Chapter 5 - THE BROTHER WHO WOKE UP
Tommy woke at 6:12 the next morning and immediately asked for coffee.
Clare said no.
He asked for bourbon.
She said absolutely not.
He asked whether Clare was single.
Dominic threatened to put him back under sedation.
Tommy smiled.
“Good morning to you too.”
Clare checked him while Dr. Price reviewed the monitors.
Tommy looked better.
Pale, exhausted, but alive.
That mattered.
“How much do you remember?” Dominic asked.
Tommy’s humor disappeared.
“The warehouse.”
“Who shot you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“No.”
“What about Bell?”
Tommy closed his eyes briefly.
“He contacted me yesterday afternoon.”
“We know.”
“He sounded terrified.”
“What did he say?”
“That our companies were being used.”
Dominic glanced at Clare.
Tommy continued.
“He said he had proof somebody inside the family was partnering with people at Lakeview.”
“Victor?”
Tommy opened his eyes.
“I asked him.”
“And?”
“He wouldn’t answer.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“Why not?”
“He said names were dangerous.”
“Apparently so are numbers.”
Tommy looked confused.
Dominic told him about locker 317.
Then the photo.
Then the files.
Tommy went silent.
When Dominic mentioned Victor’s photograph, pain crossed Tommy’s face.
“That doesn’t prove Uncle Vic is behind it.”
“No.”
“You think he is.”
Dominic didn’t answer.
Tommy looked at Clare.
“You saved Bell?”
“Yes.”
“He told me about you.”
Clare blinked.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“What did he say?”
Tommy’s mouth twitched.
“That you were either the bravest nurse at Lakeview or the dumbest.”
Clare folded her arms.
“Encouraging.”
“He meant it as a compliment.”
“Still deciding.”
Tommy grew serious.
“He said you saved him after somebody ordered staff to stop trying.”
Clare looked toward Price.
The surgeon’s expression confirmed he had suspected the same.
“Tommy,” Dominic said. “Where were you supposed to meet Bell?”
“Old freight warehouse on Racine.”
“And he never showed.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“I waited seven minutes. Then the lights went out.”
Clare felt goosebumps along her arms.
“How many shooters?”
“Two, maybe three.”
“You were alone?”
Tommy looked embarrassed.
“I thought bringing security would scare Bell.”
Dominic leaned toward him.
“Next time you decide to secretly meet an accountant who believes an organized criminal conspiracy wants him dead, bring security.”
Tommy smiled weakly.
“Noted.”
Dominic didn’t smile.
Clare did.
Then Tommy’s face changed.
“There was someone else.”
Dominic stopped.
“What?”
“Before the shooting.”
“Who?”
“A woman.”
Clare frowned.
“Bell?”
“No. She came through the side entrance. I thought she was him at first.”
“Describe her.”
“Fifties. Blond. Expensive coat.”
Clare’s stomach dropped.
“Was she wearing glasses?”
Tommy looked at her.
“Yes.”
Clare sat down.
Dominic recognized the reaction.
“Who?”
“Kathryn Davis.”
“The HR woman?”
“She fired me.”
Tommy nodded slowly.
“That was her.”
The betrayal suddenly expanded.
Kathryn Davis hadn’t been a polite administrator following hospital policy.
She had been at the warehouse where Tommy was shot.
Maybe not holding the weapon.
Maybe not pulling the trigger.
But there.
“Why would an HR director be at a secret meeting?” Clare whispered.
Dominic answered.
“Because she wasn’t there as HR.”
An hour later, Nico brought security footage from a traffic camera near the warehouse.
Kathryn’s SUV appeared nine minutes before Tommy arrived.
It left three minutes before the shooting.
“Convenient,” Clare said.
Dominic stood behind Nico.
“Where is she now?”
“Home.”
“Get her.”
Clare turned sharply.
“Absolutely not.”
Dominic looked at her.
“She knows something.”
“So call the police.”
Nico made a sound that was almost a cough.
Clare glared.
“I heard myself.”
Dominic’s expression remained calm.
“You want me to ask Chicago police to investigate a hospital conspiracy using companies attached to my family?”
“Yes.”
“You think they’ll trust me?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“But dragging Kathryn into a basement is not an alternative.”
“I never said basement.”
“That is somehow worse.”
Tommy started laughing, then winced.
“Please don’t make him laugh,” Price said.
Clare pointed at Dominic.
“See?”
Dominic stared at her for several seconds.
Then took out his phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling someone.”
“Who?”
“A federal prosecutor.”
Everybody in the room looked surprised.
Especially Nico.
Dominic noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You expected a basement too?”
“A little.”
Dominic made the call.
That was the first moment Clare realized something important.
The rumors about Dominic Romano were not entirely wrong.
He was dangerous.
He had done things he would never discuss in polite company.
People feared him for reasons.
But dangerous and stupid were not the same thing.
Dominic understood power.
More importantly, he understood when power needed witnesses.
The prosecutor’s name was Rebecca Sloan.
She arrived two hours later with an FBI agent and the expression of a woman who would rather wrestle a bear than accept coffee from Dominic Romano.
“This better be extraordinary.”
Dominic handed her the flash drive.
Twenty minutes later, she stopped looking annoyed.
Forty minutes later, she started making phone calls.
By noon, federal agents had quietly begun verifying the records.
Kathryn Davis failed to show up for work.
Her house was empty.
Dr. Weber disappeared too.
Victor Romano answered none of Dominic’s calls.
Then something happened Clare hadn’t expected.
Lakeview Memorial publicly released a statement.
At 12:43 p.m., every local news station reported the same story.
FORMER NURSE SUSPECTED OF STEALING CONFIDENTIAL PATIENT RECORDS.
Clare stood in Dominic’s living room staring at the television.
Her photograph appeared on screen.
Her nursing photograph.
The one from her hospital file.
The anchor explained that an unnamed administrator believed Clare Bennett might have accessed protected medical records before her termination.
Clare felt her face burn.
“They’re blaming me.”
Dominic stood behind her.
“They’re scared.”
“They’re destroying me.”
“They’re trying.”
“My career is over.”
“No.”
“Who hires a nurse accused of stealing patient records?”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“The truth will come out.”
“When?”
He didn’t answer.
Clare laughed without humor.
“Exactly.”
Her phone began ringing.
She didn’t recognize the number.
Then another call.
Then another.
Reporters.
She turned the phone off.
“I spent nine years there.”
Dominic’s voice softened.
“I know.”
“You don’t.”
She turned on him.
“You don’t know what it’s like to build something ordinary and respectable and have somebody destroy it in one afternoon.”
The moment the words left her mouth, she regretted them.
Because Dominic’s face changed.
Not anger.
Something older.
“My father built Romano Freight from one truck,” he said.
Clare said nothing.
“When I was seventeen, somebody put a bomb beneath his car.”
Her anger disappeared.
Dominic looked toward the rain beyond the windows.
“My mother died with him.”
Clare’s throat tightened.
“I’m sorry.”
“I learned very young that respectable things can disappear in one afternoon.”
Their eyes met.
For the first time, neither of them was nurse or mafia boss.
Just two people who understood loss.
Then Nico rushed into the room.
“Dominic.”
“What?”
“We found Bell.”
Clare stepped forward.
“Alive?”
Nico hesitated.
“Yes.”
Relief hit her.
Then she saw his face.
“But?” Dominic asked.
Nico held up a photograph.
Anthony Bell sat tied to a chair.
A newspaper rested against his chest.
Today’s date.
Behind him stood a man wearing a black mask.
May you like
Written across the newspaper in red marker were six words.
BRING CLARE BENNETT OR HE DIES.
