Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the Ledger
Dr. Marcus Rossi arrived twelve minutes later, huffling through the rain with his black leather medical bag and a scowl that could curdle milk. Behind him came two burly enforcers carrying heavy industrial space heaters that immediately began to hum, pumping dry, warm air into the damp cottage.
Rossi didn't ask questions. He checked my temperature, listened to my rattling lungs with a stethoscope that felt like a piece of winter ice against my skin, and administered a heavy dose of broad-spectrum antibiotics and an inhaler treatment that opened my airways with a sharp, medicinal rush.
“Pneumonia starting in the lower left lobe,” Rossi grunted, packing his instruments away. “Give her three days of absolute rest, proper nutrition, and a room that doesn't double as a meat locker, and she’ll live. Otherwise, you’ll be planning a very small funeral.”
Alessandro stood by the small window, watching the rain streak the glass. He hadn't moved since the doctor started his examination.
“Move them,” Alessandro ordered.
“Boss?” Rossi paused at the door.
“Move them to the master guest suite on the third floor of the main house. The one overlooking the east gardens.”
Rossi raised a gray eyebrow. “The east suite? Alessandro, that’s where you put visiting dignitaries and syndicate capos from Milan.”
“And now it’s where a housekeeper with pneumonia and her daughter are sleeping,” Alessandro said, turning his head just enough to skewer the doctor with a glance. “Do I need to repeat myself?”
“No,” Rossi muttered, pulling his coat tighter around his neck. “I’ll have the staff prep the room.”
When the door closed, leaving only the hum of the heaters and the quiet breathing of a sleeping Emma, Alessandro walked back to the edge of the cot.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
“I can manage,” I said, though my legs felt like water beneath the quilt.
“Don't bother.”
Before I could protest, Alessandro slid one arm beneath my shoulders and the other under my knees, lifting me effortlessly from the narrow mattress. I gasped, instinctively wrapping my arms around his neck to keep from falling. He was warm—solid and warm in a way that made me acutely aware of how fragile and cold I had felt for months.
He carried me out of the cottage, through the rain-slicked stone courtyard, and into the grand foyer of the main house.
The marble floors gleamed beneath the crystal chandeliers, reflecting our passage like a dark mirror. A few late-night guards stationed near the grand staircase averted their eyes instantly, their training forbidding them from witnessing a Don carrying a sick cleaning woman through his own front hall.
We took the private elevator up to the third floor, down a carpeted corridor lined with oil paintings of stern Italian ancestors, and into a suite so vast and luxurious it made my head spin. High ceilings, a king-sized bed draped in crisp white linen, a private marble bathroom with a clawfoot tub, and a wall of windows looking out over the misty expanse of the Long Island Sound.
Alessandro laid me down gently against the pillows. He pulled the down comforter up to my chin.
Emma was still sleeping soundly in the crook of my arm, having transferred from the cottage without waking once.
“Stay here,” Alessandro said, his hand lingering for a heartbeat on the edge of the duvet before he pulled away. “Vince is bringing food up. Eat it. All of it.”
“Mr. Moretti,” I said, my voice raspy as he turned toward the door.
He paused, looking back over his shoulder.
“Why?” I asked. “Why are you doing this? I’m just a night cleaner. People in your position don't carry sick maids to the master suite because their daughters washed a shirt.”
Alessandro looked at me for a long, unreadable moment. The amber light from the bedside lamp caught the sharp angles of his face, the dark stubble along his jaw, and the shadow in his eyes that looked remarkably like loneliness.
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“Because,” Alessandro said softly, “in my world, people only touch me when they want something or when they want me dead. Your daughter touched my coat because she thought I was sad.”
The door clicked shut behind him.
