“Leave her.”

Celeste Arden said it beside Trauma Room Four as if Mara Vascari were an inconvenient reservation Dominic had forgotten to cancel.

“She walked out on you eight months ago. This is not your problem anymore.”

Dominic looked through the glass.

His estranged wife lay beneath white lights while two trauma surgeons cut away the ruined fabric of her coat. Blood had soaked through the left side of her dress. One nurse pressed gauze beneath her ribs. Another shouted numbers Dominic understood only well enough to know they were getting worse.

Rainwater still gleamed in Mara’s dark hair.

There was glass in it.

A bruise was already spreading along her cheek.

Dominic had seen men shot in alleys and crushed beneath loading equipment. He had stood beside open graves without lowering his eyes.

Nothing had prepared him for Mara looking small on a hospital table.

Celeste pulled lightly at his sleeve.

“Dominic.”

He did not move.

A nurse rolled an ultrasound unit against Mara’s side.

Dominic barely noticed.

Then the nurse froze.

“Call obstetrics.”

The trauma surgeon looked up.

“What?”

“Now.”

The nurse turned the screen.

Her voice rose over the alarms.

“She’s thirty-two weeks pregnant.”

The room vanished around Dominic.

Celeste’s fingers fell from his arm.

The nurse pressed the probe harder.

“Fetal heartbeat present. One-forty-two.”

Dominic stared at Mara’s abdomen.

He had thought the curve beneath her torn coat was swelling from the crash.

Now that someone had given it a name, he could not understand how he had missed it.

Thirty-two weeks.

Eight months.

Exactly the length of time since she left him.

“No.”

The word came out of him without authority.

The obstetric team ran in.

Another monitor screamed.

Mara’s body arched once beneath the surgeon’s hands.

Then went frighteningly still.

“Pressure dropping.”

“Get blood.”

“OR now.”

The fetal heartbeat continued.

Fast.

Thin.

Alive.

Dominic pushed through the doors.

A physician blocked him.

“That baby is mine.”

No one cared.

The doctor shoved him backward with both hands.

“Then stand there and let us save them.”

The doors swung shut.

Dominic remained in the corridor.

His face had gone white.

Celeste spoke behind him.

“You didn’t know.”

He turned.

Not fast.

Dominic Vascari rarely moved fast when he was angry.

That was how people around him learned the difference between temper and danger.

“Did you?”

Celeste blinked.

“Of course not.”

“One more time.”

“What?”

“Did you know Mara was pregnant?”

“No.”

Her answer was immediate.

Her eyes were not.

They dropped toward the cream handbag hanging from her wrist.

Only for a heartbeat.

Dominic noticed.

For eleven months he had ignored pauses in Celeste because doing so made his life easier.

He noticed them now.

The operating-room doors opened long enough for Mara’s bed to pass through.

A surgeon ran beside her.

Another nurse wheeled a neonatal bassinet in the opposite direction.

Dominic stepped forward.

“Where are you taking the baby?”

“She hasn’t delivered yet.”

“Then why—”

“In case we have to.”

The nurse disappeared.

Dominic looked at Celeste again.

“How did you know where I was tonight?”

She frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“The crash happened twenty-two minutes ago.”

“Your driver called.”

“He didn’t know where I was going until six minutes before we left the restaurant.”

Celeste’s mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

Dominic took one step toward her.

The hospital corridor suddenly seemed too narrow.

“Who told you?”

“Dominic, you’re upset.”

“That is not an answer.”

“You’re frightening me.”

“Good.”

A voice came from behind him.

“Boss.”

Roman DeLuca, Dominic’s security chief, had reached the hospital at a run. Rain darkened the shoulders of his suit.

Dominic never looked away from Celeste.

“Did anyone on my team call her?”

Roman’s eyes moved once toward Celeste.

“No.”

Her face changed.

Only slightly.

But enough.

Dominic held out his hand.

“Your phone.”

Celeste laughed softly, too quickly.

“Absolutely not.”

Roman moved beside her.

Her smile vanished.

“This is insane.”

“Your phone,” Dominic repeated.

“You don’t own me.”

“No.”

His voice dropped.

“But someone knew where Mara was tonight. Someone knew where I was. And somehow you arrived before my own security detail.”

Celeste tightened her grip on her purse.

“That proves nothing.”

Dominic reached for it.

She jerked backward.

The bag slipped.

It struck the floor.

