Chương 2
Someone was screaming.
Someone was crying.
Someone was praying.
I could hear Dominic shouting.
Not yelling.
Shouting.
There was a difference.
The entire room seemed to move around one purpose.
Stop this.
When Dominic reached me, my body felt strangely far away.
His hands pressed against my shoulder.
His face looked different now.
The calm man was gone.
“Stay awake.”
I tried.
I really tried.
“The woman,” I whispered.
His eyes moved past me.
“My mother?”
I saw Isabella.
She was alive.
A small part of me relaxed.
“Good.”
Then the darkness came.
The doctors later told me I was lucky.
I hated that word.
Lucky did not feel like being cut open under bright hospital lights while strangers fought to keep my heart beating.
Lucky did not feel like waking up weeks later with scars across my body and no memory of the first days.
But everyone used the word.
The ambulance never arrived.
Dominic’s people moved me to St. Catherine Medical Center because the hospital had a private security wing and because Dominic Rossi was not a man who waited for permission when someone was dying.
While surgeons worked, he stood outside the operating room wearing the same tuxedo from the ballroom.
Blood had dried on his sleeve.
Not his.
Mine.
His second-in-command, Enzo Marino, found him there.
“The shooter talked before he died.”
Dominic looked up.
“What did he say?”
“Costa.”
The silence afterward was heavier than any answer.
Victor Costa.
Even I knew that name later.
A man who had spent years fighting Dominic’s influence.
A man who preferred fear because fear was cheaper than loyalty.
Enzo lowered his voice.
“There’s another problem.”
Dominic looked at him.
“The girl.”
“She survived.”
“That is not the problem.”
“No.”
Enzo hesitated.
“The information is already spreading.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“Who knows?”
“Enough people.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
A nurse walked past them without looking up.
A family argued quietly near the waiting room.
A child slept against his father’s shoulder.
The world continued.
That was the strange thing about disasters.
They happened inside ordinary places.
People still needed coffee.
Phones still rang.
Someone still complained about parking.
Dominic stared at the operating room door.
“She saved my mother.”
Enzo said nothing.
“She had no reason to do that.”
“No.”
“She didn’t know who Isabella was.”
“No.”
Dominic looked down at his hands.
For the first time that night, he looked less like a powerful man and more like someone who had run out of choices.
“Then we protect her.”
Enzo exhaled slowly.
“Protecting a witness is different from protecting someone who became a target.”
Dominic looked back at the closed doors.
“I know.”
“You also know Costa won’t stop.”
“I know.”
“And if she wakes up?”
Dominic did not answer immediately.
Because that was the question nobody wanted to ask.
What happened when Clara Bennett opened her eyes and discovered that the man standing beside her bed was not a stranger?
What happened when she learned the bullet that changed her life had uncovered a secret Dominic had spent years burying?
The answer would decide whether she hated him.
Or whether she was the only person left who could save him.
The answer would decide whether she hated him.
Or whether she was the only person left who could save him.
For six days, Clara Bennett remained somewhere between sleep and death.
Her body fought harder than anyone expected.
Her mind did not come back with the same determination.
When her eyes finally opened, the first thing she noticed was the sound.
A machine beside her bed clicked and hummed with a steady rhythm that reminded her of the old refrigerator in her mother's apartment.
The second thing she noticed was pain.
Not sharp pain.
Not the kind that made her scream.
A deeper pain that seemed to live everywhere at once.
Her fingers moved slightly against the blanket.
A nurse who had been checking a monitor looked up.
“Oh.”
The word came out before the woman could stop herself.
Clara stared at her.
The nurse stepped closer.
“Can you hear me?”
Clara tried to answer.
Nothing came out except a rough sound that barely resembled a voice.
The nurse pressed a button and suddenly the room became crowded.
People appeared with practiced movements.
Someone checked her eyes.
Someone checked her blood pressure.
Someone asked her name.
Clara tried to remember.
The question felt strangely difficult.
“Clara,” she whispered.
The nurse smiled.
“Yes.”
The smile disappeared quickly when Clara looked around the room.
She expected her mother.
She expected a doctor.
She expected someone who belonged there.
Instead, she saw a man standing near the window.
He was wearing a dark suit.
He looked exhausted.
Not tired.
Exhausted.
Like sleep had become something he remembered instead of something he did.
She did not recognize him.
But something about him made her feel like she should.
The nurse noticed her staring.
“This is Mr. Rossi.”
The name meant nothing.
Then another nurse entered and quietly said, “Family should wait outside during the examination.”
The man by the window did not argue.
He simply looked at Clara for one more second before leaving.
The door closed.
Clara turned toward the nurse.
“Who is he?”
The nurse paused.
That pause bothered Clara more than the answer.
“He has been here every day.”
“Why?”
The nurse adjusted the blanket.
“I think you should rest.”
“That is not an answer.”
The nurse looked at her carefully.
“You really do not remember?”
Clara closed her eyes.
The memories came back in pieces.
A ballroom.
A glass falling.
A woman in silver.
A sound like thunder.
Then nothing.
“My mother.”
The words came suddenly.
The nurse softened.
“She is alive.”
Clara opened her eyes.
“She was there?”
“Yes.”
“She got hurt?”
“No.”
A strange relief moved through Clara before confusion replaced it.
“Then why was he there?”
May you like
The nurse looked toward the closed door.
“I think that is a question for him.”
