Chapter 2 - Three Bullets And A Woman Who Should Have Been Dead
The ambulance arrived in six minutes.
Ronaldo counted every second.
He counted the elevator.
The doors.
The blood on his hands.
The way Elsa's fingers went slack.
He counted because counting was something he could control.
Nothing else was.
"Move."
The paramedics tried to get between him and the stretcher.
He wouldn't move.
"Sir, we need room."
"Her name is Elsa Bennett."
"We know."
"She has a blood disorder."
The paramedic looked at him.
Ronaldo continued.
"She's AB positive. She bruises easily. She had surgery when she was nineteen."
The paramedic paused.
"How do you know her medical history?"
"Because I read every document that entered my office."
That wasn't entirely true.
He knew because he had once spent six hours waiting for her in a hospital corridor when her appendix ruptured and she had insisted she didn't need him there.
He had stayed anyway.
She had discovered him at three in the morning sleeping in a chair.
She had laughed.
He had pretended to be angry.
That memory struck him now with the force of a door opening inside his chest.
The ambulance doors shut.
Ronaldo climbed in.
Sal grabbed his arm.
"Sir, you can't."
Ronaldo stared at him.
"Try stopping me."
Sal let go.
The hospital was one of the few places in the city where Ronaldo Falcone did not have immediate authority.
He hated that.
Doctors pushed him aside.
Nurses shouted.
Security tried to keep his men outside.
He stood in the corridor covered in her blood.
Thirty minutes.
Then an hour.
Then two.
At 2:41 a.m., a surgeon came out.
"Are you family?"
Ronaldo stood.
"Yes."
The surgeon looked at him.
"What are you to her?"
Ronaldo opened his mouth.
Nothing came.
What was she?
Secretary.
Employee.
Friend.
The woman whose absence had changed the way the office sounded.
The woman who had taken three bullets for him.
The woman he had never once told what she meant to him.
"Someone she trusts," he finally said.
The surgeon studied him.
"She lost a lot of blood. The shoulder wound was clean. The second bullet fractured a rib. The third caused internal bleeding."
"Will she live?"
"We don't know yet."
Ronaldo closed his eyes.
"Can I see her?"
"When she's stable."
He nodded.
"Thank you."
The surgeon left.
Sal approached.
"Sir."
Ronaldo turned.
"Who shot at me?"
"We found two shell casings. Rifle. Professional."
"How did she get into the garage?"
"We don't know."
"How did she know where I'd be?"
"We don't know."
"Why was she there?"
Silence.
Ronaldo looked at him.
"Find out."
Sal nodded.
He walked away.
Ronaldo sat alone.
For the first time in nine years, he began to shake.
Not visibly.
Just enough that his hands could not stay still.
He remembered her first day.
She had been twenty-five then.
A cheap black blazer.
A notebook.
No makeup except lip balm.
She had stood in front of his desk and said:
"I'm Elsa Bennett."
"I know."
"I was told to report to you."
"Who told you?"
"Human resources."
"Then you're already in trouble."
She had stared at him.
He had waited.
She had finally said:
"Okay."
He had almost smiled.
That was the first time.
Months later, she had discovered he never ate lunch.
She started ordering an extra sandwich.
He'd asked why.
"You need food."
"I'm busy."
"You need food more than you're busy."
No one spoke to him that way.
He had eaten the sandwich.
She had never mentioned it.
That was the first step.
Then there were the roses.
Every Friday, he ordered them for his late wife's grave.
Elsa had always arranged them.
Then one Friday he found her in the supply room holding a single white rose.
"That's not for Mrs. Falcone."
She looked guilty.
"No."
"Why do you have it?"
"I bought it."
"Why?"
She shrugged.
"I liked it."
He looked at the rose.
Then at her.
"Take it home."
"Why?"
"Because if I have to look at another rose in this building, I'll throw it out."
She smiled.
"Okay."
He'd watched her leave.
That had been the beginning of something neither of them understood.
At 4:17 a.m., the surgeon came back.
"She's alive."
Ronaldo stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
"But she's unconscious."
"How long?"
"Impossible to say."
"Can I see her?"
"Five minutes."
He entered the room alone.
Elsa looked nothing like the woman who had walked into his office.
Pale.
Still.
Machines surrounded her.
Ronaldo stood beside the bed.
He did not touch her at first.
Then he took her hand.
Cold.
He hated how cold it was.
"You idiot."
His voice was barely audible.
"Why did you come back?"
The monitor continued its steady rhythm.
"You said you wanted to be nobody."
He looked at her face.
"You should have stayed nobody."
Nothing.
His thumb brushed over her knuckles.
"Because I don't know what to do with this."
His voice broke.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do if you die."
He leaned closer.
"And I hate that I never told you."
The words stuck.
He tried again.
"I loved you."
The monitor continued.
He closed his eyes.
"I loved you before you left."
A tear fell onto their joined hands.
He didn't notice.
Outside the room, Sal stood with the surgeon.
He watched Ronaldo through the glass.
The man had never looked more vulnerable.
"He's never done that," Sal said.
The surgeon glanced at him.
"Done what?"
"Admitted he cared."
Inside, Elsa's fingers moved.
Barely.
Ronaldo didn't notice.
Then her lips parted.
A whisper.
"Don't..."
He leaned closer.
"What?"
Her eyes remained closed.
"Trust..."
She stopped.
Her heart monitor accelerated.
Nurses rushed into the room.
Ronaldo stepped back.
"Elsa?"
They pushed him out.
He stood behind the glass.
The next words she murmured were too quiet to hear.
But one syllable reached him.
"Sal..."
Ronaldo turned.
Sal stared back.
Neither man spoke.
At 8:00 a.m., Elsa's condition stabilized.
At 9:30, police arrived.
At 10:00, a detective asked Ronaldo if he knew why Elsa Bennett had returned to Chicago after vanishing.
"No."
"Did she leave because of you?"
"No."
"Was she afraid of someone?"
Ronaldo looked through the glass.
"Yes."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
The detective studied him.
"You seem certain."
"I know fear."
"And you didn't ask her?"
Ronaldo's jaw tightened.
"She had a right to disappear."
The detective looked down at his notebook.
"Then why did she come back?"
Ronaldo had no answer.
At 11:17 a.m., a nurse found something in Elsa's coat pocket.
A hotel key card.
Room 414.
A receipt.
A photograph.
And a folded piece of paper.
The detective opened it.
Only one line was written.
If I fail, ask Ronaldo why the north warehouse burned.
Ronaldo read the message.
His face became empty.
He remembered the north warehouse.
It had burned nine months earlier.
Five men had died.
He had been told it was electrical.
But Elsa had never asked about it.
Never once.
Which meant she had been investigating it without his knowledge.
Sal looked at Ronaldo.
"Sir."
Ronaldo folded the note.
"Find Room 414."
"Where?"
"The address is on the receipt."
Sal looked at him.
"We found something else."
"What?"
"The hotel camera footage."
Ronaldo waited.
"She wasn't alone."
"Who was with her?"
Sal lowered his voice.
"The man who was supposed to be dead."
Ronaldo stared.
"Who?"
"Your younger brother."
Everything inside the room seemed to stop.
May you like
Because Matteo Falcone had died nine years earlier.
Or at least, that was what Ronaldo had believed.
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