Chapter 2 - Nineteen Missing Minutes
“Dante.”
The voice came through the opening.
Luca moved first.
He pulled Dante backward as the service door swung inward.
But nobody attacked.
A hospital orderly stood in the corridor.
He was trembling.
Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow.
“Please,” he whispered. “They made me bring this.”
He held a white envelope.
Luca searched him before allowing Dante closer.
Nothing.
No weapon.
No phone.
Only the envelope.
Dante took it.
His name was written across the front.
Inside was a photograph.
Sofia.
Alive.
The photograph had been taken inside St. Catherine’s nineteen days earlier.
The timestamp was 11:18 p.m.
Ten minutes after Dante’s son entered the hospital.
Sofia was supposed to have been dead by then.
Dante stared until the edges of the photograph bent beneath his fingers.
“Where did you get this?”
The orderly shook his head.
“A man stopped me downstairs. Mask. Cap. He knew my daughter’s school. He told me to deliver it.”
Dante turned the photograph over.
Three words were handwritten on the back.
ASK ABOUT 614.
Mara approached.
“Patient 614?”
Dante looked at the unidentified newborn.
The baby remained inside the incubator while emergency backup power restored the monitors.
Reeves had gone gray.
Dante noticed.
“You know what this means.”
“No.”
Dante held the photograph inches from his face.
“My wife was alive.”
“I don't know when that was taken.”
“The timestamp—”
“Can be altered.”
“Look at me.”
Reeves did.
Dante lowered his voice.
“Was Sofia alive when she reached this hospital?”
Reeves closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Everything inside Dante stopped.
Nineteen days of grief collapsed into one word.
Yes.
He remembered Sofia’s coffin.
Closed because of her injuries.
He remembered standing beside it.
Remembered touching polished walnut because they told him there was nothing left he should see.
Remembered burying what he believed was his wife.
“You signed her death certificate.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Reeves looked toward the newborn.
“Because they had your son.”
Dante released him.
Mara whispered, “Who are they?”
Reeves sat heavily.
“I don't know their organization. Sofia did.”
Dante stared.
“My wife was an art consultant.”
Reeves almost laughed.
“No, Mr. Valenti. Your wife wanted you to believe she was.”
The revelation struck harder than Dante expected.
Reeves explained.
Six months earlier, Sofia had contacted him privately.
She believed someone was using charitable medical transfers to move infants between private hospitals under false identities.
Babies born to vulnerable mothers disappeared.
Records changed.
Some were declared dead.
Others were substituted.
Sofia had found financial transfers connecting the scheme to the Valenti Foundation.
Dante’s foundation.
Someone had been laundering the operation through his name.
“She thought someone close to you was involved,” Reeves said.
“Who?”
“She never told me.”
“Why contact you?”
“She needed access to hospital records.”
“And you helped?”
“At first.”
Dante heard the shame.
“What changed?”
“They discovered us.”
The night of the bombing, Reeves received instructions.
Sofia would arrive alive.
Her child would be separated from her.
Reeves was to falsify records.
“If I refused, they would kill both of them.”
“So you obeyed.”
“I thought I could keep them alive.”
Dante pointed toward 614.
“Who is that child?”
“I don't know his real name.”
Mara stared at Reeves. “You deliberately overdosed him.”
“No.”
She showed him the chart.
Reeves shook his head.
“I didn't order those doses.”
“Your authorization code did.”
“Then somebody used it.”
Dante believed him.
Not because he trusted Reeves.
Because the fear in the doctor’s face had changed.
Dante knew liars.
Reeves had lied about Sofia.
But he seemed genuinely horrified by the medication record.
“Where was my son taken?”
“Sixth floor.”
Mara frowned.
“There is no neonatal unit on six.”
“Not anymore.”
Reeves looked at Dante.
“Room 614.”
The number suddenly meant something else.
Patient 614.
Room 614.
Dante ordered Luca to bring four men.
Mara insisted on coming.
“No.”
“If there’s a premature infant up there, you need someone who can assess him.”
Dante looked at her.
“You just accused the most powerful physician in this hospital in front of thirty people.”
“I noticed.”
“You could lose your career.”
“If I'm right, somebody almost lost his child.”
Dante nodded once.
They took the service elevator.
The sixth floor looked abandoned.
Plastic covered unused equipment.
Half the ceiling lights were dead.
Room 614 stood at the end of the corridor.
Locked.
Luca forced it.
Inside they found an empty neonatal bassinet.
Warm.
Mara touched the mattress.
“Someone was here recently.”
A feeding bottle sat on the counter.
Beside it was a disposable diaper and a folded cream blanket.
Dante picked up the blanket.
Sofia had bought identical ones.
He remembered teasing her because she had ordered twelve.
“Babies are messy,” she had said.
Then she had laughed.
Dante pressed the fabric between his fingers.
Mara opened a cabinet.
Inside were medical supplies.
All neonatal.
“Dante.”
She rarely used his first name.
He turned.
A small security monitor sat behind the cabinet door.
One camera feed remained active.
A room.
Somewhere else in the hospital.
A woman sat beside an incubator with her back toward the camera.
Long dark hair.
Thin shoulders.
Hospital gown.
Dante stopped breathing.
“Sofia?”
The woman turned slightly.
Not enough to see her entire face.
Enough.
Dante gripped the counter.
Alive.
His wife was alive.
Luca whispered, “Jesus.”
Mara pointed toward the corner of the monitor.
LIVE.
Dante moved closer.
“Find that room.”
Mara examined details in the image.
A green wall stripe.
Old oxygen outlet.
A numbered cabinet.
“This isn't the sixth floor.”
“Where?”
“I need a floor plan.”
Luca called downstairs.
Meanwhile Dante watched Sofia.
She leaned toward the incubator.
Her hand disappeared through an access port.
She was touching a baby.
Their baby?
Then Sofia suddenly looked directly toward the camera.
Her expression changed.
Fear.
She stood.
Someone entered the room outside the camera’s view.
Sofia backed away from the incubator.
A man’s arm appeared.
Dark suit.
Gold watch.
Dante recognized that watch.
He had given it as a birthday gift five years earlier.
Only one man owned it.
Dante whispered the name.
“Marco.”
His older cousin.
His closest adviser.
The man who had arranged Sofia’s funeral.
The man currently controlling every security team around Dante’s home.
The video went black.
Luca’s phone rang.
He answered.
Then looked at Dante.
“Marco just entered the hospital.”
“Where?”
“Ground floor.”
“Stop him.”
“They tried.”
“And?”
“He told security he was here on your orders.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Where is he now?”
Luca listened.
Then slowly lowered the phone.
The elevator bell sounded behind them.
Dante turned.
The doors opened.
A man stepped into the abandoned sixth-floor corridor.
He wore a dark suit.
On his wrist was a gold watch.
May you like
Marco smiled.
And behind him, someone was pushing an incubator.
