By sunrise, I had learned three things about Damien Moretti.
He hated hospitals.
He drank terrible coffee without complaining.
And when he was frightened, he became quieter instead of louder.
The twins remained under observation.
Doctors expected both boys to recover, but the words “expected to” did not satisfy Damien.
Every twenty minutes, he checked their monitors.
Every time one baby moved, he stood.
Every time a nurse entered, his eyes followed her hands.
I understood the behavior.
Fear rewires people.
Sometimes temporarily.
Sometimes forever.
At seven fifteen, Luca returned with information about the threatening phone call.
“Burner,” he said. “Activated yesterday.”
Damien’s expression hardened.
“Location?”
“Tower near River North. Nothing useful yet.”
“What about Vincent?”
“No activity at his condo. His car’s gone.”
“Family?”
“Mother in Oak Park. Sister in Milwaukee.”
Damien glanced toward me.
“Check quietly.”
Luca nodded.
I should have been horrified by how naturally they discussed tracking people.
Instead, I kept thinking about the powder.
Foreign substance.
Intentional contamination.
Somebody had put something into a bottle meant for two babies.
That erased many of my normal ethical concerns about being nosy.
A doctor discharged the twins that afternoon with strict instructions and follow-up appointments.
I expected Damien to send me home.
He didn’t.
A black SUV carried us north.
“This is kidnapping-adjacent,” I told him.
Damien sat beside the twins’ car seats.
“Kidnappers usually don’t let victims complain this much.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“I need clothes.”
“Someone can get them.”
“My apartment has a lock.”
“So does Fort Knox.”
“I’m going home.”
“No.”
I stared at him.
“You really are used to everybody obeying you.”
“Yes.”
“At least you admit it.”
One corner of his mouth moved.
“You’re also terrible at it.”
“Good.”
We drove through iron gates forty minutes later.
The Moretti property was not the mansion I expected.
It was worse.
A massive limestone house rose behind old trees, elegant and imposing, the kind of place where every window looked expensive enough to pay off my debt.
Security cameras tracked the vehicle.
Men stood at both entrances.
“You live here?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Subtle.”
“I wasn’t aiming for subtle.”
Inside, however, the house surprised me.
No marble statues.
No ridiculous gold furniture.
There were children’s blankets on the sofa.
Two bottles on the kitchen counter.
A stuffed giraffe beneath a chair.
Photographs covered one wall.
Damien holding newborn twins.
Damien with an elderly woman.
Damien beside a smiling younger man who looked enough like him to be family.
One photograph showed a beautiful dark-haired woman cradling the babies.
I looked away before Damien noticed.
Too late.
“Their mother,” he said.
“I’m sorry.”
His face closed.
“She died after they were born.”
I immediately regretted looking.
“You don’t have to explain.”
“I know.”
That ended the conversation.
A woman in her fifties hurried from the hallway.
“Thank God.”
She took Damien’s face between her hands.
“Are they all right?”
“They’re okay, Ma.”
So this was Damien Moretti’s mother.
Teresa.
She kissed both babies, then looked at me.
“This is Ellie.”
Teresa’s gaze sharpened.
“The waitress.”
“I have a name.”
Teresa surprised me by smiling.
“Good.”
“Ma.”
“What? Everyone around you is terrified. It’s unhealthy.”
She turned back to me.
“You helped my grandsons?”
“I helped stabilize them until the paramedics arrived.”
Teresa hugged me before I could react.
I froze.
Damien looked equally uncomfortable.
Apparently spontaneous affection was not common in Moretti family meetings.
“Thank you,” Teresa whispered.
Her voice broke.
That was when I decided I liked her.
The twins were placed upstairs in a nursery monitored by a private pediatric nurse.
I protested.
“You already have medical staff. Why am I here?”
Damien stood near the nursery window.
“Because whoever called you thinks you know something.”
“I know Vincent looked nervous.”
“And?”
“And he asked questions at Bellavita months ago.”
Damien turned.
“What questions?”
I told him.
Every question I could remember.
Kitchen access.
Camera placement.
Private dining procedures.
Damien’s face became colder with each detail.
“Why didn’t the restaurant tell me?”
“Because asking where a restroom hallway leads isn’t normally considered evidence of attempted murder.”
“Who was Vincent with?”
I thought.
“A heavier man. Bald. Maybe fifty.”
“Describe him.”
I did.
Damien exchanged a glance with Luca.
“Who?” I asked.
Neither answered.
“Seriously?”
Luca finally said, “Peter Valenti.”
“That means nothing to me.”
“It means something to us,” Damien said.
“Helpful.”
Peter Valenti, I learned, had worked with Damien’s father decades earlier.
Not officially family.
But close.
Trusted.
The kind of man who attended baptisms and funerals.
Damien had recently denied him control over a lucrative construction arrangement.
“So motive,” I said.
“Maybe.”
“And Vincent works for him?”
“Vincent works for me.”
That sentence carried something heavier than anger.
Betrayal.
Damien walked toward the window.
“I put Vincent beside my children.”
Luca said quietly, “You couldn’t have known.”
Damien’s jaw tightened.
“I should have.”
I recognized the trap.
The belief that if something terrible happens, someone must have missed a clue.
I had spent years doing the same thing after my mother died.
If I had called the doctor earlier.
If I had researched more.
If I had insisted harder.
Guilt loves imaginary timelines.
“You’re wasting time blaming yourself,” I said.
Damien turned sharply.
Luca suddenly became interested in his phone.
“You don’t know what I’m blaming.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You trusted someone.”
His eyes became dangerous.
“Careful.”
I should have stopped.
I didn’t.
“If you punish yourself for somebody else betraying you, you’re doing half their work for them.”
