Chapter 2 - The Man Waiting Beside My Hospital BedThe first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes was the smell.
Antiseptic.
Fresh linen.
Something faintly expensive and unfamiliar, like cedarwood and leather.
The second thing was the pain.
My jaw throbbed. My left temple felt as though someone had driven a nail through it. Every attempt to swallow sent a sharp ache down my throat.
I tried to move.
A deep voice stopped me.
“Easy.”
My eyes fluttered open.
A man sat beside my hospital bed.
He wore a black dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing tattoos winding around muscular forearms. His dark hair was slightly disheveled, and there was a faint scar near his eyebrow.
He looked like trouble wrapped in a very expensive package.
“Where am I?” I whispered.
“St. Catherine's Hospital.”
I touched my jaw.
“What happened?”
His expression hardened.
“A man assaulted you.”
Christopher.
The diner.
His hand around my waist.
Everything returned in ugly fragments.
I pushed myself upright.
“My job! I have to call my manager. I missed my shift, and—”
“You're not going back to work tonight.”
I stared at him.
“Excuse me?”
“You have a concussion. The doctor wants you under observation.”
“Then I'll call my manager.”
“Your manager knows.”
That made me pause.
“Who are you?”
For a moment, he looked almost surprised.
“Dante Russo.”
I knew that name.
Everybody in New York knew that name.
I glanced toward the hospital door, where two enormous men in black suits stood outside.
Then I looked back at Dante.
“Oh.”
His eyebrow lifted.
“Just 'oh'?”
“I don't know what else you want me to say.”
For the first time, the corner of his mouth moved.
“Fair enough.”
I studied him more carefully.
“Why are you here?”
“I found you at Bellamy's.”
“And?”
“And I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
I frowned.
“Do you normally sit beside unconscious waitresses until they wake up?”
“No.”
“Then why me?”
His expression changed.
For one brief moment, something like recognition crossed his face.
“Because seventeen years ago, someone saved my life. And I never forgot the family who did it.”
My stomach tightened.
“What family?”
Instead of answering, Dante glanced toward my neck.
“Where did you get that necklace?”
I instinctively reached for the small silver pendant resting against my collarbone.
It was shaped like a tiny key.
“My mother gave it to me.”
“Before she died?”
I froze.
“How do you know my mother died?”
Dante looked away.
“I know more about you than you might expect.”
Every instinct I'd developed while surviving alone in New York screamed at me to be careful.
“Mr. Russo, I appreciate you helping me, but I don't know you.”
“I understand.”
“Then stop talking like you do.”
Silence settled between us.
Finally, he nodded.
“You're right.”
He stood.
“I'll give you some space.”
But before he could leave, I noticed blood on his right knuckles.
Not mine.
Someone else's.
“Did you hurt him?” I asked.
Dante stopped.
“Who?”
“Christopher Vale.”
His face became unreadable.
“Not as much as I wanted to.”
I swallowed.
“I don't need someone fighting my battles.”
He turned toward me.
“No,” he said quietly. “You need people to stop creating battles you never asked to fight.”
I hated how much those words affected me.
Because they were exactly what I'd wanted someone to say during the worst years of my life.
Still, I kept my guard up.
“What happens to Christopher?”
“The police have the security footage.”
“Will they actually do anything? His family practically owns half the city.”
Dante's smile was cold.
“They don't own me.”
He walked toward the door.
“Rest, Amelia.”
My eyes narrowed.
“I never told you my last name.”
He stopped but didn't turn around.
Then he said something that made my heart stumble.
“Your father used to call you Millie.”
My breath caught.
Nobody had called me that since I was a child.
“Wait.”
Dante faced me.
“How do you know that?”
He looked at me for a long moment.
“Because I knew your father.”
My hands tightened around the blanket.
“My father abandoned us when I was seven.”
Dante's jaw flexed.
“That's what your mother told you?”
My pulse accelerated.
“That's what happened.”
He stepped closer.
“Amelia, your father didn't abandon you.”
I shook my head.
“Don't.”
“He was taken.”
“Stop it.”
“And the people responsible have been lying to you ever since.”
I stared at him.
