Chapter 2 - A Debt Rafe Never Knew He Owed
Mave woke to the steady electronic pulse of a heart monitor and the uncomfortable sensation that half her body had been replaced with concrete.
She tried to move her right shoulder.
Pain exploded beneath her collarbone.
“Don't.”
The voice came from the chair beside the window.
Rafe Colazo sat there with his jacket folded across his knees.
Mave stared at him for several seconds before memory returned.
The restaurant.
The baton.
The girl.
“Oh God.”
“Lucia is fine.”
Mave's eyes closed.
It was the first thing she had needed to hear.
When she opened them again, Rafe was studying her with an expression she couldn't identify.
“Your shoulder blade fractured,” he said. “Two ribs are cracked. You have a concussion.”
“I've had worse Mondays.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Mave noticed what he held.
Finn's photograph.
Her face changed instantly.
“Give me that.”
Rafe handed it over without argument.
She pressed it against her chest with her good hand.
“Why do you carry his picture at work?”
“Why wouldn't I?”
“Most people use phones.”
“My phone has been shut off twice this month.”
The answer landed differently than she intended.
Rafe glanced toward the nightstand.
There was no purse.
No flowers.
No family gathered nearby.
Only Mave's cracked phone, her folded uniform, and a plastic hospital property bag containing shoes so worn the soles looked almost transparent.
“How old is he?”
“Nine.”
“Your son?”
“My brother.”
Rafe nodded.
“Where is he?”
Mave hesitated.
That hesitation told him more than an answer would have.
“St. Anne's Children's Hospital,” she finally said.
Rafe looked toward the cardiac monitor beside her.
“Why?”
She turned her face away.
“That's none of your business.”
“You threw yourself in front of a weapon meant for my sister.”
“And that bought you my medical history?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“It bought you the right to ask anything of me.”
Mave looked back sharply.
“I don't want anything from you.”
“I didn't say money.”
“But that's what men like you mean.”
Rafe's expression cooled.
“Men like me?”
“I work tables. People talk.”
“And what do they say?”
“That you don't get told no very often.”
“Try me.”
“No.”
For the first time since entering the hospital, Rafe smiled.
It disappeared quickly.
The door opened.
Lucia entered before the guard outside could stop her.
She had changed out of the cream dress she had worn at dinner. Now she wore black leggings, an oversized gray sweater, and no makeup. Her eyes were swollen from crying.
“Mave.”
Rafe stood.
Lucia ignored him.
She crossed directly to the bed.
“I'm sorry.”
Mave frowned.
“For what?”
“You got hurt because of me.”
“No. I got hurt because a lunatic brought a weapon into a restaurant.”
“He came for me.”
“That still isn't your fault.”
Lucia's lower lip trembled.
Rafe watched Mave say the words with absolute certainty.
No performance.
No attempt to win favor.
She didn't even seem aware that Lucia Colazo had grown up surrounded by people who apologized to her for things they hadn't done and congratulated her for things she hadn't earned.
Mave simply saw a frightened nineteen-year-old girl.
Lucia reached carefully for her uninjured hand.
“You could've died.”
Mave shrugged, immediately regretted it, and winced.
“You didn't.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“It's the only one I've got.”
Lucia looked toward her brother.
“Rafe, do something.”
Mave's eyes narrowed.
“About what?”
“You.”
“Absolutely not.”
Lucia blinked.
“You need surgery.”
“I need rest.”
“The doctor said—”
“The doctor said my shoulder should heal without surgery if I don't do anything stupid.”
Rafe looked at Lucia.
“You listened outside the door?”
“Yes.”
“Of course you did.”
Mave pushed herself slightly higher against the pillows.
“I'll be back at work in—”
“Six to eight weeks,” Rafe said.
“Three.”
“Six.”
“Are you my doctor?”
“No.”
“Then stop sounding like one.”
A knock interrupted them.
This time it was Nico Vale, Rafe's head of security.
Nico was forty-one, broad-shouldered, quiet, and carried the permanently unimpressed expression of a man who had spent half his adult life preventing other people's disasters.
He looked at Mave, then Lucia.
“Need you outside.”
Rafe recognized the tone.
“Stay here.”
Lucia crossed her arms.
“I'm not twelve.”
“Then act nineteen and stay here.”
Rafe followed Nico into the corridor.
“What?”
Nico handed him a phone.
A paused security image filled the screen.
Gerald Moss.
Salt Line's manager.
He stood near a service entrance twenty-two minutes before the attack.
Talking to the attacker.
Rafe looked up.
“Moss said he'd never seen him before.”
“He lied.”
“Audio?”
“None.”
“Other angles?”
“One.”
Nico swiped.
The next image showed Moss handing the man something small.
A white rectangle.
A service access card.
Rafe's jaw hardened.
“Find him.”
“Already tried.”
“He left the restaurant eleven minutes after the ambulance.”
“Home?”
“Empty.”
“Family?”
“Ex-wife in Providence. Adult son in Arizona.”
Rafe studied the photograph again.
“Why would a restaurant manager help someone attack Lucia?”
“I don't think Lucia was necessarily the real target.”
Rafe looked at him.
Nico lowered his voice.
“The attacker's name is Anton Veck.”
“Bellandi?”
“Used to work collections for them.”
Used to.
