Chapter 1 - The Woman He Refused to Let Them Take
The first thing Dominic Moretti did after clawing his way back from death was not ask who had tried to kill him.
He did not ask about his empire.
He did not ask whether the docks were still under Moretti control, whether his enemies had moved against his businesses, or whether the men responsible for the explosion had been found.
He did not even look at Vanessa Bellini, the woman everyone in New York believed would soon become his wife.
Dominic opened his eyes, saw a security guard dragging a nurse toward the door, and reached for her.
“Grace.”
His voice was barely more than air escaping damaged lungs.
Yet the entire private hospital suite went silent.
The guard released Grace Bennett so abruptly that she stumbled backward.
Her brown hair had nearly escaped the bun she had twisted together at the beginning of a shift that should have ended almost two days earlier. Her white uniform was wrinkled. There were shadows beneath her eyes. A dark red mark circled her wrist where the guard had been gripping her.
Dominic noticed all of it.
Especially the bruise.
Across the room, Vanessa Bellini’s expression changed.
Only seconds earlier, she had watched Grace being removed with the calm satisfaction of someone watching unwanted furniture carried from a house.
Now her lips parted.
“Dominic.”
She crossed the marble floor in white heels.
“Thank God. I thought—”
Dominic never looked at her.
His eyes remained on Grace.
Pain tore through his chest when he tried to move. Thick bandages wrapped his ribs and abdomen. His left shoulder felt as though someone had buried a hot blade beneath the skin. Cuts covered his face. His mouth tasted of metal and medicine.
The monitors beside his bed accelerated.
One of the doctors stepped forward.
“Mr. Moretti, you need to remain still.”
Dominic ignored him.
He lifted one hand toward Grace.
“Come here.”
She hesitated.
Grace had treated violent men before.
Gang members.
Drunk husbands.
Police officers injured on duty.
People who screamed threats from hospital beds because fear made them cruel.
Dominic Moretti was different.
His reputation had reached her long before his blood reached her emergency room floor.
People lowered their voices when they spoke his name.
Shipping companies changed routes because of him.
Politicians returned his calls before they returned calls from donors.
Restaurant owners, real-estate developers, union bosses, nightclub owners—half of Manhattan seemed to know a story about Dominic Moretti.
Some called him a criminal.
Some called him a businessman.
Some called him the only man powerful enough to prevent a war among families that had been killing one another for generations.
Grace called him what he was when he entered her trauma room.
A patient.
And patients were supposed to be protected.
Even from the people standing beside their beds.
“Grace,” Dominic repeated.
She slowly walked toward him.
Vanessa’s voice sharpened.
“She was being removed because she violated protocol.”
Dominic’s fingers closed gently around Grace’s hand.
The room seemed to shrink.
Grace felt the heat of his palm despite how weak he was.
His grip was nothing like the intimidating hold she expected from a man rumored to have broken another man’s jaw with one hand.
It was desperate.
Almost frightened.
She looked into his eyes.
“You almost died,” she whispered.
Something shifted in Dominic’s expression.
Not fear for himself.
Fear for someone else.
“The boy?”
Grace’s breath caught.
Vanessa stopped moving.
Three men standing near the windows looked at one another.
It lasted less than a second.
Dominic saw it.
He had survived because he noticed things other men ignored.
“He’s alive,” Grace said carefully.
Dominic closed his eyes.
Relief passed across his bruised face.
Vanessa stepped closer.
“What boy?”
Nobody answered her.
Grace felt Dominic’s hand tighten around hers.
That small movement told her more than words could.
He remembered.
Forty-eight hours earlier, rain had been hammering Manhattan so hard that the windows of St. Catherine Medical Center looked like waterfalls.
Grace had been halfway through a stale granola bar when the emergency doors burst open.
Two stretchers rushed inside.
The first carried a large, unconscious man covered in blood and soot.
The second carried a little boy.
Six years old at most.
His skin had been gray.
His breathing shallow.