Seventeen years of resentment and unanswered questions collided in my chest.
“What are you saying?”
Dante opened his mouth.
But a sharp knock interrupted him.
One of his security guards stepped inside.
“Boss. We have a problem.”
Dante's eyes narrowed.
“Speak.”
The guard glanced at me.
“Christopher Vale was released twenty minutes ago. His attorneys are claiming the security footage was fabricated.”
Dante didn't look surprised.
“Expected.”
“There's more.”
The guard lowered his voice.
“Someone broke into Miss Bennett's apartment.”
My blood went cold.
“What?”
The guard continued.
“Nothing appears to have been stolen. Whoever entered searched every drawer, closet, and wall cavity.”
Dante immediately looked at my necklace.
“Amelia,” he said, “has anyone ever tried to buy that pendant from you?”
I stared.
Then remembered something.
Three months earlier, a stranger had approached me outside Bellamy's.
He offered twenty thousand dollars for my necklace.
When I refused, he walked away without another word.
At the time, I'd assumed he was mentally unstable.
Now I wasn't so sure.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Dante closed his eyes briefly.
“Of course.”
“What is going on?”
He reached for his phone.
“Bring the car around.”
I shook my head.
“I am not going anywhere with you until you explain.”
Dante looked directly into my eyes.
“Your necklace is the reason your father disappeared.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“That's impossible.”
“And Christopher Vale didn't attack you by coincidence.”
I stopped breathing.
Dante continued.
“He was supposed to get close to you, find out where you kept the necklace, and steal it.”
“Then why did he punch me?”
“Because he's an idiot with a violent temper.”
My voice trembled.
“Why would anyone care about a cheap silver necklace?”
Dante leaned closer.
“Because it isn't cheap.”
He pointed to a nearly invisible seam running along the pendant.
“Your father designed it himself.”
My fingers closed around the tiny key.
“Designed it for what?”
“A locked compartment.”
“Where?”
Dante hesitated.
“Inside a building that burned down seventeen years ago.”
I stared.
“Then whatever was inside is gone.”
“No.”
He took a slow breath.
“The building never burned down.”
I tried to understand.
“But you just said—”
“The fire was staged. The building was demolished on paper, sold through a series of shell companies, and sealed.”
“Why?”
“Because something was hidden underneath it.”
His expression darkened.
“Something powerful men have been searching for ever since.”
I felt suddenly very small.
“Who are those men?”
Dante's phone vibrated.
He looked at the screen.
His entire body went rigid.
“What is it?” I whispered.
He didn't answer.
Instead, he turned the phone toward me.
A photograph filled the screen.
My apartment door.
Wide open.
A man stood inside my living room, holding a framed picture of my mother.
His face was partly hidden beneath a baseball cap.
But I recognized his eyes.
My breath disappeared.
“No.”
Dante watched me carefully.
“Amelia?”
I covered my mouth.
The man in the photograph was older, thinner, and deeply scarred.
But I knew him.
I'd memorized that face through years of staring at childhood photographs.
“My father,” I whispered.
Dante went completely still.
“What?”
I pointed at the screen.
“That's my father.”
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then Dante stepped into the hallway and gave an order that made me realize just how dangerous this situation had become.
“Lock down every entrance to this hospital. Nobody gets near her without my permission.”
He looked back at me.
“Especially the man in that photograph.”
I couldn't understand why.
Not until his next words.
“Because if your father is alive, Amelia, then the man I buried seventeen years ago was someone else.”
And that meant someone had gone to extraordinary lengths to make an entire city believe my father was dead.
The hospital lights flickered.
A security alarm sounded somewhere down the corridor.
Dante's phone rang again.
This time, he answered immediately.
“What?”
I watched the color drain from his face.
“That's not possible.”
He listened.
Then slowly turned toward me.
“Amelia,” he said, his voice unnaturally calm, “I need you to tell me something.”
“What?”
“Did your mother ever mention a man named Victor Kane?”
I shook my head.
“No. Why?”
Dante looked toward the door.
“Because Victor Kane died fifteen years ago.”
May you like
The alarm outside grew louder.
“And someone just used his security credentials to enter this hospital.”
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