Chương 2
We both looked toward the bed.
Alessandro glanced at the stuffed bear under his arm.
For the first time, something almost human crossed his face.
He lifted it with obvious effort and held it out.
Logan took the bear.
“Thank you.”
Alessandro nodded once.
Renee carried Logan outside.
The locked door opened for her and closed again.
My supervisor followed without being asked.
I was left with doctors, nurses, six armed men, and Baltimore’s most feared patient.
Dr. Patel replaced Alessandro’s oxygen mask and spoke in the tone of a man who had reached the limit of his patience.
“Two minutes.”
Alessandro shook his head.
“One.”
“You clinically died.”
“So I heard.”
“You heard nothing.”
One of the guards laughed under his breath.
Dr. Patel pointed at him.
“You, especially, are not helping.”
The guard stopped laughing.
Alessandro waited until the medical team stepped back.
Then he looked toward the tall man beside the door.
“Marco.”
Marco understood immediately.
He crossed the room, reached beneath the folded blanket near Alessandro’s hip, and removed a small plastic evidence bag.
Inside it was a gold wedding ring.
My stomach clenched before I even saw the engraving.
David’s ring had been plain yellow gold, scratched along one edge from the summer he helped my brother rebuild a deck.
Inside, I had engraved five words before our wedding.
Still choosing you every morning.
The ring in Marco’s hand had the same scratch.
“No.”
I took one step backward.
Marco offered me the bag.
I did not touch it.
“No.”
Alessandro watched me carefully.
“We took it off him sixteen months ago.”
The room tilted.
Dr. Patel muttered something to a nurse, but neither of them left.
I stared at the ring.
“That’s impossible.”
“Yes.”
“My husband died two years ago.”
“No.”
“I identified his body.”
Alessandro’s eyes sharpened.
“Did you?”
The question struck harder than shouting would have.
I opened my mouth.
A memory came back, not as a scene but as a smell.
Antiseptic.
Burned plastic.
Coffee from a vending machine.
A state trooper sitting beside me with both elbows on his knees.
The hospital had told me the crash fire caused severe facial damage.
They had shown me David’s left hand because his wedding ring was still there.
I had kissed two fingers through a clear plastic sheet.
I had never seen his face.
My throat tightened.
“There was a ring.”
Marco looked down at the evidence bag.
“Apparently there were two.”
I looked at Alessandro.
“What are you saying?”
“That someone wanted you to bury David Winters.”
The words landed slowly.
Not kill.
Bury.
I pressed my palm against the counter.
“Who?”
Alessandro’s eyes shifted toward the doctors.
Then toward his men.
He seemed to be counting risks despite barely being alive.
Finally, he looked back at me.
“Your husband worked for me.”
I laughed once.
It came out ugly.
“No, he didn’t.”
Nobody smiled.
“He was an insurance investigator.”
“Yes.”
“He worked fraud claims.”
“Yes.”
“He drove a twelve-year-old Honda Accord and complained about office coffee.”
Alessandro’s expression did not change.
“He hated mushrooms.”
Marco glanced at him.
I stopped.
Alessandro continued.
“He kept antacids in his glove compartment.”
My fingers went cold.
“He could never remember his passwords, so he wrote them on paper even after being told not to.”
“Stop.”
“He cracked his knuckles before lying.”
“Stop.”
“He called you Cat when he was worried you were angry.”
“Shut up.”
The words tore out of me.
Every gunman looked away with the embarrassed politeness of strangers witnessing a marriage fight.
Alessandro closed his eyes.
For several seconds, there was only the monitor and Dr. Patel quietly arguing with someone at the nurses’ station through the open door.
When Alessandro looked at me again, his voice had weakened.
“David investigated financial crimes for his employer.”
I said nothing.
“His employer investigated people connected to me.”
Still nothing.
“Eventually, David discovered the people paying him were committing the crimes.”
I shook my head.
“He would have gone to the police.”
“He tried.”
“Then why did he come to you?”
“Because one of the men he intended to report was a federal agent.”
The room seemed to contract around us.
Alessandro coughed.
A nurse moved forward, but he waved her back.
“He needed protection.”
“And you gave it to him?”
“For a price.”
Of course there was a price.
Men like Alessandro Romano did not run charities.
“What did you make him do?”
Alessandro’s gaze held mine.
“He became my accountant.”
I stared at him.
Then I laughed again because the alternative was screaming.
“My husband could barely calculate a restaurant tip.”
“That was one of his more convincing habits.”
I hated how easily the sentence made sense.
David always handed me the receipt.
You’re the math person, Cat.
I had teased him for years.
My stomach turned.
“You’re lying.”
“Yes.”
I froze.
Alessandro drew another painful breath.
“I lie constantly.”
Marco shifted uncomfortably.
“But not about David.”
Dr. Patel stepped forward.
“That is enough.”
“No.”
I said it at the same time Alessandro did.
The doctor looked between us and swore softly.
I grabbed the evidence bag from Marco.
The ring felt weightless through the plastic.
“I buried this.”
“You buried a copy.”
“Why?”
Alessandro’s face changed then.
Not much.
Just enough for me to see the first thing he had been trying not to show.
Guilt.
“Because David asked us to let you believe he was dead.”
I stared at him.
The monitor continued its steady beeping.
Somewhere outside the room, Logan began singing the alphabet to Captain Bear.
I heard him miss the letter J and start over.
My hand closed around the plastic bag.
“He chose this?”
Alessandro did not answer quickly enough.
“He chose to leave me with a six-week-old baby?”
His eyes moved away.
“He believed it would keep you alive.”
“Where is he?”
No answer.
“Where is my husband?”
Marco looked at Alessandro.
May you like
Alessandro looked at the ceiling.
That frightened me more than everything else.
