Chapter 2 - The Photograph That Rewrote The Past

The silence in the attic was suffocating.

Victor Bellini.

Anna’s own father had accepted half a million dollars to murder his own daughter.

“He took the money,” Luca whispered, staring blindly at the fallen ledger. “My father paid Victor to kill Anna because she was pushing me to leave the syndicate.”

I felt physically sick. “But Victor didn’t kill her. He faked her cancer.”

“Because Victor was greedy,” Luca said, his voice rising in a terrifying crescendo of realization. “Why settle for five hundred thousand dollars when you can steal the entire empire? Victor took my father’s money, and then he planted the bomb in my father’s car to eliminate the man who hired him.”

Luca began pacing the dusty floorboards, piecing the horror together.

“With my father dead, Victor had free rein. He locked Anna in the clinic. He faked the cancer. He waited for her to give birth to Leo so he could have a blood heir to control my businesses.”

“And Anna figured it out,” I said, the tragedy of it crushing my chest. “She found this ledger. She realized her own father murdered her father-in-law and was planning to steal her baby. That’s why she gave Leo to Dr. Harris. She was trying to save him from a bloodline of monsters.”

Luca stopped pacing. He looked at me, his eyes shining with a grief so profound it seemed to age him ten years.

“She thought she was saving him from me, too,” Luca said brokenly. “She thought I would become exactly like my father.”

I stepped forward and grabbed his arms.

“No, Luca. She hid the key with Maria. She told Maria to give it to the woman who brought him back. She knew, deep down, that Leo belonged here. She just needed him to be safe until Victor was exposed.”

Luca looked down at me. The warmth of my hands on his arms seemed to anchor him.

Suddenly, Marco’s voice crackled frantically over the radio clipped to Luca’s belt.

“Boss! We have a massive problem. The police transport carrying Victor Bellini was hit on the interstate. Two officers are dead. Victor is gone.”

Luca’s head snapped up.

“Lock down the gates!” Luca barked into the radio. “Nobody gets in or out!”

“Sir, it gets worse,” Marco said, breathing heavily. “They hit the precinct too. Vanessa is missing.”

My blood ran cold.

Victor and Vanessa were loose, and they knew exactly where Leo was.

“Get every man on the perimeter,” Luca ordered. “Arm everyone.”

He grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the attic stairs. “We need to get to Leo.”

We ran down two flights of stairs, the mansion suddenly feeling like a fortress under siege. Sirens wailed faintly in the distance, echoing across the city.

We burst into the guest room on the second floor.

The bed was empty.

The covers were thrown aside.

“Leo!” Luca shouted, tearing open the closet doors. Empty.

I ran to the adjoining bathroom. Empty.

“He was just here!” I panicked, my medical training completely failing me in the face of this nightmare. “I tucked him in!”

Luca ran to the window. It was closed and locked from the inside.

“He didn’t get taken,” Luca said, his eyes scanning the room. “He ran. He heard the alarms.”

“Where would an eleven-year-old hide in a mansion he doesn’t know?” I asked desperately.

Luca paused. “A place that feels safe. A place that feels like a church.”

We ran back into the hallway.

“The library,” Luca said. “It has stained glass doors and high ceilings.”

We sprinted downstairs. The mansion was in chaos, guards running past us with assault rifles, shouting orders.

We reached the heavy oak doors of the library.

Luca pushed them open.

Sitting in the center of the room, curled up in a leather armchair, was Leo.

But he wasn’t alone.

Standing behind the armchair, with a jagged piece of broken glass pressed tightly against the boy’s throat, was Dr. Harris.

I gasped, freezing in my tracks.

“You’re supposed to be dead!” I screamed.

Harris smiled, though his face was gray and sweating. The gunshot wound on his chest was heavily bandaged, blood seeping through his white shirt.

“A superficial wound, Nurse Reed,” Harris wheezed. “Vanessa is a terrible shot. She missed all my vital organs. I played dead so the police would take me to the morgue transport instead of the hospital. It’s amazing what a little adrenaline and a lot of greed can do.”

Luca drew his gun in a flash, pointing it right at Harris’s head.

“Let him go, Harris,” Luca commanded, his voice vibrating with lethal intent.

“Put the gun down, Luca, or I slice his carotid artery,” Harris panted. “Victor is waiting for me at the extraction point. I just need my insurance policy.”

“You’re bleeding out, Harris,” I said, stepping slightly in front of Luca. “You’re tachycardic. You’re sweating. You won’t make it a mile.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Harris sneered.

Leo was crying silently, his small hands gripping the armrests of the chair.

“Dad,” Leo whimpered.

The word shattered something inside Luca.

He lowered his gun slowly.

“Don’t hurt him,” Luca said. “Take me. I’m worth more to Victor than the boy.”

“Victor doesn’t want you, Luca. He wants the heir.”

Harris pulled Leo up, keeping the glass pressed to the boy’s neck. He began dragging him toward the patio doors at the back of the library.

I couldn’t let him take that boy.

I looked around frantically. My eyes landed on the desk.

Sitting exactly where Luca had left it hours ago, was Vanessa’s black case. The insulin pens.

I grabbed the case, snapping it open.

“Harris!” I yelled.

He stopped, turning slightly.

I pulled out an insulin pen, ripped off the cap, and held it up.

“You’re a doctor,” I said, my voice cold and steady. “You know exactly what a massive overdose of rapid-acting insulin will do to a man who is already in hemorrhagic shock.”

Harris laughed weakly. “You’re a nurse. You took an oath to do no harm.”

I stared him dead in the eyes.

“I’m also a daughter who watched you threaten my mother.”

I lunged forward.