Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO SHOULD HAVE DIED
Lucas Moretti tried to sit up.
The effort sent a blade of pain through his chest. His hand slipped against the polished marble, and he fell back with a strangled cough.
“Don't move!” Lily cried.
She sounded so frightened that Lucas stopped struggling.
The little girl knelt beside him in pink pajamas patterned with white stars. Her bare feet were tucked beneath her, and her dark curls fell over one eye. She held her small inhaler in both hands as though it were the most precious thing she owned.
“Where is your mother?” Lucas rasped.
“Working.”
“Here?”
Lily nodded. “She said I had to stay in the laundry room. But I heard you fall.”
Lucas tried to take another breath. His lungs resisted. The room tilted, and the ceiling lights blurred into long white streaks.
A shadow moved near the entrance.
“Boss!”
Victor Romano rushed into the hallway, followed by two guards. His expression was perfectly arranged: alarm first, then relief, then fury.
“What happened?” Victor demanded.
“He couldn't breathe,” Lily said. “I gave him my medicine.”
Victor stopped.
For a fraction of a second, his eyes moved from Lucas to the inhaler in Lily's hands. Something sharp and unreadable crossed his face.
Then he crouched beside Lucas.
“Boss, can you hear me?”
Lucas lifted one trembling finger toward the little girl.
“She helped.”
Victor's jaw tightened. “Of course. We'll get a doctor.”
“Call an ambulance,” Lily insisted. “My teacher says when someone can't breathe, you have to call for help.”
Victor looked at her as if he had only just noticed she was there.
“Who brought a child into this house?”
“My mother,” Lily whispered. “Please don't fire her.”
Lucas tried to speak, but another cough stole his breath.
Victor pressed two fingers against his neck. “Get the medical team. Now.”
One guard ran. The other reached for Lily's shoulder.
“Come on, sweetheart. You need to get out of here.”
Lily pulled away. “I'm staying with him.”
“Lily,” Victor said gently, “the adults will handle this.”
She looked at Lucas. “But he's scared.”
The words landed strangely in the hallway.
Lucas Moretti had not been called scared in years. Men called him ruthless, calculating, dangerous. His enemies called him a monster when they thought he could not hear. Nobody called him scared.
Yet the child had seen through the suit, the money, and the reputation.
He was terrified.
The emergency physician arrived with a portable oxygen kit. He took over immediately, checking Lucas's breathing and asking what medication had been used. Lily answered every question she could.
“My inhaler is the blue one,” she said. “I use it when my chest gets tight. Mommy says I have to keep it with me.”
The doctor administered emergency treatment and ordered Lucas transported to the hospital. As the medical team lifted him onto a stretcher, Lucas caught Victor's wrist.
“Don't let her leave.”
Victor looked down.
“Boss?”
“The girl. Her mother. Find out who they are.”
“Of course.”
Lucas's grip weakened.
“And Victor?”
“Yes?”
“Get my inhaler.”
Victor glanced toward the floor. Lucas's black inhaler lay beside the console table, exactly where he had dropped it.
Victor picked it up.
For the briefest moment, his thumb pressed against the canister.
Then he slipped it into his pocket.
Lily saw him do it.
She didn't understand why, but she remembered the movement.
At the hospital, doctors stabilized Lucas and explained that the attack had been severe. His breathing had deteriorated rapidly. They needed to run tests to determine whether the episode had been triggered by an allergen, a medication problem, or another underlying condition.
Victor later placed Lucas's inhaler among the personal belongings delivered to the hospital, claiming he had picked it up from the hallway. He stayed beside the bed, playing the role of a loyal lieutenant.
“You're going to be fine,” he said. “The men are handling everything.”
Lucas's voice was rough. “Where's the girl?”
“Her mother took her home.”
“Bring them here tomorrow.”
“Boss, she's a housekeeper's child. There's no reason to involve them.”
Lucas turned his head.
“I decide what involves me.”
Victor lowered his eyes.
“Understood.”
When he left the room, he took his phone into the corridor and called a number he had not used in months.
“The plan failed,” he whispered.
A man's voice answered. “How?”
“A child.”
Silence.
Then the voice said, “Then the child becomes a problem.”
May you like
Victor stared through the glass at Lucas's hospital bed.
“No,” he said. “Not yet. First I need to know what she saw.”
