Chapter 4
I stared at the photo until the hallway blurred.
My apartment door.
The peeling paint.
The crooked number 4B.
The cheap wreath I had bought from a dollar store because I wanted one thing in my life to look normal.
Someone had been there.
Someone knew where I lived.
My legs weakened.
Damien took the phone from my hand before I dropped it.
He read the message once.
His face turned flat.
“Who has access to your address?”
I laughed, but there was no humor in it.
“Debt collectors. My landlord. Half the medical billing department in Chicago.”
Marco’s eyes flicked away.
I saw it.
Damien saw it too.
“Search him,” Damien ordered.
Marco exploded.
“You do not search me.”
Two guards moved.
Marco backed up.
“I am your legal adviser.”
“You are standing in a hospital after my sons were poisoned,” Damien said. “You are whatever I decide you are until police arrive.”
Police.
The word made Marco still.
Not fear.
Calculation.
He looked at Rosa.
“Tell him this is madness.”
Rosa’s face was wet with tears.
“My grandsons almost died.”
Marco softened his voice.
“I loved Isabella too.”
Damien punched him.
One clean hit.
Marco hit the wall and slid sideways, blood at his mouth.
Sofia gasped.
I flinched.
Damien looked at me immediately.
Something like regret crossed his face.
Then he turned to his guards.
“No more. Hold him.”
The guards searched Marco.
They found two phones.
A key card.
A small vial hidden inside a pen case.
The doctor took it with gloves.
Marco stopped talking.
That silence told me more than any confession.
Police arrived twenty minutes later.
Not the kind who feared the Morettis.
Federal agents.
Damien had enemies everywhere, but he also had people who owed him favors. That night, he called the one group Marco could not intimidate.
Agent Clara Weiss asked me questions in a small room near the nurses’ station.
I told her everything.
The hospital.
The trials.
The planted pills.
The fire.
The files.
Isabella’s name.
Marco’s threat.
When I finished, my throat felt scraped raw.
Agent Weiss closed her notebook.
“Why didn’t you come forward again after the fire?”
“My mother was dying,” I said. “I was broke. Marco made sure every lawyer I called thought I was unstable.”
“And tonight?”
I looked through the glass at Damien standing outside the twins’ room.
“One baby turned blue. Then the other. I couldn’t stay quiet.”
Agent Weiss nodded.
“Good.”
I almost cried at that single word.
Good.
Not dramatic.
Not enough to fix anything.
But after years of being called liar, thief, desperate, unstable, good felt like water after a drought.
Near dawn, Damien found me by the coffee machine.
“You need protection.”
“I need rent.”
He stared at me.
The words had come out before I could stop them.
Shame climbed up my neck.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“I didn’t say it so you would pay me.”
“I know.”
He handed me a coffee I had not asked for.
“You have an eviction notice in your purse?”
My eyes snapped to him.
“How do you know that?”
“You said medical debt earlier. People with medical debt carry bad news folded until it cuts them.”
That was too close to truth.
I looked away.
“My mother had ALS. Insurance fought everything. I fought longer. She died anyway.”
His voice softened.
“I’m sorry.”
I hated that kindness made me weaker than fear.
“So am I.”
Behind him, Rosa approached with Sofia.
Rosa held a blanket.
One of the twins’ blankets.
Clean now.
Folded carefully.
“I know you have no reason to trust this family,” she said.
I almost laughed.
“No offense, Mrs. Moretti, but your family is terrifying.”
Sofia gave a wet, surprised laugh.
Rosa did not.
“My son’s world is dangerous. But someone inside it tried to hurt his babies. You saw what we did not.”
Damien looked at me.
“I want to hire you.”
I stepped back.
“No.”
“Not as a waitress.”
“No.”
“As the twins’ neurological therapist. Temporary. Until this is over.”
“Nothing around you is temporary.”
His mouth tightened because he knew I was right.
Agent Weiss walked up before he could answer.
“We found the nanny.”
Damien turned.
“Where?”
“In her apartment. Dead.”
Rosa cried out.
Agent Weiss’s eyes stayed on Damien.
“And there was a note on her table.”
She handed him a photo.
May you like
I saw only four words.
Ellie Hart did this.