One small fist remained wrapped around a broken silver chain.
A black cross dangled from it.
“Explosion near Pier Forty-Seven,” a paramedic shouted. “Adult male, blast injuries, possible gunshot wound. Pediatric male found approximately twenty feet from vehicle. Relationship unknown.”
Grace had thrown her snack away and run.
“Trauma one,” she ordered. “Pediatric team to trauma two.”
She recognized Dominic Moretti only after cutting away what remained of his shirt.
The tattoos gave him away.
Newspaper photographs usually showed him in tailored suits.
But everyone in New York had seen at least one picture of the Moretti heir standing outside a federal courthouse with that same cold expression.
Grace did not care.
“Pressure seventy-eight over forty-two.”
“Get blood ready.”
“Chest sounds diminished.”
“Possible tension pneumo.”
Dominic should not have been conscious.
But while the trauma surgeon prepared to insert a chest tube, his eyes opened.
They searched the room wildly.
Grace leaned closer.
“You’re safe.”
His lips moved.
She could not understand.
“What?”
“The boy.”
“He’s being treated.”
Dominic grabbed her wrist.
His strength shocked her.
“Nobody knows.”
“About what?”
His eyes burned into hers.
“Nobody knows who he is.”
Then his body went limp.
Seven minutes later, Vanessa Bellini arrived.
She did not ask Grace whether Dominic was alive.
Not first.
Her first question came when she saw the little boy being wheeled toward radiology.
“Where did you find him?”
Grace remembered the sentence perfectly.
Not Who is he?
Not Is he okay?
Where did you find him?
At the time, Grace had been too busy to think about it.
Now she understood.
Vanessa had recognized him.
Back in the private suite, Dominic finally turned toward his fiancée.
Vanessa forced concern into her expression.
“You've been unconscious for two days. You’re confused.”
Dominic studied her.
“Am I?”
“Of course. The doctors said there could be memory problems.”
His eyes shifted toward the guard who had been dragging Grace.
“Why were you throwing her out?”
Vanessa answered before anyone else could.
“She was asking questions she had no business asking.”
Grace looked at her sharply.
“That isn't true.”
Vanessa laughed without humor.
“You accessed the pediatric patient’s chart.”
“I’m part of his care team.”
“You asked security for footage from the emergency entrance.”
“Because someone entered his room pretending to be hospital staff.”
Dominic’s gaze hardened.
Grace had not planned to say that in front of everyone.
But now the truth was loose.
The bodyguards reacted immediately.
Dominic’s most trusted lieutenant, Marco DeLuca, stepped away from the window.
“What?”
Grace looked at him.
“At four seventeen this morning, a man wearing maintenance clothing attempted to enter the boy’s room.”
Vanessa’s father, Vittorio Bellini, shifted near the doorway.
Grace saw it.
Dominic did too.
“What happened?” Dominic asked.
“I stopped him. He said he had a work order. There was no work order.”
“Where is he now?”
“He disappeared before security arrived.”
Marco cursed quietly.
Grace continued.
“That’s why I requested the footage.”
Vanessa folded her arms.
“And when hospital administration told her to leave the matter to security, she refused.”
“There was no footage,” Grace said.
Dominic stared at her.
“What do you mean?”
“The cameras on that floor stopped recording for seventeen minutes.”
Silence.
Exactly seventeen minutes.
Beginning two minutes before the stranger appeared.
Dominic’s face changed.
The injured patient disappeared.
The Mafia boss returned.
“Marco.”
“Yes.”
“Lock this floor.”
Vanessa stepped forward.
“Dominic, you're not turning a hospital into one of your compounds.”
He looked at her for the first time.
“You were smiling while they dragged her out.”
Vanessa’s face went still.
“Excuse me?”
“I saw you.”
“You were barely conscious.”
“I saw you.”
He released Grace only long enough to reach toward the control beside his bed and push himself higher.
Pain flashed across his face.
Grace instinctively touched his shoulder.
