Chapter 2 - “You don’t know what people will do to get close to me.”
“I know what infection does to the body. That’s enough for tonight.”
The paramedics entered with equipment. One was a tall woman with silver at her temples; the other was a younger man carrying a monitor.
They began asking questions.
Gabriel answered only when I told him to.
His blood pressure had fallen further. His oxygen saturation remained low despite the supplemental oxygen. The paramedics exchanged the kind of glance medical workers shared when a situation became more serious than the family understood.
“We need to move him now,” the woman said.
Gabriel looked toward Luca.
“Stay close.”
“I will.”
The paramedic reached for the rails.
Gabriel caught my hand instead.
The pressure was weak, but deliberate.
“Don’t leave.”
I could have reminded him that we had known each other less than an hour. I could have pointed out that his hand was cold and his grip unsteady.
Instead, I said, “I’m coming.”
His fingers loosened.
As they transferred him onto the stretcher, his face twisted with pain. His legs remained unnaturally still.
I noticed something beneath the mattress.
A thin edge of white paper.
Perhaps the paramedics had shifted the bed. Perhaps it had been there all along.
I bent and pulled it free.
It was a copy of a surgical consent form.
The top half had been torn away.
The lower section contained one signature.
Gabriel Moretti.
Below it, in a different handwriting, someone had written:
Procedure: lumbar access and extraction.
No date.
No hospital name.
No physician’s stamp.
I folded the paper and slipped it into my pocket.
Luca saw me.
“What is it?”
“Something we’ll discuss in the ambulance.”
Gabriel’s eyes were closed, but I wasn’t sure he was unconscious.
The paramedics rolled him through the penthouse doors. Luca followed. I grabbed my bag and went after them.
The elevator descended slowly, each floor seeming to take too long.
Gabriel lay strapped to the stretcher, an oxygen mask covering his mouth and nose. His eyes opened when the elevator stopped at thirty-seven.
The doors remained closed.
“Why did we stop?” he asked.
“Security delay,” Luca said.
A moment later, the elevator continued.
Gabriel’s gaze moved to me.
“Did you find it?”
“What?”
“The paper.”
I glanced at Luca.
He had heard.
“What am I supposed to have found?”
Gabriel’s eyes closed again.
“Nothing.”
The ambulance ride blurred into alarms, radio calls, and the steady rhythm of medical instructions. I sat beside Gabriel while the paramedic started an IV and drew blood.
He drifted in and out.
At one point, he woke enough to say, “They told me it was gone.”
“What was gone?”
“Never mind.”
“Gabriel.”
His eyes opened.
For the first time, he looked less like a crime boss and more like a man who had spent too long being frightened alone.
“I found something in the wound,” he said.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did the doctors remove it?”
“Vincent said they did.”
“But you don’t believe him.”
“I believe he wanted me to believe him.”
The paramedic glanced toward us but continued working.
“Where was it?” I asked.
“Near my spine.”
“Did you see it?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know it was there?”
Gabriel’s breathing became uneven.
“Because the surgeon told me.”
“Dr. Vale?”
“He said the bullet had carried something in.”
A chill moved through me.
“What kind of something?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Did he show you an X-ray?”
“No.”
“Did anyone else see it?”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Then why would you believe him?”
His eyes fixed on mine.
“Because he was the only man in that room who sounded afraid.”
The ambulance turned sharply. His shoulder shifted against the restraints.
Luca steadied the stretcher.
“Almost there,” the paramedic said.
Gabriel’s voice dropped.
“Before the shooting, I received a message.”
“From whom?”
“Unknown number.”
“What did it say?”
“That the person closest to me had already chosen a side.”
“Did you tell Vincent?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell Luca?”
Gabriel looked toward the security chief.
“No.”
Luca’s expression hardened.
“Why not?”
“Because the message arrived on your phone.”
The ambulance seemed to become very quiet.
Luca stared at him.
“I never gave you my phone.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means someone used your number.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible,” I said. “Not tonight.”
We arrived at the hospital through a private entrance. Staff rushed Gabriel into a treatment room while Luca handled security and paperwork. I followed until a physician stopped me at the doors.
“Family only.”
“I’m his nurse.”
“Then wait outside.”
