His grandfather."
Isabella touched it.
"The Rossi men have used that design for eighty-seven years."
Clara frowned.
"So he didn't grab something from the gift shop."
"Dominic doesn't do anything casually."
That answer unsettled Clara.
Isabella sat.
"I need to tell you something Dominic won't."
"Apparently that is going around."
"Your father saved his life."
Clara's face changed.
"When?"
"Dominic was sixteen."
Isabella looked toward the window.
"Someone planted a bomb under my husband's car. Dominic was supposed to ride with him that morning. Michael discovered the wiring before they left."
Clara stared.
"He stopped Dominic from getting in?"
"He physically dragged him away."
"Did Dad know who planted it?"
"No. But afterward he became obsessed with finding out."
Isabella's eyes filled.
"I believe that investigation eventually killed him."
Clara swallowed.
"Dominic never told me."
"He carries debts like wounds."
Isabella studied Clara.
"That marriage wasn't only strategy."
Clara stiffened.
"Don't."
"I'm not telling you he loves you. He barely knows you now."
"Good."
"But when Dominic saw you fall, something happened to him."
Clara looked away.
"He saw his mother almost murdered."
"No."
Isabella's voice became softer.
"He saw Michael Evans save a Rossi for the second time."
Before Clara could answer, a sharp commotion erupted outside.
Men shouted.
A guard slammed against the glass door.
Then gunfire cracked through the hallway.
Isabella stood.
Clara's monitor erupted.
The lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the ICU.
Someone screamed.
Clara heard automatic locks release.
Then footsteps entered her room.
Not Dominic's.
A gloved hand covered Clara's mouth.
A man's voice whispered against her ear.
"Victor Costa sends his regards."
Clara tried to scream.
The intruder raised a syringe.
Then a gunshot exploded inches from her head.
The man's body collapsed across her bed.
Emergency lights flickered on.
Dominic stood in the doorway.
Gun raised.
Blood on his sleeve.
His eyes found Clara.
Then Isabella.
Both alive.
Dominic lowered the weapon.
"Everyone out."
Enzo rushed in with three guards.
Dominic walked toward the dead attacker.
He turned the body over.
Clara saw something hanging beneath the man's shirt.
A blue wristband.
Dominic ripped it free.
Then he looked at Enzo.
"Only twenty-four people had these."
Enzo's face hardened.
"Twenty-three now."
Dominic stared at the dead man.
"No."
He pointed to the serial number printed on the band.
"This wasn't issued to him."
Enzo checked the security list on his phone.
His expression changed.
"Boss..."
Clara watched both men.
"Whose was it?"
Enzo looked reluctant to answer.
Dominic took the phone.
The name on the screen made his blood turn cold.
Clara saw the change.
"Who?"
Dominic slowly looked toward Isabella.
Then back at Clara.
"The wristband belonged to my uncle."
"Your uncle?"
Dominic's voice became almost inaudible.
"Salvatore Rossi."
Isabella sat down abruptly.
Because Salvatore Rossi wasn't merely Dominic's uncle.
May you like
He had been Carlo Rossi's younger brother.
And for fourteen years, Dominic had trusted him more than almost anyone alive.