“Don’t.”
Dominic stopped immediately.
The obedience surprised everyone.
Including Grace.
Vanessa watched the movement.
Something ugly appeared behind her eyes.
“She’s only your nurse.”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
Dominic looked from Vanessa to Grace’s bruised wrist.
Then back to Vanessa.
“Then why is everyone so afraid of what she knows?”
Nobody answered.
Grace felt every set of eyes turn toward her.
Her pulse hammered.
She had promised herself she would wait until Dominic was stable.
She had promised the pediatric surgeon.
She had even promised the frightened little boy.
But the boy had whispered something to her before falling asleep.
Something impossible.
Something that explained Vanessa’s fear.
Grace leaned closer to Dominic.
“There’s something else.”
Vanessa took a sudden step forward.
“Grace, don’t.”
Dominic’s head turned slowly.
Vanessa realized her mistake too late.
Grace looked directly into Dominic’s eyes.
“The boy woke up for three minutes last night.”
His entire body went rigid.
“He talked?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Grace glanced toward Vanessa.
For the first time, the elegant blonde woman looked genuinely terrified.
The monitors beside Dominic began beeping faster.
Grace lowered her voice.
“He asked me to hide the cross.”
Dominic’s fingers tightened around hers again.
“What cross?”
“The silver one he was holding when you came in.”
Dominic stopped breathing for half a second.
Grace continued.
“He said someone would kill him if they knew he still had it.”
Vanessa turned toward the door.
Marco moved first.
He blocked her path.
“Where are you going?”
Vanessa glared at him.
“My fiancé just woke from a coma. I need air.”
“No one leaves,” Dominic said.
“Dominic—”
“No one.”
Grace swallowed.
“There was an inscription on the back of the cross.”
Dominic looked at her.
“What did it say?”
She whispered the words.
“D.M. — Always come home.”
The color drained from Dominic’s face.
Grace had expected anger.
Instead she saw grief.
Raw, devastating grief.
He looked toward the ceiling.
For a moment, the feared Dominic Moretti seemed completely alone.
“That cross belonged to my mother,” he said.
Vanessa whispered, “Dominic…”
He ignored her.
“My mother gave it to me when I was twelve.”
Grace’s heart began pounding harder.
“Then how did the boy get it?”
Dominic slowly looked toward Vanessa.
Before he could answer, Marco’s phone rang.
He checked the screen.
His face changed.
“What?” Dominic demanded.
Marco listened for several seconds.
Then he looked directly at Dominic.
“We have a problem.”
“What kind?”
“The boy’s room is empty.”
Grace felt the blood leave her face.
“That’s impossible. I checked on him twenty minutes ago.”
Marco spoke carefully.
“The nurse assigned outside his door is unconscious.”
Dominic ripped the monitoring lead from his chest.
“Find him.”
“Dominic, you can’t get out of bed,” Grace said.
He threw the blanket aside anyway.
Vanessa backed away.
Grace grabbed Dominic’s arm.
“You will tear your stitches.”
“I said find him!”
Marco was already ordering men into the hallway.
Then Grace remembered something.
A tiny hand clutching hers.
A frightened child waking in darkness.
A sentence he had whispered so quietly she had almost missed it.
Grace turned toward Dominic.
“I know where he might go.”
Everyone stopped.
Dominic looked at her.
“Where?”
Grace stared at the black cross resting inside the pocket of her nurse uniform.
Before the boy had been sedated again, he had told her one more thing.
“If the bad lady comes,” he had whispered, “Dad said I should go where Mom used to wait for him.”
At the time, Grace had not understood.
Now she did.
She looked at Dominic.
“Who used to wait for you at St. Catherine?”
For the first time since waking, the most feared man on the East Coast looked afraid.
He whispered a name.
“Elena.”
And across the room, Vanessa Bellini closed her eyes.
May you like
Because she knew exactly who Elena was.
And she knew the little boy had just become the most dangerous witness in New York.