“He has a postoperative wound over the lumbar spine, bilateral lower-extremity weakness, high fever, hypotension, and respiratory compromise. You need to know he underwent an undocumented procedure.”
The physician looked at me properly then.
“How long ago?”
“Unknown. The incision is recent, possibly two or three days.”
“Was it a spinal procedure?”
“Likely. The consent form says lumbar access and extraction.”
“Extraction of what?”
“We don’t know.”
The physician gave instructions to the team.
“What’s your name?”
I told him.
“I’m Dr. Hannah Reed. Stay available.”
The doors closed.
Luca stood beside me in the corridor, his hands clenched at his sides.
“You should have told me about the paper.”
“I did.”
“You said we would discuss it.”
“That was before the hospital.”
“You don’t trust me.”
“I’ve known you for less than two hours.”
His mouth tightened.
“Neither did Gabriel when he hired you.”
“He didn’t hire me. His agency did.”
“That distinction won’t protect you.”
“I’m not looking for protection.”
“No,” Luca said. “You’re looking for answers.”
“Yes.”
He studied me, perhaps expecting me to soften the statement.
I didn’t.
“Then start with why you allowed a doctor to sedate him for four days.”
His face changed.
“We didn’t know it was four days.”
“You just told me he was heavily sedated.”
“His medication was administered by Vale’s staff. I wasn’t in the room every minute.”
“Why not?”
“Because Gabriel had people watching the elevators, phones, and entrances. He believed someone was trying to reach him.”
“Was he wrong?”
Luca looked toward the closed treatment doors.
“I don’t know anymore.”
That answer held more honesty than anything he had said before.
A nurse came out carrying Gabriel’s clothing in a clear plastic bag. The shirt had been cut away. A small metal object lay on top of it.
Not a bullet.
Not a fragment.
A narrow silver capsule, no longer than a grain of rice, sealed inside a transparent evidence pouch.
I stepped toward her.
“Where did that come from?”
She checked the label.
“It was found beneath the dressing.”
“Was it removed from the wound?”
“No. It was taped to the inside of his shirt.”
Luca went still.
The nurse handed me the pouch because I had asked first.
The capsule was dull, almost ordinary.
A tiny line of black lettering ran along one side.
I held it beneath the corridor light.
There were three characters.
M-17.
Luca’s face drained of color.
“You recognize it,” I said.
He didn’t answer.
“Luca.”
His eyes remained fixed on the capsule.
“That designation was used by Moretti Security.”
“For what?”
“Medical implants.”
“Does Gabriel have one?”
“Not that I know of.”
The treatment-room doors opened.
Dr. Reed stepped into the corridor. Her expression was serious, but not panicked.
“Mr. Moretti is stable for the moment,” she said. “The wound contains an abscess. We’re taking him for imaging and likely surgery.”
“Can you identify the object?” I asked.
She examined the pouch.
“It may be a tracking device.”
“Would it explain his symptoms?”
“No. Not by itself.”
“Then what does?”
She glanced at the consent form I had given her.
“Lumbar access and extraction,” she said. “That wording is unusual. It suggests the original surgeon was trying to remove something from the spinal canal or surrounding tissue.”
“Can you tell if that happened?”
“Not until we scan him.”
Luca’s phone began to ring.
He looked at the screen.
No caller ID.
For several seconds, he did not answer.
The phone stopped.
Then a message appeared.
I saw his face change before he turned the screen away.
“What did it say?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Luca.”
He showed me.
The message contained only one sentence:
If Gabriel wakes up, ask him what he remembers from Room M-17.
The corridor seemed to narrow around us.
“Who sent it?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Then why do you look like you do?”
Luca’s eyes lifted to mine.
“Because Room M-17 was at the clinic where Vincent took Gabriel.”
A silence settled between us.
Behind the doors, machines began to beep more rapidly.
Dr. Reed turned toward the treatment room.
“What is Room M-17?” I asked.
Luca stared at the message.
“It wasn’t a room.”
“What was it?”
He swallowed.
“An operating protocol.”
His phone vibrated again.
A second message appeared.
This one included a photograph.
It showed a metal tray under bright surgical lights. On the tray lay a small sealed capsule identical to the one in my hand.
May you like
Beside it was a handwritten note.
The first one was removed. The second one is still inside him.
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