Chapter 2 - Room 814
Dominic’s convoy reached Mount Sinai in 11 minutes.
Clara remembered almost none of the drive.
She remembered rain smearing Manhattan into streaks of silver beyond the armored SUV windows. She remembered Dominic sitting opposite her, saying almost nothing while men spoke urgently through encrypted phones.
Mostly, she remembered the photograph.
Ben.
The syringe.
Room 814.
“He’s sixteen,” Clara whispered.
Dominic looked up.
“He’ll have protection.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I have 6 men entering the hospital through 3 entrances.”
“And what if the person beside him is already inside?”
Dominic did not answer.
That frightened her.
When they arrived, Clara ran.
Dominic caught her before she reached the elevator.
“Stairs.”
“My brother is upstairs.”
“And whoever sent that photograph expects you to use the elevator.”
Clara froze.
A moment later, the elevator doors opened.
Empty.
Dominic stared at the security camera above them.
“Stairs,” he repeated.
They climbed 8 floors.
When Clara burst through the stairwell door, the oncology hallway looked perfectly normal.
Nurses moved between rooms.
A television murmured.
Somewhere, a child laughed.
Then Clara saw room 814.
The door stood open.
She ran.
“Ben!”
Her brother lay sleeping beneath a pale blue blanket.
Alive.
No stranger.
No syringe.
Clara rushed to him and pressed shaking fingers against his cheek.
Ben stirred.
“Clare?”
She nearly collapsed.
“Hey.”
“You’re crying.”
“I’m allowed.”
He smiled weakly.
“You always say crying gives you a headache.”
Behind her, Dominic entered.
Ben blinked at the tattooed man in the burgundy suit.
“Who’s Dracula?”
Despite everything, Clara almost laughed.
Dominic’s eyebrow lifted.
“Charming kid.”
Clara turned to the nurse.
“Was anyone in here?”
The nurse frowned.
“Dr. Kessler checked his line about 15 minutes ago.”
“What does he look like?”
“Tall. Gray hair.”
Clara showed her the photograph.
The nurse’s expression changed.
“That’s not Dr. Kessler.”
Dominic immediately stepped into the corridor.
“Lock the floor.”
A commotion erupted near the elevators.
One of Dominic’s men shouted.
Then glass shattered.
Clara instinctively covered Ben.
Dominic returned seconds later.
“He’s gone.”
“Who?”
“The man from the photograph.”
“How?”
“He changed clothes.”
Dominic held up something sealed inside a plastic evidence pouch.
A hospital identification badge.
The name was fake.
But on the back, written in black marker, were 2 words.
ASK ROSSI.
Clara looked at Dominic.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
His answer surprised her.
Dominic stepped closer.
“You shouldn’t believe anything tonight.”
Including him.
Clara understood the unspoken warning.
Gabriel entered.
“We found something else.”
He handed Dominic a phone.
Security footage showed the fake doctor entering Ben’s room.
He did not inject anything.
Instead, he photographed Ben.
Then he placed something beneath the mattress.
Gabriel held up a small envelope.
Clara opened it.
Inside was an old photograph.
Two men stood beside shipping containers at a New Jersey port.
One was much younger.
But Clara recognized him.
Dominic’s father.
Vittorio Rossi.
The other man made Clara’s knees weaken.
Her father.
Thomas Jennings.
Dead for 9 years.
She turned the photograph over.
Three words were written across the back.
THEY STARTED IT.
“My father was an accountant,” Clara whispered.
Dominic stared at the photograph.
“No.”
She looked at him.
“What?”
“Thomas Jennings worked for my father.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I remember him.”
Clara’s mouth went dry.
Dominic studied the younger Thomas in the photograph.
“He disappeared shortly before my father was murdered.”
“My father died in a car accident.”
“That’s what you were told.”
Clara stepped backward.
“You knew my father?”
“I was 22 the last time I saw him.”
“And you never thought to mention that?”
