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He looks exactly like he did in Naples, even though I only caught a glimpse of him then. He wears his immaculate white coat, probably pressed and folded for this occasion, wire-rimmed glasses, and the same calm certainty of a man who believes he’s in control of every room he enters.
His expression appears almost pleasant, almost welcoming, as if I’m a patient who’s come for a consultation rather than a prisoner he’s planning to butcher.
“So you’re the doctor who’s in bed with a killer.”
He approaches me, his footsteps echoing on the tile, and places his fingers on my wrist with clinical efficiency. Then he picks up a chart from the tray beside me and flips it open with the brisk efficiency of a physician reviewing notes.
“Apologies. I’m usually more cautious with my pregnant patients.”
The news lands before my brain can process it. He tilts the chart toward me, and I read it out of instinct.
It’s my blood panel from the clinic, the one Mason arranged. Elevated hCG at 47,000 mIU/mL, consistent with eight to ten weeks. Progesterone levels tracking high. The urinalysis that should have shown a clear positive has been annotated in a different hand. The word “negative” was written over the original result in ink that doesn’t match the rest of the report.
The test wasn’t wrong. Someone changed it, and I should have caught the fake diagnosis weeks ago when my symptoms didn’t go away.
My hands go cold.
“Yes, Dear Doctor.” He glances at me from over the top of the page. “A very clever trick by Mason, you know. He chose a doctor who owed him favors and who’d lie without asking questions. As a doctor yourself, I didn’t think you’d be so easily fooled. Deep down, you were relieved you didn’t have to bear the child of your butcher.”
“You’re wrong!” I struggle against my restraints and try to sit up. My heart strains like it’s about to burst into smithereens. “None of that is true!”
“About your feelings for your husband? You be the judge of that. Or is this about your pregnancy? Why would I lie about that?” He opens his arms in a wide shrug.
He’s right. He has no reason to deceive me here, not when he doesn’t believe I’ll survive this encounter. I glimpse that plain certainty in his eyes.
He sets the chart down and picks up the syringe. As he prepares it, my mind does cartwheels.
I’m carrying Marco’s baby. He doesn’t know, and if I die in this room, he never will. The baby I didn’t know was in my womb will cease to exist in a fluorescent-lit nightmare while its father is somewhere out there looking for me.
The advice Izzy gave me during a combat training session three weeks ago flashes through my head. When they think you’re helpless, that’s when you strike.
I begin twisting my right wrist against the strap’s edge with micro-movements, careful to ensure nothing’s visible from Bruno’s position.
“You know nothing.” My voice comes out hoarse, scraped raw by whatever they used to knock me out. “This isn’t going to go the way you want it to,” I say loudly enough to cover the creak of old leather straps as I work my wrist against the buckle. “And you’re not going to get inside my head.”
“Really? That’s disappointing.” He holds the syringe up to the light and taps the barrel to dislodge bubbles.
“Mason has worked with me for some time. I needed a connection in the NYPD’s ranks, and anyone can be bought for the right price. The detective seems to have a sweet spot for you, though. He begged me not to touch you after your brother dug into our business and got himself killed. I think Detective Dellinger is still in love with you.”
Bruno chuckles, darkness in every note.
“And then you got yourself entangled with Santori, my former protégé. Apparently, you and I were always meant to cross paths.”
He circles me like a vulture about to feast on a carcass. “Dellinger was devastated when he found out about your marriage. He begged me to eliminate Santori so he could swoop in like a prince charming.”
Bruno tsks in a mocking way.
“But then you got pregnant. Mason knew the baby would tie you to Santori permanently and make leaving him impossible. So, he made sure to give you all the assurance you needed that a baby wasn’t going to tie you down.”
“I was never going to leave Marco either way!”
“And that’s why we switched to plan B.” Bruno sets the syringe down and meets my eyes with an emotionless, inhuman gaze. “You’re very valuable, Dr. Romano. Not just as leverage against Santori, though that’s certainly useful. But your brother, Matteo, was brilliant. He found things no one else could find and saw patterns the rest of us missed entirely. We believe he left you some clues about the full scope of what he documented before we killed him.”
My heart stops. The world narrows to his face, his words, and the nonchalant manner in which he’s just confirmed what I’ve feared for years.
“Who’s we? Was Mason a part of…” The words die on my lips.
“You’re as inquisitive as your brother, no?”