Lipstick rolled beneath a chair.

A silver compact snapped open.

And a second phone slid across the polished tile.

Nobody spoke.

Roman bent down.

Celeste lunged for it.

He caught her wrist.

“Don’t.”

Her face drained of color.

Dominic stared at the phone.

It was cheap.

Black.

Disposable.

The kind of phone men in his world used when they did not want conversations remembered.

Roman turned it over.

“One missed call,” he said.

“From?”

“No contact name.”

The phone buzzed in his hand.

A message appeared.

Roman read it.

Then his expression hardened.

Dominic took the device from him.

The message contained seven words.

IS THE WIFE AND CHILD BOTH DEAD?

For several seconds Dominic simply stared at it.

Then he looked at Celeste.

She shook her head.

“No.”

“Who is this?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who.”

“I swear to God—”

Dominic slammed the phone against the wall beside her head.

Celeste screamed.

The plastic shattered.

Nurses looked toward them from the station.

Roman stepped between Dominic and Celeste before hospital security could make the situation worse.

“Boss.”

Dominic’s hands were trembling.

That disturbed Roman more than anger would have.

Dominic Vascari did not tremble.

An operating-room door opened.

A doctor approached, mask hanging beneath his chin.

Dominic forgot Celeste immediately.

“My wife?”

The doctor stopped in front of him.

“We found internal bleeding from a splenic injury. We controlled it.”

“And the baby?”

The doctor took a breath.

“We had to perform an emergency cesarean.”

Dominic’s knees nearly failed him.

“Is my child alive?”

“A boy.”

Something broke open behind Dominic’s ribs.

The doctor continued.

“He’s very premature, but he’s breathing. He’s in the neonatal intensive care unit.”

Dominic covered his mouth.

“And Mara?”

“She survived surgery.”

Survived.

Not safe.

Not awake.

But survived.

Dominic closed his eyes for one second.

When he opened them, the doctor was still speaking.

“She lost significant blood. The next several hours matter.”

“Can I see her?”

“Not yet.”

“My son?”

“In a few minutes.”

The word son felt impossible.

Dominic had spent eight months believing Mara had chosen a life without him.

All that time she had been carrying his child.

Behind him, Celeste whispered, “Dominic, please.”

He turned.

There were tears in her eyes now.

He felt nothing for them.

“Roman.”

“Yes.”

“Take her downstairs.”

Celeste recoiled.

“What?”

“Do not let her leave.”

“You can’t imprison me.”

Dominic stepped close enough that she had to lift her chin to meet his eyes.

“If that message came from who I think it came from, being with Roman is the safest place you can possibly be tonight.”

Fear replaced outrage.

That told him something else.

She knew who he meant.

“Dominic—”

“Take her.”

Roman escorted Celeste toward the elevators.

Dominic remained outside the operating room alone.

Twenty minutes later, a NICU nurse led him through two locked doors.

His son weighed barely four pounds.

He lay inside an incubator beneath warm blue-white lights, impossibly small, wearing nothing but a diaper and wires.

Dominic stopped several feet away.

“That’s him?”

The nurse smiled faintly.

“That’s him.”

Dominic approached.

He had held guns before he was old enough to vote.

He had buried his father at twenty-six.

He had ordered men twice his age to obey him.

But when the nurse opened a small access panel and told him he could touch his son, Dominic was afraid to move.

“One finger,” she said.

He slid his hand inside.

The baby’s fist opened.

Five tiny fingers wrapped weakly around Dominic’s index finger.

Dominic stopped breathing.

“Hey.”

His voice cracked.

The nurse politely looked away.

“I’m your father.”

The baby’s fingers tightened.

Dominic stared at him.

“I didn’t know.”

His eyes burned.

“I swear to you, I didn’t know.”

Behind them, another nurse entered.

She carried a clear plastic bag containing Mara’s personal belongings recovered from the crash.

“Mr. Vascari?”

Dominic withdrew his hand.

“Yes?”

“We found this inside your wife’s coat. Police said it should go to family.”

Inside the bag were Mara’s wallet, keys, a broken necklace, and a sealed envelope stained with blood.

On the front was Dominic’s name.

Written in Mara’s handwriting.

DOMINIC — IF THEY FIND ME.

He tore it open.

There was one sheet inside.

The first line made his blood turn cold.

Dominic,

If you are reading this, Victor knows about the baby.

And if Victor knows, our son is not safe.