“I didn’t know who you were until I saw the photograph.”
Clara searched his face for deception.
She found something worse.
Recognition.
Gabriel interrupted.
“Boss.”
His tone had changed.
Dominic turned.
Gabriel showed him another security feed.
A man had entered the hospital lobby.
Elegant charcoal suit.
Silver hair.
Walking cane.
Dominic went completely still.
Clara noticed.
“Who is that?”
“My uncle.”
Salvatore Rossi had supposedly retired from the family business 12 years earlier.
He had moved to Tuscany after Vittorio’s death and rarely returned to America.
Yet there he was.
Walking into Mount Sinai at midnight.
Dominic headed for the elevator.
Clara followed.
“You’re staying here.”
“My father’s photograph was under my brother’s mattress.”
“Exactly.”
“You’re not locking me in a hospital room while everyone else knows more about my life than I do.”
Dominic stopped.
For a second, anger flashed between them.
Then something almost like respect appeared in his expression.
“Stay behind me.”
They found Salvatore in the hospital chapel.
He sat alone in the last pew.
“You took your time,” he said.
Dominic remained standing.
“Why are you here?”
Salvatore glanced at Clara.
“Thomas’s daughter.”
Clara’s stomach tightened.
“You knew my father.”
“I knew him well.”
“Was his death an accident?”
Salvatore’s eyes moved toward Dominic.
“No.”
The word landed like a bullet.
Clara gripped the pew.
“Who killed him?”
Salvatore sighed.
“That answer could start a war.”
“One already started tonight.”
Dominic’s voice was ice.
Salvatore smiled sadly.
“You still think Gallagher poisoned your drink.”
“He did.”
“No.”
Salvatore looked at Clara.
“Declan Gallagher was never supposed to drink that Scotch.”
Silence.
“He was supposed to expose the poison before Dominic touched it.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“Why?”
“Because tonight wasn’t an assassination.”
Salvatore leaned on his cane and stood.
“It was a test.”
“A test for whom?” Clara demanded.
“You.”
Her breath caught.
Salvatore continued.
“Someone has spent years looking for Thomas Jennings’s surviving child. They needed proof you had inherited what made your father valuable.”
“What did he have?”
“A gift for noticing what everyone else missed.”
Dominic looked toward the chapel entrance.
“Who is looking for her?”
Salvatore’s expression darkened.
“A consortium your father and Thomas discovered 17 years ago.”
“What consortium?”
“The men who own judges before trials begin. Senators before elections. Ports before cargo arrives.”
Clara shook her head.
“This is insane.”
Salvatore looked at her.
“Your father found their ledger.”
“What ledger?”
“A record of every payment, every murder, every compromised official.”
Dominic understood first.
“And they think Clara has it.”
“No.”
Salvatore looked almost afraid.
“They know she does.”
Clara laughed once from disbelief.
“I don’t have any ledger.”
“Not knowingly.”
A gunshot cracked through the chapel.
Salvatore jerked.
Blood appeared across his shirt.
Dominic dragged Clara behind a stone column as a second bullet destroyed the wooden pew.
Gabriel fired toward the doorway.
Footsteps retreated.
Dominic rushed to Salvatore.
The older man was dying.
“Who?” Dominic demanded. “Who runs it?”
Salvatore coughed blood.
His hand closed around Dominic’s wrist.
“Your father trusted the wrong Rossi.”
Dominic froze.
“My father had no other brother.”
Salvatore smiled weakly.
“I didn’t say brother.”
Then he looked directly at Clara.
“Find…the lullaby.”
His hand fell.
Clara stared.
“The lullaby?”
Salvatore died before answering.
Then Clara’s phone vibrated.
Another unknown message.
This time, there was no photograph.
Only a recording.
She pressed play.
A woman began humming softly.
Clara knew the melody instantly.
Her mother used to sing it every night.
May you like
At the end of the recording, a man whispered:
“Ask your mother why she lied about being dead.”
