Chapter 2 – The Nurse With The Blue Coat

~1000 words

The faded Polaroid photograph seemed to burn a hole into the cold marble floor.

Luca didn’t move to pick it up.

He just stared at the image of his late father holding another woman, his strong jaw clenched so tightly I thought his teeth might shatter.

For thirty years, Antonio and Teresa Moretti had been the untouchable standard of true love in their dark, violent world.

Now, Vanessa had weaponized a ghost to burn that legacy down on her way out the door.

I slowly bent down, ignoring the sharp pain shooting up my swollen ankle, and picked up the photograph.

“Mr. Moretti,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “Don’t let her do this. She’s just trying to hurt you because she lost.”

Luca finally tore his eyes away from the floor and looked at me.

The betrayal in his gaze was heartbreaking, but he quickly masked it behind a wall of cold authority.

“Put it in my office, Claire,” he ordered softly. “Do not show it to my mother.”

“I won’t, sir.”

He looked down at my bloody hand and my swollen foot.

“Daniel is pulling the car around,” Luca said, his tone shifting into protective command. “I’m taking you and my mother to the hospital.”

“Sir, that’s really not necessary for me,” I protested, thinking of my five-year-old son, Leo, waiting for me at my father’s cramped apartment across town. “I just need ice and a bandage.”

“You caught a falling woman and took the weight of a broken iron chain,” Luca said, leaving no room for argument. “You are getting X-rays. I am paying for it.”

Thirty minutes later, the three of us were sitting in the sterile, bright emergency room of the city’s top private hospital.

Teresa looked small and fragile in the oversized hospital gown, her silver hair resting against the thin pillow.

The doctor had examined her thoroughly, confirming she had no broken bones, just deep bruising on her ribs from where I had grabbed her.

My ankle was wrapped in a thick compression brace, diagnosed as a severe sprain, and my hand was stitched and heavily bandaged.

I was sitting in a wheelchair beside Teresa’s bed when the attending physician, an older man with a grim expression, walked back into the room holding a tablet.

“Mrs. Moretti is physically stable,” the doctor said, looking directly at Luca, who stood fiercely guarding the doorway. “But her blood work is deeply concerning.”

Luca stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“Her toxicology report shows dangerously high levels of Lorazepam,” the doctor explained, adjusting his glasses. “It’s a heavy, fast-acting sedative. If she had fallen on that porch today, she wouldn’t have had the motor skills to brace herself. Her reflexes were chemically suppressed.”

The room went dead silent.

I felt the blood drain from my face.

“My mother doesn’t take sedatives,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a terrifying, lethal whisper. “She takes blood pressure medication.”

“Someone has been substituting her pills,” the doctor confirmed grimly. “And whoever it is, they gave her a massive dose this afternoon.”

Vanessa.

She hadn’t just set up a loose hook.

She had drugged Teresa to guarantee she would be too dizzy to save herself when the swing collapsed.

Luca turned away, his hands gripping the metal doorframe so hard the muscles in his forearms strained against his dress shirt.

He was calculating how to dismantle the Bellini empire before the sun came up.

But as I looked out the open door into the busy hospital corridor, my breath caught in my throat.

Walking briskly toward the elevator bank was a tall woman wearing green scrubs and a distinctive, bright blue wool coat over her shoulders.

I recognized that coat instantly.

“Mr. Moretti,” I gasped, struggling to stand up from my wheelchair.

Luca spun around. “Claire, sit down.”

“That woman,” I pointed frantically down the hall. “The nurse in the blue coat. She was at the estate yesterday.”

Luca’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“Vanessa told me she was a private seamstress doing final fittings for the wedding,” I explained rapidly, my heart pounding. “But she spent twenty minutes alone in the kitchen where Mrs. Moretti’s weekly pill organizers are kept!”

Luca didn’t hesitate.

He bolted out of the hospital room, sprinting down the corridor with a speed that was terrifying for a man in a tailored suit.

“Hey!” Luca roared.

The woman in the blue coat looked over her shoulder.

When she saw the mafia boss charging toward her, panic seized her face. She abandoned the elevator and sprinted toward the emergency stairwell.

Luca slammed through the heavy fire doors right behind her.

I gripped the arms of my wheelchair, my heart in my throat, praying he wouldn’t do something that would get him arrested in a crowded hospital.

Five agonizing minutes passed.

Teresa reached out and gripped my uninjured hand, trembling violently.

Finally, the hospital room door swung open.

Luca walked back in, breathing heavily, his tie loosened.

He was alone.

But draped over his arm was the bright blue wool coat.

“She made it to the parking garage and jumped into a waiting car,” Luca growled, throwing the coat onto an empty chair in pure frustration. “But she snagged her jacket on the door handle, and I ripped it off her before she sped away.”

He began tearing through the pockets of the coat, searching for an ID badge, a phone, anything to identify the woman Vanessa had hired to poison his mother.

His hand stopped in the left pocket.

He pulled out a small, crumpled piece of thick yellow paper.

“What is it?” I asked, leaning forward.

Luca unfolded the paper, his dark eyes scanning the printed text.

His expression shifted from anger to profound, chilling confusion.

“It’s a valet ticket,” Luca said, his voice tight.

“For the hospital?” Teresa asked weakly.

“No,” Luca replied, staring at the ticket as if it were a bomb. “It’s a private storage facility receipt. Paid in cash. Dated three days ago.”

He turned the ticket around so we could see the address printed at the top.

I gasped aloud, my hand flying to my mouth in shock.

It was the exact same storage facility on the south side of the city where my retired father rented a cheap unit to store his old heating repair equipment.

And written on the back of the ticket, in messy blue ink, were two words: The Wood.