Forty-Two Women Wanted the Dying Mafia Boss's Fortune

Vincent Rhodes did not make it out of Manhattan.

At 5:40 that evening, Elias found his car abandoned inside a parking garage three blocks from the East River.

There was blood on the driver's seat.

Not much.

Enough.

Daniel stood in his library while Elias delivered the news, his face so still that I knew he was angry enough to break something.

"Whose blood?"

"Lab is checking."

"His phone?"

"Gone. Wallet still in the car."

"Cameras?"

"Garage system went offline twelve minutes before he entered."

I looked at Elias.

"Another convenient failure?"

"Very."

Daniel turned toward the window.

New York glittered beyond the glass, beautiful and indifferent.

"He ran," Daniel said.

"Maybe," I replied.

He looked at me.

"His office erased the footage. He argued about the medical review. He left the moment we recovered the pathology report."

"And then he abandoned his wallet in a car with blood on the seat?"

Daniel's jaw tightened.

"You think he was taken."

"I think people who run usually take their phones."

Elias nodded once.

"She's right."

Daniel did not like hearing that.

I was learning that Daniel disliked uncertainty more than bad news.

Bad news could be fought.

Uncertainty had no throat to grab.

Dr. Hart returned before dinner with the first laboratory results.

She requested privacy.

Daniel refused.

"Maya stays. Elias stays. Grant stays."

Dr. Hart glanced at me, then at the men.

"Your results show severe abnormalities that can explain part of what you're feeling. Dehydration. Electrolyte imbalance. Signs that your liver and kidneys are under stress. Your blood counts are concerning, but not in the pattern I expected based on the records I was given."

Daniel folded his arms.

"English."

"You are genuinely ill," she said. "But the current data do not neatly match the story in your chart."

The words landed heavily.

"Could the medications be doing this?" I asked.

"Some could contribute. That does not mean they caused everything. I am admitting him tonight for monitored evaluation. We adjust nothing casually. We repeat imaging, verify pathology, and reconcile every medication with the specialists."

Daniel's expression darkened.

"I'm not going to a hospital."

"Then hire a different doctor."

"I hired you because you came here."

"And I came here to tell you when your house is no longer the appropriate place to manage a medical crisis."

I looked at Daniel.

He looked at me.

"Don't," he warned.

"I'm not saying anything."

"Your face is."

"My face thinks she's right."

"Your face is fired."

"I'm not employed by you."

Grant covered his mouth.

Elias stared very hard at a bookshelf.

Dr. Hart waited.

Daniel finally exhaled.

"Private floor. No press. My security controls access."

"Reasonable," she said.

"And Maya comes."

My head snapped toward him.

"I do?"

"You started this."

"That is not how hospitals work."

"It is how mine will."

Dr. Hart sighed.

"She can visit. She cannot interfere."

Daniel looked satisfied.

I looked at the woman who had apparently just negotiated visitation rules with a mafia boss and survived.

"I really do like you," I told her.

"That makes one of you."

Daniel muttered something under his breath.

Two hours later, we entered a private medical center under a name Daniel did not use publicly.

His security team cleared the floor.

Dr. Hart ordered tests.

Nurses moved efficiently around him.

For the first time since I had met him, Daniel looked powerless.

He hated every second.

I sat by the window with my notebook.

At midnight, he said, "You can go home."

"I live in Queens."

"I own cars."

"Congratulations."

"Maya."

I looked over.

He was watching the IV line attached to his arm.

"I don't need a witness for this."

I understood what he meant.

Weakness.

Fear.

The things men like Daniel hid because the world used vulnerability as currency.

I closed the notebook.

"When my mother was in the hospital, she apologized every time I helped her sit up. Every single time. She thought needing help made her a burden."

Daniel's gaze remained on the IV.

"Did you tell her it didn't?"

"Every single time."

"Did she believe you?"

"Not always."

He was quiet.

Then he said, "I don't apologize."

"I've noticed."

His eyes moved to mine.

"But you can stay."

So I stayed.

At 2:07 a.m., Elias entered without knocking.

"We found Vincent."

Daniel sat upright.

"Alive?"

"Yes."

The answer came too slowly.

"Where?"

"Abandoned warehouse in Red Hook. Bound, beaten, unconscious. One of our crews found him after a traffic camera picked up a vehicle connected to the garage."

Daniel's face went white with fury.

"Who did it?"

"He hasn't woken up."

"Bring him here."

"He's already downstairs."

I stared at Elias.

"Was the blood in the car his?"

"Preliminary match says yes."

Daniel swung his legs off the bed.

