Chapter 3 - The Name Lorenzo Romano
Tommy wasn't kidnapped.
At least, that was what Vincent told me eleven minutes later.
Those eleven minutes aged me ten years.
I sat outside Lorenzo's medical suite with my phone crushed between both hands, calling Tommy again and again.
No answer.
Then Vincent came down the corridor.
"He's safe."
I stood so fast the chair struck the wall.
"Where?"
"St. Matthew's Hospital."
"What happened?"
"Respiratory distress."
My knees weakened.
Vincent caught my elbow.
"Don't."
I pulled away.
"Don't touch me."
"He called an ambulance himself. That's why the apartment was open."
I stared at him.
"And the man?"
"Gone."
"Who was he?"
"We don't know."
"I need to go to Tommy."
"The roads—"
"I don't care about the roads."
"Mia."
"I said I need to go."
Another voice came from behind him.
"Then we'll take you."
Lorenzo.
He stood in the doorway.
Barefoot.
Hospital pants.
Electrodes still attached to his chest beneath an open robe.
Two doctors hovered behind him looking ready to commit murder.
I stared.
"You were in a coma an hour ago."
"Apparently I'm having a productive evening."
His knees nearly buckled.
Vincent caught him.
"Back to bed."
Lorenzo glared.
"I can walk."
"You can barely stand."
"I said—"
"You're going back to bed."
For the first time, I saw someone ignore Lorenzo Romano.
Vincent practically dragged him backward.
I should have been afraid.
Instead, absurdly, I almost laughed.
Lorenzo saw it.
"You think this is funny?"
"A little."
He stared at me.
Then something unexpected happened.
He laughed too.
Only once.
It turned into a painful cough.
The doctors immediately surrounded him.
That moment should have made him seem human.
Instead, it made what happened next even stranger.
One of the guards ran into the corridor.
"Mr. Moretti."
Vincent turned.
The guard handed him a tablet.
Security footage.
Even from several feet away, I recognized my apartment building.
A black sedan was parked outside.
A man stepped from it.
Tall.
Dark coat.
His face hidden by the angle.
Vincent froze the image.
Lorenzo had returned to the doorway.
He looked at the screen.
And all humor vanished.
"I know him."
Vincent's face hardened.
"Who?"
Lorenzo stared at the image.
"My brother."
That was how I learned the first important truth about the Romano family.
Lorenzo wasn't the only dangerous man in it.
And if his brother had been standing outside my apartment less than an hour after Lorenzo woke from a six-month coma, then my accidental kiss hadn't simply awakened a man.
May you like
It had awakened a war.
