Chapter 3 - The Night We Escaped the Hospital
The first blow against the door shook the frame.
Logan buried his face against my neck.
“Mommy.”
“I’ve got you.”
The lie came automatically.
I did not have anything.
Not control.
Not answers.
Not even shoes appropriate for running through a hospital at two in the morning.
Enzo pushed a heavy chair beneath the handle. Alessandro ripped monitors from his chest despite the nurse alarm screaming.
“You cannot stand.”
He swung his legs over the bed.
“I've had worse mornings.”
“You were declared dead twenty minutes ago.”
“Brief inconvenience.”
“Are all Mafia bosses this stupid?”
“No,” Enzo said. “He works hard at it.”
Another crash hit the door.
Alessandro almost smiled.
Then he became completely serious.
“Catherine, there is a service exit behind the imaging corridor. Enzo will take you.”
“What about you?”
“I’m the reason they’re here.”
“You said they want the drive.”
“That too.”
“No.”
He looked surprised.
I had surprised myself.
“I am not leaving you here to get killed after you just told me my husband is alive.”
“Possibly alive.”
“Not helping.”
The door splintered.
Enzo cursed.
A voice outside shouted, “Hospital security!”
Alessandro replied, “Wrong badge numbers.”
Silence.
Then the attackers stopped pretending.
Another impact.
Enzo opened a cabinet.
There was a maintenance access panel behind it.
“You knew this was here?” I whispered.
Alessandro shrugged. “I donate generously.”
“That's not an answer.”
“It rarely is.”
He climbed painfully through first, then Enzo helped Logan and me.
The narrow passage led into an equipment corridor between walls.
Hospital staff would later insist no official plans showed it connected to the VIP suite.
I stopped asking how Alessandro knew things.
We emerged inside a locked storage room.
Three armed Romano men waited.
One looked at Alessandro's hospital gown.
“Boss?”
“Not a word.”
The man looked away.
We moved through service elevators toward the parking structure.
Then my phone rang.
Marla.
I stopped.
Alessandro saw the screen.
“Don't.”
I answered.
“Catherine.”
Her voice sounded panicked.
“Where are you?”
“You tell me.”
“What?”
“Why did David tell me not to trust you?”
Silence.
There are pauses that mean confusion.
That was not one.
“That file isn't what you think.”
My stomach twisted.
“You knew David.”
“I knew of him.”
“You tried to get Logan's bear.”
“Because I wanted to protect you.”
“From who?”
“Romano.”
Alessandro laughed quietly beside me.
Marla heard.
“Oh God. You're with him.”
“Yes.”
“Catherine, listen to me. David did not work for Alessandro because he wanted to. Romano owned him.”
Alessandro’s expression changed.
Not anger.
Something closer to guilt.
“Is that true?” I asked him.
He did not answer.
Marla continued.
“David tried to leave.”
“Stop.”
That came from Alessandro.
Marla’s voice sharpened.
“He's listening? Good. Ask him what happened the night David tried to quit.”
I stared at Alessandro.
“What happened?”
His jaw tightened.
“Not here.”
Marla laughed.
“Of course.”
Then another voice came through her phone.
Male.
Close.
“Enough.”
Marla inhaled sharply.
“Wait—”
The call ended.
“What was that?” I asked.
Enzo had heard too.
He looked grim.
“She's not alone.”
We reached the underground garage.
Black SUVs waited with engines running.
Then Logan pointed behind me.
“Mommy, nurse.”
A woman in blue scrubs hurried toward us.
I recognized her.
Samantha Ortiz.
Night-shift pediatric nurse.
“Catherine!”
Enzo blocked her.
“Wait.”
“I'm not armed!”
She lifted both hands.
“Keene told security Catherine abducted a child from pediatrics and was threatening a patient.”
“My son has never been admitted here.”
“I know.”
Samantha looked at Logan.
“That is why I came.”
She handed me a folded piece of paper.
“Your supervisor dropped this outside records.”
A photograph.
David.
Date printed on the corner.
Nine months after his funeral.
He was walking beside Marla Keene.
My stomach turned.
“You said David told us not to trust her,” Alessandro murmured.
“Yes.”
“Then why was he meeting her?”
I did not know.
Samantha continued.
“I heard Keene arguing with a man in records. She kept saying, ‘You promised David would never come back.’”
“Did you see him?”
“No.”
“Voice?”
“Older. Baltimore accent.”
Alessandro and Enzo exchanged another glance.
“You know who?” I asked.
Enzo said, “Maybe.”
