Chapter 2 - The Four Words|
The ballroom at Harbor Lights was dead silent, save for the soft, shuddering sobs of a seven-year-old girl and the rhythmic hum of the air filtration system.
Luca didn't move for three long seconds. His mind was racing backward across three years of medical charts, physical therapy reports, and the night Ashwood Bridge collapsed into the freezing river.
You kept your promise.
He took three slow, heavy steps toward the kneeling woman.
Hannah Carter was still on her knees on the cold marble, her arms wrapped around Sophia so tightly her knuckles were white. Her face was buried in the little girl’s dark curls, tears streaming down her cheeks, ignoring the shattered crystal surrounding them.
"Sophia," Luca said softly, his voice gravelly and thick with raw emotion.
Sophia didn't let go of Hannah's neck. She held on tighter, her small body trembling with exhaustion from a sprint that medical science swore she would never execute.
Luca dropped to one knee beside them. He looked at Hannah—really looked at her—looking past the waitress apron, past the red curls escaping her bun, straight into her pale, terrified eyes.
"Who are you?" Luca whispered.
Hannah looked up, swallowing hard, her lower lip trembling. "I... I'm just a server, Mr. Moretti. I work for the catering company."
"A server doesn't make my daughter run," Luca said, his gray eyes darkening into storm-clouds. "A server doesn't make a girl who hasn't felt her toes in thirty-six months sprint across a room."
"I don't know what happened," Hannah stammered, trying to back away slightly, but Sophia’s arms remained locked around her neck like iron. "She just... she stumbled, and I caught her—"
"Daddy, don't be mad at her!" Sophia cried out, pulling her head back from Hannah's shoulder, her face flushed red. "She's the bridge angel! She told me she would come back!"
Luca’s breath caught in his throat.
The bridge angel.
Three years ago, on the night of the crash, the paramedics had found Sophia pinned beneath the twisted rear frame of the Lincoln SUV in three feet of freezing river water. When she woke up in the ICU two days later, she had babbled about a woman who had held her head above the water for forty minutes before the rescue teams arrived.
The police had dismissed it as a child's oxygen-starved hallucination. The rescue divers insisted no civilian was near the wreck when they reached the scene.
Luca slowly raised his hand, his large, calloused fingers touching the wet fabric of Hannah’s apron sleeve.
May you like
"It was you," Luca breathed out, the realization striking him like a physical blow. "You were in the river."
Hannah closed her eyes, a heavy tear spilling over her lashes, and nodded once in absolute silence.
