Chapter 3 - Seventeen Minutes of Darkness
The emergency generators should have activated within three seconds.
They did not.
For eight full seconds, Dominic’s hospital suite existed in complete darkness.
Eight seconds was more than enough time to kill someone.
Marco immediately moved between Dominic’s bed and the door.
“Down!”
Grace pulled Nico to the floor.
Another gunshot cracked through the hallway.
Then a third.
Emergency lights flickered red.
Dominic reached beneath his pillow.
Grace stared as he pulled out a small pistol.
“When did you get that?”
“Marco.”
“You gave an ICU patient a gun?”
Marco kept watching the door.
“He asked.”
“That isn’t an explanation.”
“It usually is with him.”
Despite everything, Dominic nearly smiled.
Then someone slammed into the door from the other side.
Nico covered his ears.
Grace wrapped herself around him.
Dominic’s expression changed the moment he saw his son frightened.
“Marco.”
“I know.”
Marco signaled two guards.
One moved toward the bathroom.
Another positioned himself beside the entrance.
The door opened.
A man wearing hospital maintenance clothing stumbled inside.
Blood soaked his shirt.
Grace recognized him.
“The man from this morning.”
He collapsed.
Behind him came footsteps.
Marco grabbed the stranger and dragged him behind cover.
“Who shot you?”
The man gasped.
“Bellini.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“Which Bellini?”
The stranger coughed blood.
“They know about the card.”
Grace looked toward the laptop.
“How?”
The man reached into his pocket.
Marco seized his wrist.
“Easy.”
The stranger slowly removed a phone.
The screen displayed a live camera feed.
Dominic’s room.
Grace stared upward.
A tiny camera was hidden inside the smoke detector.
Dominic’s face became terrifyingly calm.
“They’ve been watching us.”
The injured man nodded.
“They knew when you opened the file.”
The lights suddenly returned.
Monitors restarted.
Grace checked the man’s wound.
Bullet to the lower abdomen.
He needed surgery.
“Get a trauma team.”
Marco looked at her.
“He tried to get into the kid’s room.”
“And now he’s bleeding on the floor.”
“He may be part of the attack.”
“He’s still bleeding.”
Dominic watched Grace work.
No hesitation.
No judgment.
No fear of who deserved saving.
Only a life in front of her.
It disturbed something inside him.
Dominic had spent years dividing the world into categories.
Loyal.
Enemy.
Useful.
Dangerous.
Family.
Grace seemed to know only two.
Alive.
And worth saving.
Within minutes, hospital staff rushed the injured man away.
The blackout had lasted seventeen minutes.
Again.
Seventeen.
The same amount of time the security cameras had failed earlier.
Grace noticed.
“So the first failure wasn’t random.”
“No,” Dominic said.
Someone had access to hospital infrastructure.
Someone powerful.
Marco’s phone began ringing continuously.
Moretti men reported Bellini vehicles leaving known properties.
Private planes were being prepared.
Accounts were moving money offshore.
Vittorio knew the evidence had been discovered.
Dominic looked toward Nico.
The boy was sitting beside Grace, still shaking.
Every instinct told Dominic to retaliate immediately.
Send men.
Close airports.
Burn Bellini warehouses.
Take Vittorio alive.
Punish every person who had known.
That was the language Dominic had been taught since childhood.
Strength answered strength.
Blood answered blood.
Fear prevented betrayal.
But Grace’s earlier question would not leave his mind.
What happens to Nico?
Dominic put the gun down.
“Marco.”
“Yes.”
“No retaliation.”
Marco looked genuinely surprised.
“Boss?”
“Lock down our properties. Protect the family. Nobody fires unless fired upon.”
“Vittorio is running.”
“Let him.”
Marco understood slowly.
“You want him desperate.”
“I want him careless.”
Dominic looked toward the memory card.
“And I want every person whose name is on that thing wondering whether Vittorio sold them out.”
That was more dangerous than bullets.
Fear could destroy alliances overnight.
Grace finished checking Nico.
“He shouldn’t stay here.”
Dominic agreed.
“Where can we take him?”
Grace hesitated.
“Somewhere nobody associates with you.”
Marco spoke.
“We have safe houses.”
“Which Bellini probably knows.”
Dominic looked at Grace.
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Have somewhere.”
Her expression changed.
“No.”
He knew she was lying.
“Grace.”
“My apartment is not becoming Mafia headquarters.”
“I didn’t say headquarters.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I was thinking secure temporary medical location.”
“You were thinking headquarters with better wording.”
Nico giggled.
The sound changed the room.
Everyone looked at him.
It was the first time Dominic had heard his son laugh since before Elena died.
Nico covered his mouth as though he had done something wrong.
Grace smiled.
Dominic stared at her.
She had produced in thirty seconds something his money and power had failed to produce in years.
Normalcy.
A little boy laughing.
It frightened him more than gunfire.
Grace lived in a modest apartment in Queens above a bakery owned by an elderly Greek couple.
Dominic could not go there.
Moving him from the hospital would kill him.
So they compromised.
Nico would remain temporarily in a secure pediatric suite nearby, guarded by Moretti men Grace personally approved after making them show identification.
Dominic found this absurd.
Marco found it hilarious.
Grace found it necessary.
Later that evening, Nico fell asleep on a couch beside Dominic’s bed.
The city glittered beyond the windows.
For the first time since waking, Dominic and Grace were almost alone.
One guard stood outside.
Marco had gone to coordinate security.
Grace adjusted Dominic’s IV.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I’m working.”
“For forty hours?”
“Forty-three.”
“That's stupid.”
Grace looked at him.
“Excuse me?”
