Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Knew His Real Name
By the time we reached St. Catherine’s Hospital, I had received eleven calls.
I answered none of them.
That alone would have been enough to make my people nervous.
Ethan Moretti did not disappear.
He did not ignore calls.
He certainly did not abandon a Ferrari on a Manhattan street and arrive at a hospital in an ambulance with an unconscious woman and a five-year-old child.
Yet that was exactly what I had done.
Doctors took Elena through a pair of swinging doors.
Leo tried to follow.
A nurse stopped him gently.
“You have to wait here, sweetheart.”
“But she needs me.”
“They're helping her.”
His lower lip trembled.
I crouched beside him.
“She won't be alone.”
“You promise?”
There was that word again.
Promise.
“Yes.”
He studied my face, apparently deciding whether I was trustworthy.
Then he handed me his truck.
“Hold this.”
I stared at it.
“Why?”
“So I can go wash my hands.”
Before I could answer, he placed it in my palm.
The weight was almost nothing.
Yet it felt heavier than any weapon I had ever carried.
I turned it over.
Underneath the chassis was a tiny mark scratched into the plastic.
E.M.
My initials.
I had carved them there with my father’s pocketknife when I was eight.
There was no doubt anymore.
This was mine.
“Boss.”
Marco’s voice came from behind me.
I closed my hand around the truck.
Marco Bellini was forty-two, broad-shouldered, permanently serious, and one of only three people alive I trusted with information that could destroy me.
His eyes moved from me to the emergency-room doors.
Then toward Leo returning from the restroom.
Marco frowned.
“You want to explain?”
“No.”
“Great. That usually means I’m going to hate the explanation.”
Leo approached.
He looked at Marco suspiciously.
“Who's he?”
“Marco.”
“Is he your friend?”
Marco almost smiled.
“Depends on the day.”
Leo looked at me.
“He looks grumpy.”
“He is.”
“I can hear you,” Marco said.
“I know.”
For the first time that morning, Leo laughed.
It lasted only a second.
But the sound did something strange to me.
Marco noticed.
His expression changed.
He waited until Leo sat several chairs away before lowering his voice.
“Who is the woman?”
“Elena Rossi.”
Marco went still.
Unlike most people, Marco knew the name.
“You're sure?”
“I saw her.”
“Ethan, Elena Rossi disappeared seven years ago.”
“I know.”
“We were told—”
“I remember what we were told.”
Marco looked toward Leo.
Then at the truck in my hand.
His eyes narrowed.
“What is that?”
“Mine.”
“What?”
“From when I was a kid.”
For once, Marco Bellini had nothing to say.
I handed the truck back when Leo returned.
He sat beside me.
Twenty minutes passed.
Then forty.
Finally, a doctor approached.
“Family of Elena Rossi?”
Leo jumped up.
“I’m her son.”
The doctor looked toward me.
“And you are?”
I hesitated.
Leo answered for me.
“He’s Ethan. Mom knows him.”
Marco coughed into his fist.
The doctor seemed uninterested in the complexity.
“Elena was severely dehydrated and exhausted. Her blood pressure dropped dangerously low, but she's stable now.”
Leo’s entire body relaxed.
“Can I see her?”
“In a few minutes.”
I asked, “What caused it?”
“We’re still evaluating her. Malnutrition, exhaustion, prolonged stress—possibly more than one factor.”
Malnutrition.
I looked down the hall.
The Elena I remembered had once been impossible to keep still.
She loved late-night diners, terrible coffee, and arguing about books she hadn't finished.
How had she ended up sleeping beneath a blanket in an alley?
And why hadn't she come to me?
The answer arrived immediately.
Because of what I was.
Marco waited until the doctor left.
“You need to leave.”
“No.”
“Boss.”
“Don't call me that here.”
His gaze flicked toward Leo.
“Fine. Ethan. If Elena is alive, and someone deliberately kept that information from you for seven years, this isn't a coincidence.”
I remembered her words.
They know you found us.
“Check the alley.”
“For what?”
“Anyone watching.”
Marco nodded.
“And the boy?”
I looked toward Leo.
He was driving the truck across the plastic arm of his chair.
“Find out everything you can.”
Marco hesitated.
“Everything?”
“Quietly.”
He left.
A nurse eventually allowed Leo into Elena’s room.
I remained outside.
Five minutes later, the door opened.
“Elena wants to see you,” the nurse said.
I entered.
Elena looked impossibly small beneath the hospital blankets.
Leo sat beside her.
She touched his hair.
“Sweetheart, could you ask the nurse if they have apple juice?”
“I can get it.”
“Thank you.”
He hurried away.
The moment the door closed, Elena looked at me.
“You shouldn't be here.”
“Interesting way to greet someone you let believe you were dead.”
“I never wanted you to believe that.”
“Seven years, Elena.”
Her eyes lowered.
“I know.”
“I searched for you.”
“I know.”
That hurt more than if she had denied it.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn't you contact me?”
“Because every time I tried, somebody knew.”
Silence.
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“That's not good enough.”
Her eyes flashed with some of the woman I remembered.
“You think I didn't want answers? I spent years trying to figure out who was watching me.”
“Start at the beginning.”
She looked toward the door.
“No.”
“Elena.”
“Not until Leo is safe.”
“Safe from whom?”
She met my eyes.
“Your family.”
I felt something cold settle beneath my ribs.
“My father is dead.”
“I didn't say your father.”
Before I could press her, Leo returned carrying two juice boxes.
“Look!”
Elena smiled immediately.
The conversation was over.
For now.
Leo climbed onto the chair.
He offered me one of the boxes.
“You can have this one.”
“I’m fine.”
“You haven't eaten.”
I stared at him.
“How do you know?”
“Mom says grumpy people usually need food.”
Elena almost laughed.
I took the juice.
“Thank you.”
He nodded solemnly.
Then something fell from his jacket pocket.
A folded photograph.
I bent and picked it up.
“That's Mom’s,” Leo said.
The photograph was old.
The edges had softened from being handled too often.
I unfolded it.
And every sound in the hospital disappeared.
It showed Elena seven years younger.
Beside her stood me.
I remembered the photograph.
Coney Island.
August.
One of the last genuinely happy days of my life.
But someone had written on the back.
A date.
Five years and eight months earlier.
And beneath it:
For Leo, when he's old enough to know who gave him the truck.
I looked at Elena.
She had seen what I was holding.
“Ethan.”
“Old enough to know what?”
Leo was playing with the straw in his juice box.
I lowered my voice.
“What exactly haven't you told your son?”
Elena's eyes filled.
Before she could answer, Marco entered.
He didn't knock.
That meant something was wrong.
He walked directly to me.
“We found a camera.”
“Where?”
“Across from the alley.”
Elena went pale.
Marco continued.
“Someone recorded the whole thing. The boy approaching your car. You following him. Ambulance arriving.”
I looked at Elena.
“Who owns the camera?”
“That's the problem,” Marco said.
“The account traces back to one of our companies.”
My jaw tightened.
“Which one?”
Marco glanced at Leo.
Then leaned close enough that only I could hear.
“Moretti Security.”
That company was controlled by someone I had trusted for fifteen years.
Someone who knew my schedule.
My routes.
And my real name.
I looked toward Elena.
She whispered, “Now do you believe me?”
I did.
But the bigger problem was what came next.
Because if someone inside my organization had been watching Elena all these years, then Leo had never simply found me at a traffic light.
Someone had arranged for our paths to cross.
May you like
And I needed to know why.
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