That word mattered.
The Bellandi organization had spent years circling Colazo territory without being reckless enough to strike directly.
Going after Lucia inside a public restaurant was more than reckless.
It was suicidal.
Unless the point wasn't to kill her.
Unless the point was to create something else.
Chaos.
A witness.
A hero.
Rafe's gaze shifted toward Mave's room.
Nico noticed.
“You thinking the waitress was planted?”
“I don't know what I'm thinking.”
“Her background is clean so far.”
“So far?”
“She's twenty-seven. Mother died eleven years ago. Father disappeared six years later after a DUI arrest. Mave became legal guardian of Finn at twenty-one.”
“Father?”
“Same father. Different mother listed on Finn's original birth certificate.”
Rafe frowned.
“Original?”
Nico held his gaze.
“Amended when he was four.”
“By who?”
“Court order sealed.”
Rafe felt something cold settle in his stomach.
“Get it unsealed.”
“I'll try.”
“No.”
Rafe handed the phone back.
“Do it.”
He returned to Mave's room.
Lucia was sitting carefully beside her bed, talking about something involving Finn's photograph.
Mave looked tired but awake.
Normal.
Too normal.
Rafe hated that he was suspicious of the woman who had just broken bones protecting his sister.
But survival had taught him one rule long before Lucia was old enough to understand their family name.
Coincidences were expensive.
He stepped inside.
“Mave.”
She looked up.
“What now?”
“What was your mother's full name?”
The change in her face was tiny.
But Rafe saw it.
“Kathleen Marie Donovan.”
“Did she ever know my family?”
Silence.
Lucia looked between them.
“Rafe?”
Mave's fingers tightened around the photograph.
“My mother cleaned houses. She knew lots of families.”
“The Colazos?”
“I don't know.”
“Think.”
Mave's expression sharpened.
“I said I don't know.”
Rafe stepped closer.
“Your brother's bear.”
“What about it?”
“Where did he get it?”
Mave glanced at the photograph.
“I gave it to him.”
“Where did you get it?”
“My mother.”
Rafe went still.
“That bear belonged to my younger brother.”
Lucia stared at him.
“What?”
Rafe continued looking at Mave.
“My brother Gabriel died when I was eleven. That bear disappeared the same night.”
Mave's face lost color.
“I don't understand.”
“Neither do I.”
The heart monitor beside her began ticking faster.
Lucia stood.
“Rafe, you're scaring her.”
Rafe ignored her.
“Did your mother ever mention Gabriel Colazo?”
“No.”
“Did she ever mention my mother, Sofia?”
“No.”
“Did she ever tell you why she kept the bear?”
“No.”
Mave's voice cracked.
Then anger replaced fear.
“My mother worked two jobs, came home exhausted, and died before I was old enough to understand half the things she was protecting me from. So if you're accusing her of stealing a dead child's toy—”
“I'm not.”
“Then what are you doing?”
Rafe looked at the photograph.
“Trying to understand why my mother called Kathleen Donovan the bravest woman she had ever met.”
The room fell silent.
Mave stopped breathing.
“What did you say?”
“My mother knew yours.”
“No.”
“She did.”
“No, she didn't.”
“Mave—”
“My mother hated people like you.”
The words hit harder than they should have.
“She spent my whole childhood warning me never to owe powerful men anything. She said gifts from men with guards came with invisible chains.”
Rafe's eyes narrowed.
“She said that?”
“Yes.”
“Those exact words?”
“Yes.”
He looked toward the window.
His mother had used the same phrase when he was sixteen.
Exactly the same phrase.
Before Rafe could speak, a nurse hurried into the room.
“Ms. Donovan?”
Mave looked over.
The nurse's face made her sit upright despite the pain.
“What happened?”
“You're listed as emergency guardian for Finn Donovan?”
Mave's photograph slipped from her hand.
“Yes.”
“We've been trying your phone.”
“What happened to Finn?”
“He collapsed twenty minutes ago at St. Anne's.”
Mave ripped at the blanket.
“I need to go.”
“You can't—”
“I need to go!”
Rafe caught her before she could force herself out of bed.
“Tell us what happened,” he demanded.
The nurse swallowed.
“His heart rhythm became unstable.”
Mave stopped fighting.
For one second she looked unbearably young.
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
The nurse hesitated.
“But his cardiologist says they can't delay the procedure anymore.”
Mave closed her eyes.
“How much time?”
“Possibly days.”
A tear finally slipped down Mave's cheek.
She wiped it away angrily.
Rafe looked at Nico through the open doorway.
Nico understood without being told.
But before Rafe could speak, the nurse added quietly,
“There's something else.”
Mave looked at her.
“What?”
“When St. Anne's pulled Finn's surgical file, they found someone had accessed it yesterday using an administrative override.”
Rafe's entire body went still.
“Who?”
The nurse looked down at the note in her hand.
“The account belongs to Gerald Moss.”
Mave stared at her.
“My manager?”
Rafe turned toward Nico.
Moss wasn't just connected to Lucia's attacker.
He had been inside Finn's medical records before Mave ever stepped in front of that baton.
Which meant the attack at the Salt Line had not begun when Anton Veck raised the weapon.
It had begun long before Mave ever saw him.
May you like
And somehow, a sick nine-year-old boy was already inside the plan.
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