Chapter 2 - The Secret Clinic
The golden cross caught the sterile light of the medical monitors, casting a fractured glint across Sophia’s pale face. My daughter’s small hand was still wrapped tightly around Emma’s fingers, her breathing finally slowing into a peaceful rhythm.
I stared at the jewelry. I knew every link of that chain. It was an antique Neapolitan heirloom passed down through three generations of Juliana’s family. When the car accident took my wife two years ago, the police had handed me her belongings in a plastic bag.
The cross hadn't been in it. I had assumed it was lost in the wreckage on the wet asphalt of the interstate.
"Step away from the bed," I commanded, my voice dropping into the low, dangerous register that usually made grown men drop to their knees.
Emma didn't flinch. She gently tucked Sophia’s blanket around her shoulders, leaned down to press a soft kiss to my daughter's forehead, and then stood up. Her blue eyes were no longer guarded; they were wide with a fierce, desperate clarity.
"Not here, Mr. Pellegrini," Emma whispered, her gaze moving significantly to the sleeping girl. "She finally fell asleep. If you want the truth, let's talk in your study. Where the hidden microphones can record every word."
A cold spike of adrenaline shot through me. She knew about the bugs.
Ten minutes later, we stood in the heavy shadow of my mahogany study. I didn't sit behind the desk. I stood by the window, my hand resting near the lining of my jacket where my Beretta sat. Two of my top soldiers, Marco and Lev, stood just outside the reinforced glass doors, their silhouettes dark against the hallway light.
"You have three minutes before I have my men verify your identity in a way you won't survive," I said, the grandfather clock ticking heavily between us. "Who are you, and how did you get my wife's cross?"
Emma took a deep breath, reaching into her nursing bag. She didn't pull out a weapon. She pulled out a small, encrypted external hard drive and set it on the glass desk.
"My real name is Dr. Gemma Vance," she said, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. "Two years ago, I wasn't a pediatric nurse in Boston. I was the chief oncology researcher at the St. Jude Private Clinic in Zurich. The clinic your wife secretly flew to six months before her death."
May you like
I froze. "Juliana never went to Switzerland. She was in Italy visiting her aunt."
"That was the cover story she told you, Lorenzo," Emma—Gemma—said, using my first name for the first time. "Because she discovered that your own underboss, Silvio Corradi, was poisoning her slow-release vitamins with heavy metal compounds. She didn't have a sudden illness. She was being systematically eliminated because she found out Silvio was selling shipping manifests to the Chicago outfit."
