Chapter 2 - THE BLACK CAR
The dead line remained against Luca’s ear.
“Marco?”
Nothing.
“MARCO.”
Only silence.
Luca ripped the monitor leads from his chest.
The machine erupted.
A nurse rushed toward him.
“Mr. Bellini, stop!”
He was already moving.
Pain exploded through his wounded shoulder when his feet hit the floor.
His vision blurred.
Dr. Mara Bennett appeared in the doorway seconds later.
“What are you doing?”
“My daughter is in danger.”
“You are three days out from a gunshot wound and you have a heart capable of developing a lethal rhythm under stress.”
“Then fix it while I’m walking.”
“You take one more step and you may never reach the elevator.”
Luca ignored her.
Then his heart stumbled.
Not metaphorically.
One second it was racing.
The next—
wrong.
Violently wrong.
The room tilted.
Luca grabbed the bed rail.
Dr. Bennett’s expression changed instantly.
“Get him down.”
“No.”
His knees buckled anyway.
Two nurses caught him.
The monitor screamed as the leads were reattached.
“Ventricular arrhythmia,” Bennett snapped.
Medication.
Oxygen.
Commands Luca barely heard.
All he could think about was a child’s scream.
Mommy!
He fought to remain conscious.
“Marco.”
“No phone right now.”
“My daughter.”
Bennett leaned over him.
“And if you die in this room, you help her how?”
That landed.
Barely.
Then Luca’s phone rang.
Marco.
Luca grabbed it.
“What happened?”
Marco was breathing hard.
“Rachel and Emma are alive.”
The world returned.
“Say it again.”
“They’re alive.”
Luca closed his eyes.
“Are they hurt?”
“Rachel has a cut on her hand.”
“And Emma?”
“Scared.”
“Marco.”
“She’s physically okay.”
Luca exhaled for the first time in what felt like minutes.
“What happened?”
“Two men came through the rear service entrance.”
“How?”
“Building access code.”
Luca’s eyes opened.
“Who gave it to them?”
“Don’t know.”
“Where are the men?”
“One ran.”
“And the other?”
“In custody.”
“Yours?”
“Yes.”
“Keep him alive.”
Dr. Bennett glared at him.
Luca ignored her.
“Where are Rachel and Emma?”
“Moving.”
“To which location?”
“I’m not saying over the phone.”
Good.
Marco was thinking.
“Does Rachel know I’m on the line?”
Silence.
Then Rachel’s voice came through.
Not warm.
Not relieved.
Furious.
“Are you satisfied now?”
Luca stopped.
“Rachel.”
“For three years you said staying away would keep this from us.”
“I know.”
“Three years, Luca.”
“I know.”
“And tonight men came through my building looking for my daughter.”
“Our daughter.”
A brutal silence.
Then Rachel said:
“You don’t get to use that word only when she’s in danger.”
Luca closed his eyes.
“You’re right.”
Marco apparently moved away because the background noise changed.
Rachel whispered:
“She was screaming for me.”
“I heard.”
“She was under the kitchen table.”
Luca’s throat tightened.
“She thought the men were there because she did something wrong.”
Something inside him cracked.
“Rachel—”
“No.”
Her voice broke.
“Do not promise me this will never happen again.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
“Because I can’t promise that.”
She went silent.
“But I can promise you I am done lying to myself about what distance accomplishes.”
Rachel breathed shakily.
“Emma saw those men before.”
“The black car.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Three weeks.”
Luca went completely still.
“Before Mulberry Street?”
“Yes.”
The attack on him had happened three days earlier.
Someone had been watching Emma long before anyone tried to kill Luca.
That changed everything.
“Why didn’t you tell Marco?”
“I didn’t know they were dangerous.”
“She drew them.”
“I thought it was a car.”
Rachel’s anger returned.
“I don’t live inside your world, Luca.”
“No.”
“And I shouldn’t have to.”
“You’re right.”
Another pause.
Then a small voice in the background.
“Mommy?”
Luca froze.
Rachel turned away from the phone.
“I’m here, baby.”
“Who you talking?”
Nobody in Luca Bellini’s world had ever frightened him with three words before.
Rachel did not answer immediately.
Emma asked again.
“Is it Daddy?”
Luca stopped breathing.
Marco must have told her something.
Or Emma had heard the name.
Rachel whispered:
“Yes.”
A long silence followed.
Then Luca heard the voice he had spent three years imagining.
“Daddy?”
His eyes burned.
He couldn’t speak.
Dr. Bennett saw his face and quietly moved away.
“Daddy?”
Luca swallowed.
“I’m here.”
Emma became silent.
Then:
“You have a voice.”
Luca nearly broke.
“Yes.”
“Mommy said you do.”
A laugh escaped him before he could stop it.
Emma whispered:
“You laugh too.”
His hand covered his eyes.
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“Why don’t you have a face?”
No bullet had ever hit him that hard.
Luca lowered his hand.
“I do.”
“Where?”
He struggled for an answer a three-year-old could understand.
“I’ve been too far away for you to see it.”
“Why?”
Rachel did not rescue him.
Good.
He deserved the question.
“Because I thought being far away would keep you safe.”
Emma considered this.
“But bad men came.”
“Yes.”
“So you were wrong?”
Marco coughed somewhere in the background.
Luca almost smiled through tears.
“Yes.”
“I was wrong.”
Emma answered simply:
“Okay.”
Children could deliver mercy with terrifying ease.
Then Rachel took the phone.
“She needs sleep.”
“I know.”
“We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Rachel.”
“What?”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
The call ended.
Dr. Bennett stepped back toward the bed.
Luca stared at the ceiling.
“Put the device in.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“The defibrillator.”
“You were resisting surgery three hours ago.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Why?”
He looked at the dark phone in his hand.
“Because my daughter just found out I have a voice.”
His jaw tightened.
“I intend to stay alive long enough for her to learn the rest of me.”
Marco called again twenty minutes later.
This time his tone was different.
“We searched the man we caught.”
“And?”
“He had photographs.”
“Of Rachel?”
“Yes.”
“Emma?”
“Yes.”
Luca’s face hardened.
“Anything identifying who hired him?”
“No phone.”
“Wallet?”
“Fake ID.”
“Then why are you calling?”
Marco hesitated.
“One of the photographs wasn’t taken from the street.”
Luca sat up slowly.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s Emma at eleven months old.”
Luca remembered the day immediately.
Grocery store.
First steps.
Rachel catching her.
He had watched from across the street.
Only three people had received the security photographs afterward.
Luca.
Marco.
And one other man.
Marco said quietly:
“The image came from your private family file.”
Luca’s blood went cold.
Nobody outside his inner circle should have possessed it.
“This isn’t Sokolov finding Emma.”
Marco said nothing.
Luca finished the thought himself.
“Someone gave her to him.”
May you like
And for the first time since the shooting, Luca stopped looking toward Viktor Sokolov.
He started looking inside his own family.
