Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN IN THE WAITING ROOM
Carlo Valente had taught me how to tie a necktie when I was eleven.
He had taught me how to read a balance sheet when I was fourteen.
At seventeen, after my father's funeral, he had put one hand on my shoulder and told me the family would survive because I would survive.
For twenty years, I had believed him.
Now he walked toward me through the hospital corridor with concern arranged perfectly across his face.
"How bad is it?"
I studied him.
"Bad."
He pulled me into a quick embrace.
I did not return it.
Carlo noticed.
He noticed everything.
"What happened?"
"Someone hit her car."
His expression hardened immediately.
"Moretti?"
It was too fast.
I felt Mateo shift beside me.
"Why would you say Moretti?"
Carlo gave me a puzzled look.
"Because half the city knows you and Lorenzo have been circling each other for years."
Reasonable.
Too reasonable.
"The crash happened on the South Side."
"Then what are we waiting for?"
His eyes sharpened.
"We put men on every Moretti business before sunrise."
The old me would have agreed.
The old me would have answered violence with more violence before the sun came up.
But Clara's voice was still in my head.
The person who has been sleeping beside you is helping someone destroy you.
And I do not mean Serena.
I had not literally shared a bed with Carlo, but Clara knew the guest wing in my Lake Forest house had been his home for nearly four months during his divorce.
She knew how freely he moved through my life.
"No."
Carlo blinked.
"No?"
"No moves tonight."
His mouth tightened.
"Dominic, your wife is in surgery because someone declared war."
"Then I want to know who declared it before I start shooting at shadows."
His face softened again.
"Grief is making you cautious."
"Maybe carelessness put her in that operating room."
For a moment, neither of us looked away.
Then Serena appeared at the far end of the hall.
She had changed out of the hospital gown and into the white cashmere coat one of my men had brought from her apartment.
Her blonde hair was still messy around her shoulders.
She looked fragile.
A few hours earlier, that look would have worked on me.
Now I saw calculation in every step.
"Dom."
She came straight toward me.
"I have been terrified."
Carlo turned.
Something passed between them.
It lasted less than a second.
If I had not spent my life learning how men lied before they spoke, I might have missed it.
Recognition.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Serena reached for my arm.
I stepped back.
Her hand stopped in the air.
"What is wrong?"
"My wife is fighting for her life."
Her face changed beautifully.
Concern.
Sadness.
Almost tears.
"I know."
She glanced at the blood on my cuff.
"I am so sorry."
Carlo spoke before I could answer.
"Serena, this is family business."
Her eyes flicked toward him.
"I understand."
Again, too smooth.
I looked at Carlo.
"You know her?"
He smiled faintly.
"Everyone knows Serena."
Serena laughed nervously.
"Chicago is not that big."
I said nothing.
Silence frightened guilty people more than accusations ever did.
Serena touched her own wrist.
"Dom, can I talk to you alone?"
"Not now."
"Please."
"Not now."
Her lower lip trembled.
A year earlier, that little tremor had been enough to make me rearrange meetings.
Tonight it made me want to search her coat pockets.
Mateo's phone buzzed.
He checked the screen.
His expression changed.
"I need you for a second."
We stepped away.
"Elena Rossi is alive."
"Where?"
"We do not know."
"That is not useful."
"This might be."
He held up his phone.
A security photograph showed Clara entering a twenty-four-hour diner at 10:18 p.m.
Across from her sat a dark-haired woman in a gray coat.
Elena.
The next frame showed a man entering seven minutes later.
He wore a baseball cap and kept his face turned away from the camera.
But I knew the shoulders.
I knew the walk.
I knew the silver watch.
Victor Bellini.
My CFO had been at the diner.
"Where is Victor now?"
Mateo shook his head.
"His phone is off."
I looked toward Carlo.
He was speaking softly to Serena.
The second they noticed me watching, they separated.
My stomach twisted.
"Lock Victor out of every account."
Mateo nodded.
"Quietly?"
"Very."
"And Carlo?"
"Do nothing."
Mateo raised an eyebrow.
"I want him comfortable."
A nurse approached us.
"Mr. Valente?"
"Yes."
"Your wife is being moved to ICU."
I forgot Carlo.
I forgot Serena.
I forgot Moretti.
I followed the nurse.
Clara looked smaller beneath the hospital blankets than I had ever seen her.
Machines breathed and beeped around her.
A tube ran beneath her nose.
Bandages covered part of her forehead.
Purple bruising had begun to bloom along her cheek.
I stood beside her bed but did not touch her.
I had spent the last year taking things from Clara.
Her trust.
Her dignity.
Her right to know where her husband went at night.
I did not feel entitled to her hand anymore.
"I am here," I whispered.
Her eyes stayed closed.
"I should have been there before."
Nothing.
