Chapter 6 - THE NIGHT THE HOSPITAL WENT DARK
Emergency lights painted the hospital corridor red.
Nora dropped behind the bed.
Zeo pulled violently against the handcuff.
The agent drew his weapon.
Another suppressed shot came through the doorway.
The agent fell.
Nora crawled toward him.
“Don’t,” Zeo ordered.
“He’s alive.”
“Nora!”
She reached the wounded agent anyway and dragged his pistol from beneath his body.
Zeo stared.
“Do you know how to use that?”
“My mother hated guns.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
“Wonderful.”
Footsteps approached.
Zeo extended his cuffed hand.
“Give it to me.”
She slid the pistol across the floor.
He caught it.
A man entered.
Zeo fired once.
The attacker dropped.
Nora flinched.
Zeo did not.
That difference between them filled the room.
“Keys,” he said.
She searched the fallen agent and found them.
Her hands shook as she unlocked Zeo.
He noticed.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She stared at him.
“Good?”
“Fear keeps you careful.”
He took the second weapon.
They moved into the corridor.
Smoke drifted from a utility closet.
Someone had deliberately triggered the electrical system.
“This is Thomas,” Nora whispered.
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“At least four.”
“You can tell?”
“I heard four weapons.”
Nora looked at him.
“That is not a normal skill.”
“My life has not been normal.”
They reached the stairwell.
A figure emerged below.
Zeo raised his weapon.
“Gabriel?”
His cousin lifted both hands.
“Please don’t shoot me.”
Zeo lowered the gun.
Gabriel climbed toward them.
“Thomas has men on three floors. Federal transport is compromised.”
“Camilla?”
“Missing.”
Nora’s stomach dropped.
“The ledger.”
“Exactly.”
They exited through a maintenance corridor.
Nora led them.
She knew every service hallway because she had cleaned them.
For once, Zeo’s money and violence were useless.
Her mop routes saved them.
At the laundry dock, Gabriel had a car waiting.
They escaped seconds before armed men reached the loading area.
“Where?” Gabriel asked.
Zeo looked at Nora.
“Brighton.”
“No,” she said immediately. “You’ll bring them to Eli.”
“He’s already been moved.”
Her face drained.
“What?”
“I moved him two hours ago.”
“You did what?”
“To a private rehabilitation property.”
“You moved my brother without asking me?”
“Yes.”
She slapped him.
Gabriel stared straight ahead.
Zeo did not move.
Nora’s eyes filled with furious tears.
“You do not own us.”
“I know.”
“Then stop making decisions for me!”
“You were in a hospital under attack.”
“You couldn’t have known that two hours ago.”
“I knew Thomas was coming.”
“How?”
Silence.
Nora looked at Gabriel.
Then Zeo.
“You used me.”
Zeo’s jaw tightened.
“I suspected Thomas would move against the witness.”
“So you left me there?”
“No. I doubled security.”
“Secretly.”
“Yes.”
“To see who came.”
“Yes.”
Her expression broke something in him.
“You turned me into bait.”
“Nora—”
“Stop the car.”
“Nora.”
“Stop the damn car.”
Gabriel pulled over.
Nora got out.
Zeo followed despite his wounds.
Rain had begun.
She rounded on him.
“You fake a coma to test your fiancée. You test your men. You test Gabriel. Now you test me.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“No. You were trying to control the board.”
He had no answer.
Because she was right.
“You don’t know how to trust anyone,” she said.
“Trust got me shot.”
“No. The people you chose got you shot.”
That hit harder.
Nora stepped closer.
“Do you know why I put that phone under your pillow?”
He said nothing.
“Because you were helpless and somebody needed to do the decent thing. I didn’t ask whether you deserved it.”
Rain ran down her face.
“But you? You calculate everything. Every kindness has a strategy. Every person has a use.”
“You don’t.”
Her expression changed.
Zeo spoke more quietly.
“You don’t have a use.”
“Then what am I?”
He stared at her.
For once, Zeo Rossi had no prepared answer.
“I don’t know.”
Nora laughed bitterly.
“At least that’s honest.”
She turned.
Zeo caught her hand.
She looked down.
He released it.
“I’m sorry.”
Nora stopped.
Gabriel looked through the windshield in disbelief.
Perhaps nobody had heard those words from Zeo in years.
Nora faced him.
“What?”
“I was wrong.”
The rain seemed louder.
“I should have told you.”
“Yes.”
“I should have asked.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Care about someone without trying to control what happens to them.”
Neither moved.
Then Gabriel’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face immediately tightened.
“What happened?”
He listened.
Then looked at Zeo.
“Camilla’s dead.”
Nora covered her mouth.
Gabriel continued.
“Car found beneath the Manhattan Bridge. One gunshot.”
“The drive?” Zeo asked.
“Missing.”
Nora remembered Camilla’s fear.
Thomas was cleaning up everyone who could expose him.
Then Gabriel said, “There’s more.”
He held up his phone.
A photograph had been sent from Camilla’s number ten minutes after her estimated death.
It showed the flash drive resting on a table.
Beside it lay a handwritten note.
Nora recognized the handwriting.
May you like
Camilla had written:
THE MAID HAS THE REAL ONE.