“Working forty-three hours is stupid.”
“Getting blown up is smarter?”
Dominic smiled.
A real smile.
It changed his entire face.
Grace suddenly understood why photographs never captured him correctly.
The newspapers always printed the dangerous version.
None had shown warmth.
“Why nursing?” he asked.
She checked the IV pump.
“Why Mafia?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“That’s not an answer.”
“Neither is yours.”
Dominic looked out at Manhattan.
“I was born into mine.”
“So was I.”
He turned back.
“Your family are nurses?”
“My mother.”
Grace’s expression softened.
“She worked at St. Catherine for twenty-nine years.”
“Worked?”
“She died five years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Cancer.”
Grace touched the simple silver ring on her hand.
“She wore this every shift. She used to say people become their most honest selves in hospitals because there’s nowhere left to pretend.”
Dominic considered that.
“What do you think my honest self is?”
Grace looked at him.
“You want the polite answer?”
“No.”
“You’re terrified.”
Dominic almost laughed.
No one had spoken to him that way since Elena.
“Of what?”
“Losing him.”
She glanced toward Nico.
Dominic’s humor disappeared.
“Yes.”
“And guilt.”
“For Rosa.”
“For Elena.”
He stared at her.
Grace continued carefully.
“You loved her.”
It was not a question.
Dominic looked toward his sleeping son.
“I did.”
“What happened?”
“She wanted a normal life.”
“And you couldn’t give her one.”
“No.”
“Did she hate you for it?”
Dominic’s eyes became distant.
“No. That would have been easier.”
He told Grace the truth.
Elena had been his neighbor growing up.
She knew him before bodyguards.
Before tailored suits.
Before men called him Don Moretti.
She knew the seventeen-year-old Dominic who fixed motorcycles and wanted to study architecture.
They had separated because Dominic’s father demanded he enter the family business.
Years later, they found one another again.
Nico was conceived during three weeks Dominic later described as the only normal time in his adult life.
Then threats began.
Elena disappeared for the child’s safety.
Dominic funded her life secretly.
After Elena’s death, Rosa raised Nico.
“And Vanessa?” Grace asked.
Dominic exhaled.
“Politics.”
“You planned to marry for politics?”
“My family and Bellini’s family joining would have ended several disputes.”
“That sounds romantic.”
“It wasn't.”
“Did Vanessa know?”
“That I didn't love her?”
“Yes.”
“Of course.”
“That’s terrible.”
“It was practical.”
Grace shook her head.
“People use that word when they want to make sadness sound intelligent.”
Dominic stared at her.
No one spoke to him like this.
He should have been annoyed.
Instead he wanted her to continue.
“Did you love anyone after Elena?” Grace asked.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Grace noticed.
She did not comment.
Dominic changed the subject.
“Why aren’t you married?”
“You interrogate all your nurses?”
“Only the ones who stop assassination attempts.”
“I didn’t stop an assassination.”
“You found Nico.”
“That’s my job.”
“No.”
He studied her.
“It isn’t.”
Grace looked away.
“My fiancé left three months before our wedding.”
Dominic frowned.
“Why?”
“He decided my student loans, my night shifts, and my lack of interest in moving to Connecticut made us incompatible.”
“He sounds weak.”
“You don't know him.”
“I know enough.”
Grace smiled despite herself.
“He married someone else eleven months later.”
“You want me to kill him?”
She stared.
Dominic’s expression remained serious.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Dominic.”
“What?”
“You cannot offer murder as emotional support.”
He actually laughed.
The sound woke Nico.
The boy opened sleepy eyes.
“Dad?”
“I’m here.”
Nico walked over and climbed carefully onto the side of the bed.
Dominic froze when the child rested against him.
Nico had done it before as a toddler.
Years ago.
Before secrets became rules.
Dominic looked helplessly at Grace.
She understood.
“Put your arm around him.”
Dominic did.
Nico closed his eyes again.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Are we still hiding?”
Dominic looked at Grace.
Then down at his son.
“No.”
Nico opened his eyes.
“No?”
“No more hiding.”
“Can I call you Dad outside?”
Something cracked in Dominic’s chest more painful than any wound.
“Yes.”
“Even at school?”
“Yes.”
“Even when people are there?”
Dominic swallowed.
“Especially when people are there.”
Nico smiled and fell asleep.
Grace quietly turned away.
Dominic caught her wiping her eye.
“You’re crying.”
“I’m tired.”
“You’re terrible at lying.”
“So are you.”
He reached for her hand.
Not because anyone was dragging her away.
Because he wanted to.
Grace looked down at their hands.
Neither spoke.
For several seconds, the machines beside Dominic’s bed filled the silence.
Then Marco entered.
His expression destroyed the moment.
“We found Rosa’s phone.”
Dominic released Grace.
“Where?”
“In the wreckage.”
“Anything useful?”
“More than useful.”
Marco placed the phone on the bed.
“There’s a voicemail recorded twelve minutes before the explosion.”
Dominic pressed play.
Rosa’s frightened voice filled the room.
“Dominic, if something happens, don't trust the engagement. Elena found something before she died. Vanessa knows. Her father knows. I should have told you years ago.”
Dominic’s face turned white.
The message continued.
“Elena’s crash wasn't an accident.”
Grace stopped breathing.
Dominic stared at the phone.
Rosa’s final words came through static.
“They killed her because she discovered what the Bellinis were doing inside your family.”
The recording ended.
For six years, Dominic had mourned Elena as a woman he failed to protect from fate.
Now he knew fate had nothing to do with it.
May you like
Someone had murdered her.
And that someone had stood beside him at her funeral.