Alessandro replied, “Silas DeLuca.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“He was my consigliere for nineteen years.”
“Was?”
“Disappeared eight months ago.”
“And you never thought that was suspicious?”
“I thought he stole eight million dollars.”
“Apparently your friendship standards are unusual.”
Enzo coughed.
Alessandro looked irritated.
“Silas managed hospital contracts,” he said.
There it was.
David’s video.
The person was somebody Alessandro trusted.
Medical procurement.
Marla.
DeLuca.
The pattern tightened.
We entered the SUV.
Samantha stepped back.
I caught her wrist.
“Come with us.”
“What?”
“If Marla knows you gave me that photograph, you're not safe.”
“I have patients.”
“You also have a pulse. Keep it.”
Alessandro looked at Enzo.
“Put her in vehicle two.”
Samantha stared at me.
“Is he always like this?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“I've known him less than an hour and yes.”
We left the hospital through the service ramp.
Rain had begun.
Baltimore blurred beyond the glass.
Logan fell asleep against me almost immediately.
Children possess a cruel gift for sleeping through the destruction of their parents’ lives.
I looked at Alessandro.
“Tell me what happened when David tried to quit.”
He remained silent.
“Now.”
“David discovered that one of my crews had threatened an accountant’s family.”
“What does that have to do with him?”
“He objected.”
“Good.”
“He wanted out.”
“And?”
“I told him he couldn't leave until he finished tracing the money.”
My anger rose.
“You forced him.”
“Yes.”
“So Marla wasn't lying.”
“No.”
I looked away.
“You're no better than the people chasing us.”
“I didn't claim to be.”
That answer bothered me.
He continued.
“A week later, David came to me with evidence showing DeLuca was moving money through hospital vendors. I released him from every obligation.”
“Then why didn't he come home?”
“Because DeLuca knew about you.”
I looked down at Logan.
“He threatened us.”
“Yes.”
“And you helped fake David’s death?”
“David proposed it.”
“You agreed.”
“Yes.”
“I buried another man.”
Alessandro’s face hardened.
“I never knew whose body DeLuca used.”
“You still let me bury him.”
“I was supposed to contact David within forty-eight hours. He disappeared before I could.”
I stared at him.
“You could have told me afterward.”
“And if DeLuca watched you?”
“I spent two years believing my husband was dead.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know!”
My shout woke Logan.
He began crying.
I immediately regretted it.
“Sorry, baby.”
Alessandro looked toward the window.
“I deserve your anger.”
“That doesn't help.”
“No.”
We drove another twenty minutes before the convoy turned into an underground garage beneath an old brick building.
“Where are we?”
“One of my legitimate properties.”
“That phrase is not reassuring.”
Upstairs was a furnished apartment overlooking the harbor.
No obvious guards.
No gold furniture.
No portraits of men in suits.
Just quiet.
Logan immediately found toy cars in a cabinet.
I stared at Alessandro.
“You keep toys here?”
“My niece visits.”
The explanation unexpectedly humanized him.
I hated that.
Enzo entered carrying the recovered microSD card.
“We cracked another partition.”
“What does it contain?”
He looked at me.
“A set of coordinates.”
“Where?”
“Eastern Shore.”
Alessandro became still.
“What?”
Enzo turned the laptop.
An address near an abandoned marina.
Underneath it, David had written:
IF CATHERINE EVER FINDS THIS, DO NOT LET HER COME.
I stared.
Then another line appeared.
But she will anyway.
Despite myself, tears filled my eyes.
“He knew me.”
“Yes,” Alessandro said.
I looked at the address.
“Get a car.”
“No.”
I turned.
His expression was firm.
“You just spent an hour criticizing me for giving orders.”
“Correct.”
“Now you're giving me one?”
“Also correct.”
“David may be there.”
“Or DeLuca.”
“Then I need to know.”
“You have Logan.”
That stopped me.
My son drove a toy car across the floor, whispering engine noises.
One responsibility.
One impossible choice.
Then Enzo’s phone chimed.
He looked down.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“A security camera near the marina caught a man twenty minutes ago.”
He turned the screen.
Grainy night image.
Dark jacket.
Beard.
Older.
Thinner.
But I knew him.
I knew the way he walked.
The way his right shoulder sat slightly lower because of an old baseball injury.
My lungs forgot how to work.
“David.”
Alive.
Walking beneath the yellow lights of an abandoned marina less than ninety miles away.
Then a second man stepped into the frame behind him.
May you like
Raised a gun.
And the video cut to black.
