Chapter 4 - THE LITTLE BOY’S DRAWING
“DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH MY SON!”
Marco ripped the intravenous line from the back of his hand. Blood welled up, dripping onto the white sheets, but he didn't even blink. He threw his legs over the side of the hospital bed, his face flushed with murderous rage.
I grabbed his shoulders with all the force I had in my body.
“Marco, sit down!” I yelled, shoving him firmly against the pillows. “If you blow your sutures or trigger a ventricular storm, you die right here, and your boy has nobody! Do you hear me? Sit down!”
David had already cleared the doorway, his gun drawn, but the hallway outside was empty. Victor had slipped into the service elevator before David could turn the corner.
Sofia dropped onto the foot of the bed, sobbing into her hands. “Leo is only eight, Dad. Uncle Victor has three guards stationed at the front gate. They listen to him, not us!”
Marco’s chest heaved. He glared at me, his eyes bloodshot, but he stayed in the bed. He pressed his thumb against the back of his bleeding hand.
“David,” Marco commanded, his voice shaking with raw panic. “Get two cars. We take the house. We take everybody down.”
“No,” Samuel said.
The old man stepped forward, leaning hard on his cane. He picked up the pocket watch Marco had dropped on the blankets.
“Victor expects an assault, Marco,” Samuel said coldly. “He’s lived forty years preparing for this exact night. If your men roll up to those gates with guns out, Victor will call the police commissioner. He’ll report an armed gang war at your estate, and child services will carry Leo out the back door into state custody before you even cross the lawn.”
Rose wiped her eyes with the corner of her coat. “Samuel is right. Victor owns the precinct captain in Lake Forest. He’s owned him since Dominic was alive.”
I stepped toward the bedside table, grabbing a roll of medical tape and a sterile gauze pad. I pulled Marco’s bleeding hand toward me and wrapped it tightly.
“Your son has a cell phone?” I asked Marco.
“No,” Marco grunted. “I don't let him have screens after eight. He has a landline in his bedroom.”
“Call it,” I said.
David dialed the private extension on speakerphone.
The ring echoed through the sterile hospital room.
One ring.
Two rings.
Three rings.
Click.
“Daddy?”
The small, sleepy voice of an eight-year-old boy came through the speaker.
Marco closed his eyes, and for a fraction of a second, the terrifying mafia boss vanished. In his place was just a terrified father.
“Hey, buddy,” Marco said, swallowing hard to keep his voice steady. “You awake?”
“Uncle Victor’s friends are in the hallway,” Leo whispered into the receiver. His voice was trembling, small and fragile. “They’re carrying big cardboard boxes into Grandpa’s study. They told me you were working late and I had to stay in bed.”
Sofia covered her mouth, stifling a cry.
“Listen to me, Leo,” Marco said, leaning over the phone. “Did you lock your bedroom door like I taught you?”
“Yes. But Daddy… Uncle Victor took my drawing.”
Marco frowned. “What drawing, buddy?”
“The one I made for you,” Leo sniffled. “The picture of you sitting in Grandpa’s big chair with your nurse. Uncle Victor looked at it and got real mad. He asked me where the nurse got the scissors.”
My stomach dropped through the floor.
Victor didn't just know we found the magnet. He knew *I* had found it. He knew the physical evidence was compromised, and he was tearing apart the study right now to eliminate whatever else Dominic had hidden inside that room.
“Leo,” I said, leaning toward the phone. “Hi sweetie, it’s Laura, your dad’s nurse.”
“Miss Laura?” the boy whispered. “Did Daddy take his medicine?”
“He did,” I said, looking directly at Marco, whose eyes were filled with unshed tears. “Your dad is doing great. But I need you to do something very brave for me, okay? Can you do that?”
“Like a superhero?”
“Exactly like a superhero,” I said. “Do you remember the secret cabinet behind the toy chest where your dad keeps your winter coats?”
“Yes.”
“Go in there right now. Take your blanket and your favorite book. Do not open that door for anybody except your dad or me. Not even Uncle Victor. Can you promise me that?”
“I promise,” Leo said softly. “Daddy, please come home.”
“I’m coming, baby,” Marco choked out. “Ten minutes. I promise.”
The line went dead.
Marco looked up at David. “Get me my clothes.”
“Mr. Bellini,” I said, standing square in front of him. “You are not cleared for discharge. You have a deactivated cardiac device and zero telemetry monitoring.”
Marco grabbed my wrist. His grip was firm, but there was no malice in it—only a desperate, pleading prayer.
“Laura,” he said, his voice dropping low. “Eighteen years ago, I wasn't there when my father died in that chair. I was two thousand miles away in New York making money while my father suffocated alone in his study. I will not let my son sit in that dark house waiting for a father who didn't show up.”
He held my gaze.
“Either you come with me and keep my heart beating,” he whispered, “or I go alone and die on that lawn.”
I looked at Rose. I looked at Samuel’s weathered, haunted face.
I let out a long, heavy breath and picked up my medical emergency bag from the floor.
“David,” I said, checking the battery level on the portable automated external defibrillator inside my kit. “You drive fast. If his heart stops, I’m shocking him in the back seat.”
Marco gave me one solemn nod.
Ten minutes later, two black SUVs were tearing down Lake Shore Drive into the freezing rain, heading toward the Bellini estate.
As the car swung around a sharp turn, Samuel reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a rusty iron key, nearly six inches long, with intricate teeth cut into both sides.
Marco stared at it. “What is that?”
“Dominic didn't keep his private papers in the study desk,” Samuel said grimly. “He built a steel firebox into the brickwork behind the fireplace twenty years ago. The keyhole is hidden behind the portrait of your mother.”
Samuel looked out the rain-streaked window.
“Victor thinks he’s tearing down the study to find Dominic’s ledger,” Samuel added. “He doesn't know the ledger isn't paper. It’s a tape.”
At that exact moment, David slammed on the brakes.
The tires shrieked against wet asphalt.
Through the windshield, the iron gates of the Bellini mansion were wide open. Thick black smoke was billowing out of the second-story windows of the east wing—right where Dominic’s study was located.
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And standing on the front lawn, illuminated by the orange glow of the flames, was Victor Bellini, watching the fire with his hands tucked casually inside his pockets.
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