Chapter 2 – THE EMPTY HOSPITAL BED

“Daniel!” Luca roared. “Lock down the estate! Nobody leaves!”

He grabbed the silver rattle from the table, his knuckles turning white.

Salvatore just smiled, raising his hands in mock surrender as Daniel and three armed guards forced him against the wall.

“You’re too late, son,” Salvatore whispered against the plaster.

Luca didn’t waste another second on him.

He turned to Mrs. Carter.

“Olivia,” he barked, his eyes finding mine. “Take Mrs. Carter to the armored SUV. We are leaving right now.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, my heart hammering against my ribs.

I gently took the housekeeper’s uninjured arm.

“Come on, ma’am.”

We rushed through the panicked crowd of guests, leaving the ruined engagement dinner behind.

The Chicago night was freezing.

Rain lashed against the pavement as we piled into the back of Luca’s bulletproof SUV.

Luca jumped into the driver’s seat himself, ignoring his chauffeur, and slammed his foot on the gas.

The heavy vehicle tore through the estate gates, tires screaming against the wet asphalt.

Mrs. Carter sat beside me, weeping silently, her hands clutching her rosary.

“It’s my fault,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have let Vanessa take her away.”

“Don’t,” Luca said harshly from the front seat, his eyes locked on the road. “Do not blame yourself for the sins of a monster, Mrs. Carter. You are the only reason I know she’s alive.”

We made the thirty-minute drive to St. Catherine’s Medical Center in fourteen minutes.

Luca threw the SUV into park near the emergency room entrance and sprinted through the sliding glass doors.

I hurried behind him, keeping a protective arm around Mrs. Carter.

The hospital lobby was chaotic, but Luca moved through it like a ghost, his dark suit dripping with rain.

He approached the ICU reception desk.

“Eleanor Hayes,” he demanded. “Where is she?”

The charge nurse typed quickly into her computer.

She frowned.

“Sir, I’m sorry. Room 412 is restricted.”

Luca reached into his jacket, pulled out a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills, and slammed it onto the desk.

“Room 412. Now.”

The nurse swallowed hard, nodded, and pointed down the sterile, fluorescent-lit hallway.

Luca ran.

We followed him, our footsteps echoing against the linoleum.

He burst through the doors of the intensive care unit and stopped dead in front of Room 412.

The door was wide open.

I stepped up behind him and looked inside.

The heart monitor was flatlining, emitting a piercing, continuous beep.

The IV stand was knocked over, saline pooling on the floor.

But the bed was completely empty.

Eleanor Hayes was gone.

Luca staggered backward, his breathing ragged.

“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no.”

Mrs. Carter covered her mouth to muffle a sob.

I stepped into the room, my eyes scanning the chaos.

That’s when I saw it.

Resting perfectly in the center of the white, rumpled pillow was a single, flawless black rose.

And directly beneath it, pinned to the mattress with a sterile syringe, was a small, torn piece of a photograph.

I carefully pulled the syringe free and lifted the photo.

It was the second half of the picture Mrs. Carter had shown Luca.

But this half didn’t show Eleanor.

It showed the man standing next to her.

I gasped.

Luca turned to me, his eyes wild. “What is it, Olivia?”

I turned the photograph around so he could see it.

The man holding Eleanor’s waist in the picture wasn’t Salvatore Bellini.

It was Giovanni Moretti.

The man who had raised him.

But before Luca could process the betrayal, a muffled thumping sound came from the narrow supply closet in the corner of the room.

Luca drew his weapon and yanked the closet door open.

A young nurse was bound and gagged on the floor, terrified.

Luca ripped the tape from her mouth.

“Who took her?” he demanded.

The nurse gasped for air, tears streaming down her face.

“It wasn’t a man in a suit,” she cried. “It was one of your men! He showed me his security badge before he pulled his gun!”

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