The monitor continued its steady rhythm.
"I found the recording."
My voice broke on the last word.
"I believe you now."
The cruelty of that sentence almost made me sick.
I believe you now.
Now that she was unconscious.
Now that her driver was dead.
Now that it cost me nothing to admit she had been right.
I lowered my head.
"You deserved better than this."
Carlo stayed for another twenty minutes before finally pretending to respect my wish for space.
He spent most of that time making calls near the nurses' station.
I could not hear the words.
I watched his posture instead.
Relaxed shoulders.
No pacing.
No visible anger.
If his niece by marriage had nearly been killed by a rival family, Carlo should have been furious.
Instead he looked irritated.
There was a difference.
Mateo noticed too.
"He is too calm."
"He has always been calm."
"Not when family gets hit."
I remembered an incident eight years earlier when one of Carlo's nephews had been punched outside a club.
Carlo shut down three businesses looking for the man responsible.
Clara had nearly died.
Carlo wanted strategy meetings.
Not revenge.
That should have reassured me.
It did not.
Serena sat in the waiting area with a blanket around her shoulders.
Every few minutes she looked toward me.
I refused to meet her eyes.
Finally she came closer.
"Dom, I want to go home."
I stared at her.
"Then go."
She blinked.
"You are not coming?"
"My wife is in intensive care."
"I know, but-"
"But what?"
Her face changed.
For one second, irritation showed beneath the fragile expression.
Then the softness returned.
"Nothing."
She lowered her voice.
"I just do not want to be alone."
The sentence had worked on me dozens of times.
A storm scared her.
A stranger looked at her strangely.
A waiter was rude.
Her neighbor played music too loudly.
Each emergency had required me personally.
Clara once joked that Serena seemed to live in a universe where every inconvenience became a hostage situation.
I had accused Clara of cruelty.
Now I remembered Serena calling me during Clara's birthday dinner because her kitchen sink was leaking.
I had left the restaurant.
Clara had eaten dessert alone.
"Call a friend," I said.
Serena's expression went blank.
"You are serious."
"Very."
"After everything between us?"
I nearly laughed.
"That phrase means something different tonight."
She stared at me.
Then she looked toward Carlo.
Again, that tiny flash of shared awareness.
I saw it clearly this time.
Carlo ended his call and approached.
"Serena, I can have someone drive you."
She nodded too quickly.
"Thank you."
I looked at him.
"You know where she lives?"
He smiled.
"Dominic, everyone knows where your girlfriend lives."
Girlfriend.
Not mistress.
Not Serena.
The word sounded deliberately casual.
I wondered how many people had known about my affair before Clara did.
Probably all of them.
Maybe that had been part of the point.
Public humiliation made private manipulation easier.
Serena started to walk away.
I stopped her.
"Leave your phone."
She froze.
Carlo turned.
"Why?"
I kept my eyes on Serena.
"Hospital security wants statements from everyone who was here when Clara arrived."
A lie.
"They may need your call log."
Serena touched the pocket of her coat.
"That is private."
"So was my marriage."
The words came out harder than I intended.
She went pale.
Then she handed me the phone.
Too easily.
A clean phone, I thought.
The real one would be elsewhere.
Carlo watched me turn it over.
"You are chasing the wrong enemy," he said.
"Maybe."
"Moretti hit your wife."
"Maybe."
His eyes narrowed.
"You keep saying maybe."
I almost smiled.
"It is a useful word when people around you lie."
For the first time, Carlo looked offended.
He left with Serena.
I waited until the elevator doors closed.
Then I handed her phone to Mateo.
"Clone everything."
"You think she is dirty?"
"I think I have been stupid enough for one night."
Ten minutes later, Mateo found the phone almost empty.
No old messages.
No photographs older than six weeks.
No cloud backup.
A device designed to look personal without containing anything personal.
"Burner disguised as a normal phone," he said.
"Exactly."
That was when I stopped seeing Serena as a careless affair and started seeing her as an operation.
A soft sound came from the doorway.
I turned.
A woman stood there wearing blue scrubs and an ID badge.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
I had never seen her before.
She looked past me at Clara.
Then she looked at the two guards outside the room.
"Can I help you?"
The woman swallowed.
"I am Elena Rossi."
Every muscle in my body locked.
She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
"Your wife told me if anything went wrong, I was supposed to come to you."
I moved between her and Clara.
"Start talking."
Elena pulled a small flash drive from inside her scrub pocket.
"Your wife was not the target because she knew about Moretti."
She placed the drive in my palm.
"She was the target because she discovered who has been paying Moretti from inside your own family."
I stared at the drive.
"Who?"
Elena's eyes moved toward the glass wall.
Carlo stood outside.
Watching us.
"Your uncle," she whispered.
May you like
Then the fire alarm began to scream.
