Chapter 2 - THE MAFIA BOSS PROMISED TO FIND HER KIDNAPPED BROTHER—BUT THE WOUNDED WAITRESS DISCOVERED THE REAL TRAITOR BY NOTICING ONE MEDICAL DETAIL EVERY ARMED MAN MISSEDChloe tried to stand.
Her injured leg collapsed immediately.
Vincent caught her before she hit the floor.
“Let go.”
“You can't walk.”
“My brother is missing.”
“I know.”
“Then stop telling me what I can't do.”
Vincent carefully lowered her into the wheelchair.
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“You want information? You'll get information.”
Marco stared.
Vincent ignored him.
“No secrets about Evan.”
Chloe's breathing slowed.
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
“Even if it's bad?”
“Yes.”
“Promise.”
Vincent looked directly at her.
“I promise.”
Evan had left Northwestern at 8:42 p.m.
The security car followed.
Three blocks later, a delivery truck struck the rear quarter panel.
The guards exited.
A second vehicle stopped.
Witnesses saw Evan pulled inside.
Professional.
Fast.
No unnecessary violence.
The first message arrived nineteen minutes later.
TRADE THE GIRL FOR THE BOY.
Chloe stared.
“Me.”
Vincent's voice was cold.
“No.”
“I'm what they want.”
“No.”
“Stop saying no like it's a plan.”
Vincent's eyes flashed.
“I will not trade you.”
“Then what's your plan?”
“We locate Evan.”
“How?”
“Doyle.”
“He's still missing.”
“Not for long.”
Chloe studied the photographs.
The vehicles.
Hospital note.
Doyle.
Something bothered her.
“Show me the footage from outside the hospital.”
Marco frowned.
“Why?”
“The note was under my tray.”
“Yes.”
“So somebody entered my room.”
“We're checking staff.”
“Show me.”
Vincent nodded.
Marco brought the footage.
Nurses.
Doctors.
Food service.
Housekeeping.
One man in blue scrubs pushed a medication cart.
Chloe leaned closer.
“Stop.”
Marco froze the image.
“What?”
“His badge.”
“Fake?”
“No.”
Chloe pointed.
“His stethoscope.”
Vincent looked.
“What about it?”
“It's backward.”
Silence.
“He's wearing it with the earpieces facing outward.”
“So?”
“Nobody who uses one every day wears it that way.”
Marco enlarged the image.
Chloe continued.
“And those aren't nursing shoes.”
Vincent looked at her.
“You can identify him?”
“No.”
“But he's not clinical staff.”
They tracked the fake nurse.
He had entered through a loading dock using credentials belonging to a deceased hospital employee.
Security footage showed him returning to a vehicle.
License plate.
Address.
Within ninety minutes, they found him.
Alive.
Vincent's men wanted to interrogate him privately.
Chloe stopped them.
“Police.”
Vincent stared.
“He has Evan.”
“Then we need him alive and admissible.”
“My methods are faster.”
“And if your methods make him disappear before he tells us where Evan is?”
Vincent's jaw hardened.
Chloe continued.
“You keep saying you want me safe.”
“Yes.”
“Then don't turn my brother's rescue into a revenge fantasy.”
Something shifted in Vincent's expression.
He called Detective Helen Ward.
The fake nurse's name was Calvin Pike.
Under questioning, Pike broke.
Doyle had hired him.
The kidnapping location was an abandoned private clinic near Cicero.
Police moved.
Vincent stayed outside because Chloe demanded it.
“You're making me insane,” he said.
“Good.”
Three hours later, Evan emerged wrapped in a blanket.
Alive.
Chloe sobbed when she saw him.
He had a bruised cheek.
Nothing broken.
Vincent watched brother and sister hold each other.
For once, he remained outside the circle.
Evan eventually looked toward him.
“You found me?”
Vincent shook his head.
“Your sister did.”
Chloe looked up.
Vincent meant it.
No heroism stolen.
No credit claimed.
That mattered.
Doyle was arrested two days later.
He refused to name the person who hired him.
Then he was poisoned in county lockup.
Cyanide.
Dead before reaching the hospital.
Someone powerful wanted him silent.
Isabella visited Chloe.
The older woman looked tired.
“Lorenzo came to see me.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Why?”
“To assure me he would never hurt me.”
Chloe frowned.
“Did you accuse him?”
“No.”
That mattered.