Silence.
Damien stared at me.
Then the baby monitor crackled.
One twin began crying.
Damien was upstairs before anyone else moved.
I followed more slowly.
By evening, the house felt less like protection and more like a sealed pressure cooker.
Security doubled.
Phones rang constantly.
Everyone whispered.
Nobody trusted anyone.
Around nine, I went downstairs looking for tea.
I found Luca in the kitchen.
“You always stand behind him?” I asked.
“Usually.”
“How long?”
“Fourteen years.”
“So you trust Vincent?”
“I did.”
“Did Damien?”
“He made Vincent one of the twins’ security escorts.”
That answered everything.
I poured water into a mug.
“What happens if you find him?”
Luca looked at me.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No.”
“Because you think I’m fragile?”
“Because you still believe there are some answers that improve your life.”
He walked away.
That sentence stayed with me.
At midnight, I couldn’t sleep.
The guest room Damien had given me was larger than my apartment.
I lay awake staring at the ceiling.
Finally, I went downstairs.
A piano stood in a dark sitting room.
I touched one key.
Middle C.
“Can’t sleep?”
Damien’s voice came from the doorway.
He wasn’t wearing a jacket.
No tie.
His sleeves were rolled to his forearms.
For the first time, he looked less like a crime boss and more like a man who had not slept in two days.
“Apparently rich-people mattresses give me anxiety.”
He almost smiled.
“You play?”
“Yes.”
“Play something.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you ordered me.”
He actually smiled then.
Briefly.
It changed his face.
Made him look younger.
Human.
“Please.”
I sat.
Instead of performing a song, I played a simple progression.
Soft.
Repetitive.
The kind of musical structure I had used in therapy sessions.
Damien leaned against the doorway.
“My wife played,” he said.
I stopped.
“Sorry.”
“Keep going.”
So I did.
After a minute, he sat across the room.
“Her name was Sofia.”
I waited.
“She died six weeks after the twins were born.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She had complications. Infection.”
His voice remained steady.
“She kept saying she was tired. Everyone said new mothers were tired.”
My chest tightened.
“When they finally took it seriously, it was too late.”
There it was.
His guilt.
Different details.
Same trap.
“You think you should have known,” I said.
“Yes.”
“You loved her?”
He looked at me like the question was absurd.
“More than anything.”
“Then she knew that.”
“That doesn’t bring her back.”
“No.”
I let the chord fade.
“But it matters.”
He said nothing.
For a long time, the room was silent.
Then an alarm sounded.
Not loud.
One electronic chirp.
Damien was instantly standing.
Luca rushed into the hallway.
“East perimeter.”
“What?”
“Movement near the service gate.”
Damien looked at me.
“Stay here.”
“That strategy worked great in horror movies.”
“Ellie.”
“Fine.”
He disappeared.
I lasted perhaps thirty seconds.
Then I followed.
From the second-floor landing, I saw security men moving below.
One entered from the back door carrying a black backpack.
“Found outside the gate,” he said.
Damien stopped him.
“Don’t open it.”
Police?
Bomb squad?
I expected someone to say one of those words.
Instead Luca examined the outside carefully.
“There’s an envelope.”
My stomach tightened.
Written across it in thick black marker was one word.
ELLIE.
Every person in the room turned toward me.
Damien’s expression changed.
“What the hell are you doing down here?”
I ignored him.
“That’s my name.”
“I can read.”
Luca pulled on gloves and opened the envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
He looked at it.
Then immediately looked at Damien.
“What?”
Luca handed it over.
Damien’s face drained of color.
I came down the stairs.
The photograph had been taken through a window.
It showed me sitting at the piano.
Damien across the room.
Taken less than ten minutes earlier.
Someone had been watching us.
On the back, a message had been written:
THE WAITRESS LEAVES, OR NEXT TIME THE BABIES DON’T WAKE UP.
Damien read it twice.
Then folded the photograph slowly.
“Everybody out,” he said.
His men hesitated.
“Now.”
They moved.
Soon only Damien, Luca and I remained.
I looked toward the dark windows.
“That person was on your property.”
Luca shook his head.
“Long lens. Could’ve been outside.”
“Which means they knew where we were sitting.”
Damien turned toward him.
“Check the house.”
Luca understood immediately.
“You think someone inside told them.”
“I think nobody knows anything until we prove it.”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
Damien looked at me.
“You’re staying in the secure wing tonight.”
“What’s a secure wing?”
“No exterior windows.”
“That sounds comforting and horrifying.”
“It’s both.”
Luca left to organize the search.
Damien began walking away.
“Damien.”
He stopped.
“They don’t want money.”
“No.”
“They don’t want revenge against you directly.”
His eyes met mine.
“They want me gone.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“That’s what I intend to find out.”
I looked at the photograph again.
The threat was terrifying.
But something bothered me more.
The photographer had captured us through the sitting-room window.
A stranger spying from outside could know the room.
But how would they know where I had gone after midnight?
Unless someone had seen me leave my room.
Someone inside the house.
I turned toward the hallway.
A shadow moved at the far end.
Gone immediately.
“Damien.”
He followed my eyes.
“What?”
“I think we’re looking in the wrong direction.”
He went still.
“What did you see?”
“Someone.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Footsteps sounded upstairs.
Then a door quietly closed.
Damien reached beneath his shirt.
I knew enough to understand what he was touching.
“Stay behind me.”
For once, I didn’t argue.
We climbed the stairs.
The hallway was empty.
One door stood slightly open.
The nursery.
Damien ran.
The nurse inside was unconscious on the floor.
Both cribs were empty.
And on the mattress where the twins should have been, someone had left a single black rose.