Chapter 3 - WHEN THE HOUSE WENT DARK
Darkness did not frighten Wren.
Silence did.
Hospitals went dark in storms. Generators kicked in. Machines beeped. Nurses swore. Somebody always shouted down a hallway.
This house went black and held its breath.
Wren was on her feet before the third text from Gabe disappeared from the screen.
“Enzo.”
“I’m awake.”
His voice came from the bed, flat and alert.
Not groggy.
Not confused.
The man could apparently sleep like a dead person and wake like a loaded weapon.
“Backup power?” she whispered.
“Should already be on.”
“Comforting.”
She turned on her phone flashlight, then immediately aimed it at the floor instead of the doorway.
Enzo noticed.
“Why not point it out?”
“Because I don’t know who’s out there, and I’d rather not advertise exactly where we’re standing.”
A pause.
“You’ve done this before.”
“I worked night shift in Chicago.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the one you’re getting tonight.”
She heard him exhale something that might have been a laugh.
Then footsteps moved in the corridor.
Slow.
Measured.
Wren killed the light.
The footsteps stopped.
Her body remembered the ICU better than her brain did. Where the call button was. Where the metal IV pole stood. How many steps from bed to wall. Which objects could move and which would make noise.
She reached for the transfer board.
Enzo’s hand caught her forearm.
“What are you doing?”
“Moving you.”
“No.”
“If someone comes through that door, your bed is the first place they’ll look.”
“My chair is across the room.”
“I know.”
“You cannot transfer me alone.”
“Watch me.”
“I weigh two hundred pounds.”
“Then stop eating all that black coffee.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Good. Argue later.”
She got the board into place, lowered the bed, and brought the wheelchair closer by feel. Enzo helped with his arms, jaw clenched, every movement careful. Wren could feel the weakness in his trunk, the way pain caught him halfway through the slide.
The hallway floor creaked.
Closer.
Wren leaned into him.
“On three.”
“Wren.”
“One.”
“This is reckless.”
“Two.”
“I hate you.”
“Three.”
They moved.
The transfer was ugly.
Too fast.
Too much friction.
Enzo almost slipped.
Wren caught his hips, shoved with her shoulder, and got him into the chair just as the bedroom handle turned.
She released the brakes.
The door opened.
A silhouette filled the gap.
Enzo’s hand came out from beneath his pillow holding a pistol.
Wren stared.
“You had a gun in the bed?”
“Later.”
The silhouette spoke.
“Boss?”
Luca.
The room seemed to breathe again.
Enzo lowered the weapon.
“Why is the power out?”
“Main line was cut near the west wall. Generator failed to switch.”
“Failed?”
Luca’s tone changed.
“Was made to fail.”
Wren turned her phone light back on.
Luca stood in the doorway with a gun in one hand and rain on his shoulders. Behind him, two men moved down the hall.
“Perimeter?”
“Locked. Cameras are dead on the south side.”
Wren held up her phone.
“Gabe texted me one minute before the lights went out.”
Both men looked at her.
“What did he say?” Enzo asked.
“That I should get out. Then he said, ‘He knows you’re there.’”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Luca stepped forward. “Give me the phone.”
“No.”
“Wren.”
“No.”
“This is not a request.”
“Then your delivery needs work.”
Luca looked at Enzo.
Enzo rubbed his forehead.
“Show him the messages.”
“I’ll show him. I’m not handing over my phone.”
She held the screen out.
Luca read the texts, face hardening.
“Call him.”
“I already tried.”
“You called?”
“Twice.”
“Again.”
Wren pressed Gabe’s name.
It rang once.
Then someone answered.
No voice.
Just air.
Wren’s stomach dropped.
“Gabe?”
Nothing.
“Gabe, say something.”
A sound came through the phone.
Metal scraping concrete.
Then a man’s voice.
Not Gabe’s.
“You should have kept driving, Nurse Hart.”
The line disconnected.
Wren stood frozen.
Luca swore.
Enzo didn’t.
He became frighteningly still.
“Trace it.”
“I can’t trace a phone,” Wren snapped.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
Luca was already moving.
Enzo rolled toward the hall.
Wren grabbed the handles of his chair.
“No.”
He twisted around.
“Do not touch my chair.”
“Then don’t try to roll into whatever armed-house emergency is happening in the dark.”
“This is my home.”
“You’re my patient.”
“I am not a patient.”
“You are sitting in a medical wheelchair with a pressure wound and a gun under your pillow.”
“I am also the man everyone in this house answers to.”
“Then lead from somewhere with electricity.”
His face went cold.
For a moment, Wren thought she had finally gone too far.
Then Enzo looked down the corridor where his men were moving from room to room with flashlights.
His hands tightened on the wheels.
He hated her logic.
That did not make it less correct.
“Study,” he said.
“What?”
“The study has a secondary power system.”
“Wonderful. Is there a secret tunnel too?”
“Yes.”
She stared at him.
He stared back.
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
“Of course you have a secret tunnel.”
“Safe corridor. Not a tunnel.”
“That distinction matters only to rich criminals.”
