Chapter 4 - The Scent of Betrayal
The basement garage of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital smelled of damp concrete and antiseptic exhaust.
Two of my men in tailored dark suits stood guard beside the service elevator, their trench coats unbuttoned. When I stepped out into the corridor on the fourth floor, the sterile fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like angry hornets.
The room at the end of the hall was marked with an armed Boston police officer sitting on a metal folding chair, nursing a paper cup of lukewarm coffee. When he saw me walking toward him, flanked by Frank and two enforcers, he started to stand, reaching for his utility belt.
Frank stepped forward, flashed a gold badge from the state attorney general’s oversight committee, and slipped three folded envelopes into the officer’s breast pocket.
“Take an early lunch, Officer,” Frank said mildly. “Thirty minutes.”
The cop looked at the envelopes, looked at my face, swallowed hard, and walked toward the stairwell without uttering a single syllable.
I pushed open the door to Room 412.
The only sound inside was the steady, rhythmic beep of the cardiac monitor and the hiss of an oxygen machine.
Lying in the narrow hospital bed was Helena.
Her face was swollen, dark purple bruises blooming across her cheekbones and jawline. An IV line ran into the back of her left hand, and white gauze was taped across her brow. But even beneath the trauma, the high arch of her eyebrows and the delicate curve of her nose were unmistakable.
The woman who had shared my bed for four years. The woman I had believed stole thirty million dollars and vanished into the ether.
I pulled the vinyl chair up to the bedside and sat down. For a long time, I merely watched her breathe. The fury inside me was no longer a hot, raging fire; it had cooled into something far more dangerous—a cold, crystalline block of ice that focused every thought into a single, lethal trajectory.
Helena’s eyelids fluttered. A soft groan escaped her cracked, dry lips.
Her dark brown eyes struggled to focus against the dim hospital lighting. When her gaze finally settled on my face, she didn't scream. She didn't gasp.
A single tear tracked through the dried blood on her temple.
“Nicholas,” she whispered, her voice barely a thread of sound.
“Don't try to move,” I said softly, reaching out to rest my hand lightly over her cold wrist. “You have two cracked ribs.”
“The children...” Panic flared in her eyes, her heart monitor accelerating into a rapid cadence. “Macy... Leo... Nicholas, where are my babies?”
“They’re at my home,” I told her. “They are in the library on Commonwealth. Leo has seen Dr. Chen; his fever is gone. Macy is eating dinner with Mrs. Gable. They are guarded by eight armed men. Nobody can touch them, Helena. I swear it on Julian’s grave.”
The panic drained from her face, replaced by a shuddering sob that wracked her battered frame. She closed her eyes, letting her head sink back into the pillow.
“I didn't steal it,” she wept softly. “Nicholas, you have to believe me... I never took your money.”
“I know,” I said quietly. “Tell me what happened eight years ago.”
Helena swallowed, her breathing shallow and ragged.
“I found out I was pregnant with Macy,” she began, her words trembling. “I was going to tell you the night you returned from Milan. But that afternoon... Hector Alvarez came to the penthouse. He wasn't alone. He had three men with him.”
My fingers tightened against the bed rail. “Go on.”
“He told me that if I didn't leave Boston immediately, they would kill you,” she whispered. “He showed me photographs of Julian’s car accident from two months earlier. He told me Julian didn't hit a patch of black ice on the turnpike... he said they cut his brake lines.”
The room seemed to tilt on its axis.
Julian. My younger brother. The only person in this world who had possessed a kind heart in a family built on violence. I had mourned him for nine years, believing his death was an act of god, a cruel twist of winter fate.
“Alvarez killed my brother?” I asked, my voice deadly level.
“He told me you were next,” Helena choked out. “He said the only way to save your life was to let them stage a robbery. They took the bearer bonds from your safe. They told me that if I ever contacted you, or if I ever returned to Massachusetts, they would send a sniper to your bedroom window.”
“Why didn't you leave the country, Helena?” I asked, looking at her worn, scarred knuckles. “Why were you living in a ten-dollar-a-night boarding room in East Boston?”
“Because I couldn't leave you,” she whispered, turning her bruised face toward mine. “I stayed close enough to know you were alive. Every time your face was in the paper, every time I saw your cars drive down Boylston, I knew my silence was keeping you breathing. I worked cleaning hotels. I took in laundry. I raised our daughter alone.”
“And Leo?” I asked, holding my breath.
Helena looked at me, her eyes filled with an unbearable depth of sorrow. “Leo is your brother’s son, Nicholas.”
My heart felt like it stopped beating entirely.
“Julian?” I breathed.
“Two days before he died,” Helena murmured, “Julian came to me. He had been seeing a woman named Claire—a girl from the South Shore. When Julian died, Claire was three months pregnant, terrified of your father, terrified of the syndicate. She gave birth in Maine and died of an infection three weeks later. I promised Julian on his grave that I would take care of his child. Leo is Julian’s boy.”
The Saint Michael medal.
The rare blood type.
The neat, desperate rows of chocolate bars on a street corner.
My family hadn't been scattered by fate. We had been butchered, exiled, and starved by men who had smiled across my mahogany conference tables for nearly a decade.
The door behind me swung open. Frank stepped in, his phone pressed to his ear. He covered the receiver with his palm.
“Boss,” Frank said, his voice taut. “Alvarez just called your private line. He’s at the warehouse in Chelsea. He says if you aren't there in twenty minutes to sign the port leases, he’s taking the contracts to the Rossi syndicate in New York.”
I stood up slowly.
May you like
I leaned over the bed, brushed a lock of damp hair from Helena’s forehead, and kissed her brow.
“Rest, Helena,” I said softly. “The debts of the Moretti family are about to be collected in full.”
