Chương 4
Grace opened her eyes.
“What does she mean?”
Dante looked at his wife.
Sofia started the engine.
He closed the door without answering.
The Subaru accelerated through the courtyard. Behind them, Carbone stood in the rain while Victoria watched from the archway, her ivory suit darkening at the hem.
At the north gate, two guards hesitated beneath the security lights. Carbone’s order had opened the steel barrier, but a black SUV blocked half the road. Sofia drove onto the grass without slowing.
“Seat belt,” she said.
Dante looked at her.
“I am serious. I am not getting a ticket tonight.”
He found the belt and pulled it awkwardly around himself and Grace. The normal irritation in Sofia’s voice steadied the car more effectively than reassurance would have.
Elias kept turning in his seat to look through the rear window.
“Are they following us?” Dante asked.
“No.”
“Then face forward.”
Elias obeyed.
Grace’s breathing became shallow. Her hand gripped Dante’s wrist with enough force to press his watch into bone.
“How long?” he asked.
“Since what?”
“Since the contractions started.”
“They never really stopped.”
“Why didn’t you say that downstairs?”
“I was busy being found.”
Dante pressed his palm against the roof of the car when Sofia took a corner too fast.
Grace glanced at the blood on his hand. “Where did you get my ring?”
“In a bottle in the cellar.”
“Elias?”
“Yes.”
She looked toward the front seat.
Elias stared at the windshield.
“You took it from me,” she said.
He lowered his head. “Mrs. Rossi ordered me to.”
“When?”
“The first night.”
“You told me it fell off.”
“I lied.”
Grace’s lips tightened.
Sofia’s wipers struggled against the rain. “We need to know which hospital.”
“St. Catherine’s,” Dante said.
“No,” Grace said.
He looked down.
“Not there.”
“It’s closest.”
“Your family owns half the board.”
“My family donated a wing.”
“Same difference tonight.”
Sofia glanced at them in the mirror. “County General is nine minutes farther.”
Grace’s body stiffened with another contraction. She made no sound until it passed.
“County,” she said.
Dante nodded.
Sofia changed lanes.
His phone found service three miles from the estate. Notifications flooded the screen: missed calls from Victoria, two from the family attorney, one from his cousin Luca, six from men he had sent to search Philadelphia that morning, and a message from an unknown number.
DO NOT TAKE HER TO A PUBLIC HOSPITAL. SHE WILL DESTROY YOU.
He showed the message to Elias.
The old man read it and closed his eyes.
“Who has my number?” Dante asked.
“Everyone who matters to your mother.”
Grace saw the screen.
“Call the police,” she said.
The sentence emptied the car.
Sofia kept both hands tight on the steering wheel.
Elias turned halfway around, then thought better of it.
Dante watched rain chase itself across the window.
Grace studied his face. “You said you wouldn’t lie.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You’re going quiet.”
“There are things you don’t know.”
“I spent seven months beneath your mother’s house. I know more than you think.”
“The police won’t stop with her.”
“Good.”
“They will ask about me.”
“Good.”
“They will ask about men who work for me, accounts, businesses, things that happened before we met.”
Grace’s eyes stayed on him.
“Did you kill anyone?”
Sofia’s gaze flicked toward the rearview mirror.
Dante felt Elias waiting.
“No,” he said.
Grace’s shoulders lowered a fraction.
“I ordered people hurt,” he added. “I moved money I knew was dirty. I threatened men who had families. I helped my father keep control of contracts that weren’t his. After he died, I told myself I was changing things because I stopped some of it.”
“How much did you stop?”
“Enough to sleep.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
She looked away.
The space between their bodies became enormous despite her lying across his lap.
County General rose beyond the highway in a grid of lit windows. Sofia leaned on the horn as she entered the emergency drive.
Dante called nine-one-one.
The dispatcher answered on the second ring.
“My wife has been imprisoned for seven months,” he said. “She’s nine months pregnant, in labor, injured, and possibly drugged. We’re arriving at County General now.”
The dispatcher’s voice changed from routine to precise.
“Is the person who imprisoned her with you?”
“No.”
“Are you armed?”
“No.”
Elias looked down at the pearl-handled pistol in his lap.
Dante took it from him by the barrel and handed it to Sofia.
She nearly drove onto the curb.
“What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Put it under your seat.”
“I have registration problems already.”
“Please.”
She shoved it beneath the driver’s seat with her heel.
Police cruisers reached the hospital before the Subaru stopped.
The next ten minutes broke into fragments Dante would remember without sequence: orderlies rolling a stretcher through rain; Grace refusing to release his sleeve; a nurse cutting the ivory dress from her legs; a police officer demanding that Dante put his hands where they could be seen; Elias trying to explain the pistol beneath the seat; Sofia shouting that onions were not contraband; a fetal monitor taking over the child’s heartbeat with a galloping mechanical rhythm.
A doctor with tired eyes leaned over Grace.
“How long has your fluid been leaking?”
“Yesterday morning. I think.”
“Any fever? Bleeding?”
“Some.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know. They kept the lights low.”
The doctor looked at Dante. “Are you her husband?”
“Yes.”
Grace said, “He just found me.”
The doctor’s gaze shifted between them.
“We need space. Security will take you outside.”
“I’m staying,” Dante said.
Grace’s hand loosened from his sleeve.
“No.”
He looked at her.
She stared toward the ceiling, jaw trembling from effort.
“I need you to tell them where I was.”
“I will.”
“Now.”
A nurse stepped between them.
“Sir.”
Dante bent close enough for Grace to hear him beneath the alarms.
“I’m not leaving the building.”
“You left before.”
He flinched.
May you like
“I didn’t know.”
“I know,” she said, and the exhaustion in her voice made the words worse. “That’s not the same as you being here.”
