Chapter 2 - Room 807
The tires of the armored Mercedes SUV shrieked against the asphalt outside Chicago General Hospital at 6:05 P.M.
Damian Moretti didn’t wait for his head of security, Marco, to open the door. He shoved it open himself, storming past the sliding glass doors into the sterile lobby. His dark hair was disheveled, his charcoal suit jacket unbuttoned, and his dark eyes burned with a terrifying, raw panic that none of his men had ever seen in the ten years he had ruled the Chicago underworld.
Nurses and security guards shrank back as six armed men in dark suits flooded the corridor behind him. Damian didn't care about the optics. He didn't care about the federal agents who might be watching. He only cared about one thing.
"Room 807!" Damian growled, his voice a low, thunderous tremor.
He bypassed the elevators, taking the stairs three at a time. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped beast.
Twelve hours and six minutes.
The words echoed in his mind like a relentless drumbeat. During the flight from Capri, as the private jet screamed through the upper atmosphere at maximum thrust, he had stared at his watch, praying to a God he hadn't spoken to in decades. Just hold on, little man. Just hold on until I land.
When he hit the eighth floor, he burst through the double doors of the maternity ward. Doctors turned in shock, but Damian shoved past them, his heavy leather shoes pounding against the polished linoleum until he reached Room 807.
He threw the door open. "Claire!"
Silence answered him.
The room was freezing. The fluorescent lights were turned off, leaving only the dull gray glow of the Chicago dusk filtering through the window blinds.
The bed was stripped down to the bare mattress. The white sheets were gone. The IV stands stood bare and metallic in the corner. Claire’s suitcase, her clothes, her jacket—everything was gone.
"Where is she?" Damian shouted, turning back toward the corridor. He grabbed a passing resident doctor by the lapels of his white coat, slamming him lightly against the doorframe. "Where is my wife? Where is Claire Moretti?"
"S-Sir! Please!" the doctor stammered, pale with terror. "Mrs. Moretti discharged herself forty-five minutes ago! We told her she wasn't medically cleared to leave after a C-section, but she signed the release against medical advice!"
"Who authorized her to leave alone?!" Damian roared.
"She wasn't alone, boss," Marco whispered, standing in the doorway. Marco’s eyes were fixed on the small wooden chair by the window.
Damian let go of the doctor and slowly turned.
On the chair sat a plain brown paper bag. Across the front, written in dark black marker with Claire’s sharp, elegant handwriting, was a single word:
DAMIAN.
Damian felt the blood drain from his face. His legs, usually solid as iron, felt strangely hollow. Step by heavy step, he walked across the cold room and stood over the chair.
He reached inside the bag with a trembling hand.
First, he pulled out a tiny knitted white hat, smaller than his fist. It still smelled faintly of newborn skin and sterile hospital soap. Next was a clear plastic hospital wristband that read: BABY BOY MORETTI – 2.6 LBS – 3:17 A.M.
Then came a black-and-white printout of a newborn footmark, a formal hospital card recording the exact time of birth and death, and an old, turned-off iPhone—Claire's previous phone.
At the very bottom lay a single sheet of white linen paper folded in half.
Damian’s chest heaved. He picked up the phone and powered it on. There was no passcode lock. The screen illuminated immediately to the photo gallery, showing a single video file saved on the drive.
It was fourteen seconds long.
Damian pressed play.
The camera shook slightly. Inside a clear plastic incubator, a tiny, translucent baby boy was laying on his side, his chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow gasps under a blue light. A tiny hand reached out into the empty air.
Over the faint, frantic chiming of the medical monitors, Claire’s soft, broken voice whispered from behind the camera:
"Daddy's coming home to you, Leo... Daddy’s coming home."
The video ended.
Damian stared at the black screen. A cold drop of sweat rolled down his jaw. He pressed play again.
"Daddy's coming home to you..."
And again.
"Daddy's coming home..."
Each repetition sliced through his chest deeper than any bullet ever had. The image of his tiny son—a child who bore his jawline, his blood, his legacy—fighting for air while Damian had been sitting on a Mediterranean terrace arguing with Alessia about flight schedules burned into his retinas.
With a unsteady hand, Damian opened the folded piece of paper. Claire’s handwriting was steady, ink clear without a single smudge of a tear:
I told our son that for twelve hours.Every time he struggled to breathe, I promised him you were coming.He lived twelve hours and six minutes.You arrived two hours and forty-nine minutes too late.I don't want to spend the rest of my life waiting for you, too.
Damian dropped the paper. He gripped the edge of the windowsill, his knuckles turning white as a violent, guttural roar burst from his throat. He smashed his fist through the glass window, sending shattered fragments raining down into the alley below.
"Marco!" Damian screamed, turning around, his eyes bloodshot and terrifying. "Block every airport! Block the train stations! Call every precinct! I want five hundred men on the streets right now! Find my wife!"
Marco didn't move. He stood at the door, his head bowed, looking unnaturally grim.
"Did you hear me?!" Damian barked, stepping toward his chief enforcer. "FIND HER!"
"Boss..." Marco said softly, pulling a leather-bound black ledger from his jacket. "We can't track her."
May you like
"What the hell are you talking about?!"
"Look at the protocol log, Damian," Marco said, using his leader's first name for the first time in five years. "Seven months ago... you signed an executive order."
