Chapter Two
1246 Words
Chapter Two
Hospitals at 2am smell like bleach and bad coffee.
Elena pulled the paper cup out of the vending machine and it was still lukewarm. Mrs. Greene had talked her ear off for an hour in room 214 about her grandson’s wedding. “White roses everywhere,” the old woman kept saying. “Like a cloud fell on the altar.”
Elena smiled without meaning to.
White roses again.
Her phone buzzed before she could take a sip.
*Mom Calling.*
Elena answered on the second ring. “Hey.”
“Elena.” Her mother’s voice was thin. Strained. “Are you still at the hospital?”
“Just leaving.”
A pause. Then her mother said it, quiet and fast like she was trying to get it over with: “The bank called again. They’re freezing our accounts next week.”
Elena’s hand tightened around the cup. Coffee sloshed over her fingers.
“What? Why?”
“Your father won’t tell me everything. But the supplier cut us off. And now the loan’s due.” Her mother’s voice cracked. “We can’t make payroll, Elena.”
Elena leaned back against the wall,thinking of what came next for her.
The Rossi shipping company had been bleeding money for months. First it was late containers. Then it was a contract with a client in Genoa that fell through. Then it was their main supplier suddenly saying “we found someone cheaper.”
Her father kept saying we’ll fix it. We’ll pull through.
But her mother’s voice didn’t sound like ‘we’ll pull through.’ It sounded like ‘we’re done.’
“I’ll be home in twenty,” Elena said.
“Don’t worry….
“I said I’ll be home in twenty.”
The call ended.
Elena slipped the phone into her pocket and stared at her shaking hand. Coffee dripped onto the tile floor.
Too late for _don’t worry._
---
Across the city, Lucien sat at the end of a black table that was too long for the room.
Two men sat across from him. One was sweating through his shirt. The other had a cut above his eyebrow and dried blood on his collar.
They weren’t arguing anymore. They’d stopped the second Lucien walked in.
Lucien listened for a full minute while the sweating man tried to explain how $400,000 had “gone missing from the ledger.”
The explanation was bad. The numbers didn’t match.
Lucien already knew who’d taken it.
That wasn’t why he’d called them here.
“You’re telling me,” Lucien said, “that a quarter-million dollars just… walked out of my warehouse?”
The sweating man opened his mouth.
Lucien pulled the gun from under the table and shot him before he could finish the sentence.
The sound was sharp and final.
The man dropped out of his chair. Blood pooled under him, spreading across the white tile like spilled wine.
Nobody moved.
Lucien set the gun down, wiped his hand on a napkin, and slid the weapon across the table to Matteo. “Clean it.”
The other man’s face had gone white. He couldn’t even nod.
Lucien stood and fixed his cuff like he’d just spilled coffee, not brains. “Next time money disappears, I don’t ask questions. I assume you took it.”
“Yes, boss.” The word came out as a whisper.
Lucien walked out.
People thought he was dangerous because he was violent.
They were wrong.
He was dangerous because he didn’t hesitate. Because he didn’t get angry. Because he could sit there, bored, while a man bled out two feet away.
Matteo caught up with him in the hallway. “Rossi’s company.”
Lucien stopped.
Matteo kept his voice low. “Supplier cut them off two weeks ago. Bank’s calling in the loan. They’re two months from bankruptcy.”
Lucien didn’t react. Not on the outside. But Matteo saw it — the slight way his jaw tightened.
“She’s still at the hospital twice a week,” Matteo added. “Still living at home. No one’s gotten close to her.”
Lucien had made sure of that.
For five years, any guy who looked at Elena too long got a quiet call. A job offer in another city. An internship that suddenly wasn’t available anymore. Nothing illegal. Nothing she could trace back to him. Just enough friction to make people lose interest and leave.
He kept her orbit clear.
Kept her safe.
Kept her close.
“You’re doing it again,” Matteo muttered.
Lucien looked down at the photo in his hand.
Elena, outside that café on Via Roma. Laughing at something the waitress said. Hair longer now, falling past her shoulders. No makeup. No designer clothes. Just a thin jacket and jeans and that same expression she had in the rain five years ago like she actually cared about things that didn’t matter.
Lucien put the photo back in the folder.
“How bad is her father?”
Matteo hesitated. “Desperate enough to take a meeting with anyone.”
Lucien started walking toward the elevator again.
“Good.”
The word slipped out before he could stop it.
Five years. Five years of watching. Five years of not touching. Five years of telling himself she’s too young, she’s too soft, you’ll ruin her.
He was done telling himself that.
He was tired.
---
Elena’s house was dark when she got home. Only the kitchen light was on.
Her father sat at the table with stacks of paper in front of him. Bills. Late notices. Bank statements with red stamps.
He tried to hide them when she walked in. Too slow.
“How bad is it?” Elena asked. She didn’t sit down. She was afraid if she sat, her legs wouldn’t hold her.
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
“Dad.”
Her father rubbed his face with both hands. He looked ten years older than he did six months ago. “We lost the supplier. The bank wants the loan now. I’ve been trying to get a new investor, but….”
“But what?”
“The rates they’re offering…” He swallowed. “We can’t afford them. Not with the debt we already have.”
Elena looked at the numbers on the page in front of him. Interest. Penalties. Late fees. It was a wall of red ink.
“How much?”
“Too much.”
“Dad.”
He finally met her eyes. “Five million. And that’s before the bank adds penalties.”
The number hit her like a slap.
Elena sat down without meaning to. Her hands were cold.
The Rossi business had been in her family since her grandfather. She grew up in the office after school, doing homework under her father’s desk while he took calls.
“How does this happen?” she whispered. “How do you lose five million dollars and not even know how?”
Her father didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice was low. “I think someone’s doing this on purpose.”
Elena looked up fast. “What do you mean on purpose?”
But before he could answer, headlights cut across the front window.
A black car rolled into the driveway and killed its engine.
Her father went still. All the color drained from his face.
Elena frowned. “Who is that?”
Nobody answered.
The doorbell rang.
Once. Low. Deliberate.
Outside, the rain started again.
- Writer
