Chapter 1 – THE BLOOD ON THE COBBLESTONES

The ride to St. Catherine’s Hospital was a blur of flashing streetlights and deafening silence.

I sat in the back of the armored SUV, my hands gripping my knees so tightly my knuckles turned white. My apron was still tied around my waist. I hadn’t even thought to take it off.

Luca Moretti sat across from me. He hadn’t spoken since we left the dining room, his dark eyes fixed on his phone as his fingers flew across the screen. He wasn’t texting. He was coordinating.

“Mr. Moretti,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “You didn’t have to leave your own engagement party.”

He didn’t look up from his phone.

“A party can be rescheduled, Rachel. A life cannot.”

When we pulled up to the emergency room, the automatic doors slid open before the car even fully stopped. Luca’s men were already there. Two large men in dark suits escorted us straight through the crowded waiting room, bypassing the triage desk completely.

“Where is he?” Luca demanded, stopping a nurse in the hallway.

“Sir, you can’t be back here—”

“I am Luca Moretti. You have a Daniel Bennett in surgery. I want the lead surgeon’s name and I want to know if he is breathing.”

The nurse paled, quickly checking her tablet. “He’s in OR 4. Dr. Evans is operating. He sustained severe blunt force trauma to the head and a deep laceration to his side.”

I felt the floor drop out from beneath me.

Blunt force trauma.

Someone had beaten my husband.

I stumbled backward, hitting the wall. Luca caught my arm, his grip firm and steadying. He didn’t offer empty promises like he’s going to be fine. He just held me up when my legs refused to work.

Then, his security chief, Marco, stepped out of the surgical wing. He was holding a clear plastic evidence bag.

“Boss,” Marco said quietly. “The police haven’t arrived yet. The hospital staff secured Daniel’s belongings. But there was something else.”

Luca released my arm and took the bag.

Inside was a heavy, tarnished silver pocket watch.

I stopped breathing.

I knew that watch. It had belonged to my grandfather. When Daniel and I had no money to pay for our daughter’s funeral three years ago, I had pawned it. It broke my heart, but we needed the money for the cremation.

I had never seen it again.

“Rachel?” Luca asked, noticing my expression. “Do you recognize this?”

“It was my grandfather’s,” I choked out. “I pawned it three years ago to pay for…”

I couldn’t finish the sentence.

Luca turned the bag over. The back of the watch was heavily scratched, but there were fresh, dark red stains on the silver. Blood. Daniel’s blood.

“Marco,” Luca’s voice was deadly quiet. “Who was Daniel fighting outside my gate?”

“We pulled the security footage, boss. It was a woman.”

I wiped my tears, confused. “Vanessa?”

“No,” Marco said, pulling up a tablet. He pressed play.

The grainy black-and-white footage showed the back alley behind the Moretti estate. Daniel’s delivery truck was parked near the service entrance. A figure in a dark coat slipped out of the gate, carrying a small bundle. Daniel stepped out of his truck, confronting the figure. Words were exchanged. Then, the figure pulled a heavy object from their pocket and struck Daniel across the temple.

As Daniel fell, he grabbed the figure’s coat, tearing the pocket. The silver watch fell onto the cobblestones.

The figure panicked, dropping the bundle, and ran.

“Zoom in on the bundle,” Luca ordered.

Marco tapped the screen. The image enlarged.

It wasn’t a bundle of stolen silver or cash.

It was a child’s backpack. A tiny, pink backpack with a cartoon daisy on it.

“Why would someone running from my house drop a child’s backpack?” Luca asked, his jaw clenching.

“Boss,” Marco hesitated. “The woman in the footage… she wasn’t wearing just any coat. She was wearing Mrs. Bellini’s custom winter coat. The one with the embroidered collar.”

Luca stared at the screen. “Vanessa gave her coat to someone sneaking out of my house.”

My heart pounded against my ribs. I looked at the watch in the plastic bag.

“Ask Mr. Moretti what really happened to your baby three years ago.”

I looked up at Luca. “Mr. Moretti… three years ago, when my daughter died… she was cremated at St. Catherine’s. The very hospital we are standing in.”

Luca’s eyes met mine. And in that moment, the terrifying truth began to unravel.

“Rachel,” Luca said softly. “I own St. Catherine’s Hospital. I bought it exactly three years ago.”

He turned to Marco.

“Lock down my estate. Nobody leaves. Especially not my fiancée.”

Share