CHAPTER 2 – THE NUMBER THAT SHOULD HAVE DIED
CHAPTER 2 – THE NUMBER THAT SHOULD HAVE DIED
Dominic never blinked.
His eyes stayed locked on the business card in my trembling hand as though it had crawled out of a grave.
"Answer me," he said, his voice low enough to make the room feel smaller. "Who else has called you from this number?"
I swallowed.
"I... I don't know. Collection agents. Different voices. Sometimes women. Mostly men."
"Did any of them ever ask about your mother?"
I nodded slowly.
"They kept saying she owed money. They knew where she worked before she got sick. They knew what medications she took. They even knew what flowers were on her funeral program."
Dominic's jaw tightened.
"They weren't collecting a debt."
My stomach dropped.
"They were making sure no one started asking questions."
Before I could respond, one of the twins began to fuss.
The little girl reached toward Dominic with tiny hands.
His entire face changed.
The cold calculation disappeared, replaced by something raw and painfully human.
He scooped her into his arms with astonishing gentleness, whispering in Italian until she settled against his shoulder.
Watching a man who carried a pistol under his pillow cradle a baby with such tenderness felt almost impossible.
"They're all I have left," he murmured.
I hesitated.
"What happened to their mother?"
For several seconds he said nothing.
Then he answered.
"They told the newspapers it was a car accident."
His eyes never left his daughter.
"It wasn't."
Silence swallowed the room.
"They poisoned her."
My breath caught.
"Who?"
"The people behind Apex."
I looked down at the card again.
"A debt collection company?"
A bitter laugh escaped him.
"No."
He reached into his bloody duffel bag and removed a thin black folder wrapped in plastic to protect it from the rain.
Inside were photographs.
Doctors.
Judges.
Police captains.
Politicians.
Every face had a red line connecting it to one name.
Apex Financial Solutions.
"It isn't a finance company," Dominic said quietly.
"It's the clean face of the largest criminal network on the East Coast."
I stared at him.
"They buy hospitals."
"They buy insurance companies."
"They buy debt."
"They buy people."
"And when someone becomes inconvenient..."
He closed the folder.
"They disappear."
A chill raced through me.
"My mother's hospital..."
"...was owned by one of their shell companies."
I felt as if the floor had vanished beneath my feet.
"No."
"I checked after your mother died."
My head snapped toward him.
"You knew who I was?"
His silence answered before his words did.
"I've known your name for almost two years."
Every instinct screamed for me to run.
"You investigated me?"
"I investigated every family connected to that hospital."
"Why?"
"Because my wife died there."
The room spun.
"My mother died there too."
He nodded once.
"They were on the same floor."
I stared at him.
"That's impossible."
"It isn't."
He reached into the folder again.
This time he pulled out a faded hospital visitor log.
Two names sat side by side.
Maria Bennett.
Elena Moretti.
Same day.
Same hallway.
Same hour.
My mother.
His wife.
Neither of us spoke.
The babies babbled softly on the blanket, completely unaware that the adults around them had just discovered their lives had crossed years before either of us realized it.
Then another memory crashed into me.
"My mother..."
"What?"
"The week before she died..."
I rushed downstairs, throwing open an old cedar chest where I kept the few belongings I couldn't bear to discard.
Photographs.
Letters.
A worn sweater that still faintly smelled like lavender.
Finally...
A small white envelope.
I had never opened it.
On the front, in my mother's careful handwriting, were only six words.
Open if someone named Dominic comes.
My hands went numb.
Dominic stared at the envelope as though he'd seen a ghost.
"Don't."
"What?"
"Don't open it."
"Why?"
"Because if your mother left me a message..."
His voice cracked for the first time.
"...then she knew she was going to die."
Neither of us moved.
Outside, thunder rolled across the city.
Then every light inside the diner suddenly went dark.
The power had been cut.
The twins started crying.
At the exact same moment...
A red laser dot appeared on the nursery wall.
Then another.
Then a third.
Dominic shoved me to the floor.
"Sniper!"
The front window exploded inward in a shower of glass.
A deafening gunshot ripped through the diner.
The bullet missed my head by less than an inch.
Dominic fired back while grabbing one baby with his free arm.
I grabbed the other twin without thinking.
More bullets punched through the walls.
Someone outside shouted through a megaphone.
"Bring us the children."
Another voice followed.
"You can keep Moretti."
A final shot shattered the framed photograph of my mother hanging above the staircase.
Hidden inside the broken frame, something small and metallic clattered onto the floor.
A brass safety-deposit key.
May you like
Wrapped around it was a strip of paper written in my mother's handwriting.
Dominic... trust my daughter. She has the second key.