Dr. Hart entered from the hall as if summoned by irritation.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"To see my cousin."

"No."

"Move."

"No."

Daniel looked at me.

I raised both hands.

"I'm with the doctor."

"Traitor."

"Alive traitor."

Elias's mouth twitched.

Dr. Hart agreed to let Daniel see Vincent once both men were stable.

Vincent woke the next afternoon.

His left eye was swollen shut. Two ribs were fractured. His wrist was broken.

But he was alive.

Daniel entered Vincent's room with me and Elias.

Vincent turned his head.

"You look terrible," he whispered.

Daniel's voice was flat.

"You look worse."

"Good. I hate losing."

For one second, something almost human passed between them.

Then Daniel's expression hardened.

"Why did your office erase the footage?"

Vincent closed his eyes.

"Because I erased it."

Elias shifted.

I held my breath.

Daniel's face became stone.

"Why?"

Vincent swallowed painfully.

"I was trying to get into the records room without Vale knowing."

Daniel stared at him.

"Vale?"

"I've suspected him for a month."

"You told me Maya was being dramatic."

"Because Vale had people in the house. I didn't know who was reporting to him. I didn't know if she was one of them."

I stepped closer.

"Then why run?"

Vincent gave a dry laugh and winced.

"I didn't. I went to meet someone."

"Who?" Daniel demanded.

"A nurse from St. Catherine's. She contacted me two days ago after she heard you were arranging a new review. She said she'd seen something in your record that didn't make sense."

"Name."

"Rebecca Sloan."

Elias typed it into his phone.

Vincent continued.

"She wanted cash and protection. I agreed. When I left the house, I realized a car was following me. I ditched my phone because I thought it had been tracked and switched cars at the garage. They were already waiting."

Daniel's voice lowered.

"What did Rebecca know?"

Vincent's good eye opened.

"She said your pathology file had been accessed after the final report was signed. She said someone uploaded a replacement summary under a physician credential that had no reason to touch the case."

My skin prickled.

"Whose credential?"

Vincent looked directly at Daniel.

"Dr. Howard Vale."

Silence.

Daniel looked away.

Vale had treated him for nearly fifteen years.

He had been at Daniel's father's funeral.

He had sat beside Daniel after a shooting eight years earlier.

He had been trusted enough to enter the mansion without being searched.

Betrayal, I was learning, rarely arrived wearing an enemy's face.

Vincent shifted weakly.

"There's more."

Daniel turned back.

"Say it."

"Vale didn't start with you."

Something in his tone made the room colder.

"What does that mean?"

Vincent hesitated.

"I went through Uncle Thomas's old records."

Daniel stopped breathing for a second.

Thomas Rhodes had been his father.

He had died eleven years earlier after what the family believed was a sudden, aggressive illness.

Vincent swallowed.

"The last six weeks of his medical care were coordinated by Vale."

Daniel's face emptied.

"No."

"Daniel--"

"No."

"I found the same kind of gaps. Missing originals. Conflicting medication sheets. Notes that reference tests that aren't in the archive."

Daniel turned away.

His shoulders were rigid.

For a moment, he seemed to forget the hospital room around us. He looked toward the dark window as though eleven years had folded in on themselves and he was back at his father's bedside.

"He asked me to stay that night," Daniel said quietly.

Vincent frowned.

"What night?"

"The night before he died. I had a meeting downtown. I told him I would come back in the morning."

His voice roughened.

"He said morning was not guaranteed. I thought he was being dramatic."

No one interrupted.

"I left anyway. At six-thirty the next morning, Vale called me. My father was gone. For eleven years I thought the worst thing I did was leave that room."

He looked back at Vincent.

"Now you're telling me the doctor who made that call may have helped make sure there was no morning."

Vincent's face crumpled.

"I'm sorry."

Daniel laughed once, hollow and exhausted.

"Everyone is sorry after the dead stop needing anything."

I moved toward him but stopped before touching him.

Some grief needs permission.

He gave none.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked.

Vincent's voice broke.

"Because you were already planning your funeral. Because every time I tried to question Vale, you defended him. Because I was afraid if I accused the man who held your life in his hands, he'd finish whatever he started before I could prove it."

Daniel turned slowly.

"And now?"

Vincent looked at me.

"Now she made you ask the question I couldn't."

Nobody spoke.

Then Elias's phone buzzed.

He read the message.

"Rebecca Sloan is missing. She didn't report for work today. Her apartment door is open."

Daniel closed his eyes once.

When he opened them, the fear was gone.

Only purpose remained.

"Find her."