“Then why defend himself?”
Isabella's eyes sharpened.
“Exactly.”
Vincent invited Chloe to Rossi House after her discharge.
Not to live permanently.
Temporarily.
She negotiated.
Evan came too.
Separate rooms.
No locked doors.
No surveillance inside bedrooms.
No listening devices.
No restrictions on leaving unless there was a documented threat.
Vincent agreed.
Marco looked as though each concession physically injured him.
Rossi House was enormous.
Chloe hated it immediately.
Too many hallways.
Too many armed men.
Too much marble.
She liked the kitchen.
Especially Rosa, the sixty-year-old cook who treated Vincent like an irritating nephew.
“Eat.”
“I have a meeting.”
“Eat.”
“Rosa.”
“Your mother says you're too thin.”
“My mother weighs ninety-eight pounds.”
“And has eyes.”
Chloe laughed.
Vincent looked offended.
“You find this funny?”
“Extremely.”
Rehabilitation was brutal.
Chloe hated being helped.
Her shoulder refused to cooperate.
Her leg burned.
Sometimes she cried after physical therapy.
One afternoon Vincent found her alone trying to walk without crutches.
She fell.
He caught her.
“Don't.”
“I need to practice.”
“You need your therapist.”
“I need my life back.”
Vincent went quiet.
Chloe pushed away.
“I was supposed to graduate next year.”
“You still can.”
“You don't know that.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
He corrected himself.
“I hope you can.”
Better.
Chloe sat.
“I hate needing people.”
Vincent leaned against the wall.
“So do I.”
“You have forty armed men.”
“Exactly.”
That made her laugh.
Their friendship grew in strange pieces.
Late-night coffee.
Arguments.
Isabella's stories.
Evan teaching Vincent video games and enjoying how terrible he was.
Chloe discovering Vincent secretly loved old Western movies.
Vincent discovering Chloe sang badly while studying.
Neither called it romance.
Not yet.
Then Chloe saw Lorenzo's hand.
Family dinner.
Lorenzo reached for wine.
A small crescent-shaped scar crossed his thumb.
Chloe froze.
She had seen that scar before.
Not on the shooter.
On the fake nurse.
Calvin Pike?
No.
That wasn't right.
She replayed the hospital footage mentally.
The man in scrubs had reached toward the medication cart.
A ring.
Rossi crest.
Not Pike.
Someone else had switched places.
The footage they'd been shown had been altered.
Chloe stood.
“Marco.”
Everyone looked at her.
“Where did the hospital footage come from?”
Marco frowned.
“Security.”
“Who collected it?”
“Lorenzo.”
Silence.
Lorenzo smiled.
“Is there a problem?”
Chloe looked at Vincent.
“Yes.”
Lorenzo reached inside his jacket.
Chloe saw the movement first.
Again.
“VINCENT!”
Gunfire erupted.
Vincent shoved Isabella down.
Marco drew.
Lorenzo fired once.
The bullet struck Marco.
Men tackled Lorenzo.
Chloe dropped beside Marco.
Training took over.
Pressure.
Airway.
Breathing.
“Call an ambulance!”
Marco coughed.
Blood.
“Stay with me.”
Vincent knelt.
Chloe looked at him.
“Get back.”
He obeyed.
She worked.
And twenty minutes later, when paramedics took Marco away alive, Vincent looked at Chloe differently.
Not because she had saved another Rossi.
Because in the middle of chaos, she had become exactly what she had been studying to become.
A nurse.
Lorenzo was arrested.
But he laughed as police took him away.
“You think this ends with me?”
Vincent stepped closer.
“Who else?”
Lorenzo smiled.
“Ask your mother who really killed your father.”
Isabella's face changed.
Vincent saw it.
“Ma?”
She looked suddenly seventy-two.
Not powerful.
Not untouchable.
Old.
Tired.
“Vincent.”
“Who killed Dad?”
Isabella closed her eyes.
“Your father wasn't murdered by an enemy.”
The room became silent.
“He was killed because he was trying to leave the organization.”
Vincent stared.
“By whom?”
Isabella looked at her son.
“Your uncle Antonio.”
Vincent's face hardened.
Antonio Rossi.
His father's younger brother.
His godfather.
The man who had taught Vincent how to shoot.
May you like
The man currently controlling Rossi operations in New York.
And the man scheduled to arrive in Chicago the following morning.
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