He looked over his shoulder. “I have not told you what I do.”
“You have men with guns, hidden corridors, and enemies cutting the power. I’m comfortable making an educated guess.”
They reached the study in under three minutes.
A battery system brought on low amber lights. The room looked different at night. Less like a library. More like a command center wearing bookshelves as a costume.
Luca returned with a laptop and two phones.
“No trace. Burner bounced off towers, then died.”
“What about Gabe?” Wren asked.
“We’re looking.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
Wren hated how familiar the phrase sounded.
Enzo hated it too.
She could tell.
“Find him,” Enzo said.
Luca hesitated.
“Boss.”
“Find him.”
“Russo will expect us to move.”
“I know.”
“He may be using the kid to pull us out.”
“I know.”
“And if this is about the ledger—”
Enzo’s head snapped toward him.
Too late.
Wren heard it.
“What ledger?”
Luca’s expression closed.
“Nothing.”
“People need to stop saying that word to me when it obviously means something.”
“Wren,” Enzo said.
“No. Gabe is missing, somebody threatened me, your power was deliberately cut, and my brother apparently owes a psychopath forty-eight thousand dollars. I have passed ‘nothing.’ What ledger?”
Enzo looked at Luca.
Luca looked back.
Something passed between them.
A decision.
Finally, Enzo said, “Three weeks ago, money disappeared from one of Russo’s businesses.”
Wren folded her arms.
“What kind of business?”
“Not relevant.”
“So illegal.”
“Wren.”
“Fine. Continue.”
“Along with the money, a digital copy of his accounts disappeared.”
“A ledger.”
“Yes.”
“And you think Gabe has it?”
“We think Gabe was hired to move it.”
Wren laughed in disbelief.
“My brother can barely remember his phone charger.”
“That may be why they used him.”
“He’s not some criminal mastermind.”
“No one said he was.”
“He’s an idiot.”
Luca almost smiled.
Wren pointed at him. “Do not agree with me.”
The almost-smile vanished.
Enzo continued. “Gabe’s debt gave Russo leverage. He was told to pick up an envelope from one location and deliver it to another.”
Wren thought of the diner.
The envelope she had carried because Gabe said he couldn’t be seen there.
Her skin went cold.
“The envelope I gave him.”
“Possibly.”
“You knew this when you hired me?”
“I suspected it.”
“And you thought bringing me into your house was what? A controlled experiment?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I thought you might be a target.”
The anger left her so quickly it made her dizzy.
“What?”
“Russo believed someone had copied the ledger. Your brother became disposable the moment the delivery went wrong.”
“How did it go wrong?”
“We don’t know.”
“You know enough to have pictures of me.”
“We were watching everyone connected to the handoff.”
She stared at him.
“So I wasn’t chosen because I was a caregiver.”
“You were both.”
“Both what?”
“Qualified and already in danger.”
Wren looked away.
She wanted to hate the answer.
Instead, it made a terrible kind of sense.
“Why not tell me?”
“Would you have come?”
“No.”
“Exactly.”
She wheeled on him.
“That doesn’t make it acceptable.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
The lack of defense made her angrier.
He kept doing that.
Owning the ugly parts before she could use them against him.
Wren pressed a hand to her forehead.
“Gabe said ‘he knows you’re there.’ That means somebody didn’t want me in this house.”
“Or wanted you afraid enough to leave it.”
“Same result.”
“No,” Enzo said. “Very different reason.”
Luca’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, and looked at Enzo.
“We found the car.”
Wren stopped breathing.
“Where?”
“Under the viaduct on Palmer.”
“Gabe?”
“No one inside.”
Her knees weakened anyway.
“Blood?”
Luca’s silence answered.
“How much?”
“Wren.”
“How much blood?”
“Not enough to assume he’s dead.”
“Not enough is not a measurement.”
Enzo reached for her wrist.
She almost pulled away.
Almost.
His hand was warm.
Steady now.
“Look at me.”
She did.
“We will find him.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
“At least stop promising things you can’t control.”
His grip loosened.
Something moved behind his eyes.
Recognition.
That sentence had not only been for him.
It had been for herself.
Wren sat down hard in the nearest chair.
“Gabe was fourteen when our mother died,” she said.
Neither man spoke.
“He had this thing where he couldn’t sleep unless the hallway light was on. He pretended it was because he liked reading. But he was afraid the apartment would disappear if he closed his eyes.”
She stared at her phone.
“I was nineteen. I worked mornings at a coffee shop, took classes in the afternoon, then came home and made sure he ate something that wasn’t cereal. I got very good at fixing things that should’ve required an adult.”
“You were an adult,” Luca said quietly.
“No. I was nineteen.”
That ended the conversation.
The lights flickered.
Then the chandeliers came back on.
The house woke room by room.
Enzo turned to Luca. “Double security.”
“Already done.”
“No one in or out without my approval.”
Luca nodded.
Wren stood.
“I need to check his meds.”
Luca blinked. “Now?”
“Yes, now.”
“Your brother is missing.”
“And I can’t find him by staring at a laptop. But I can keep your boss from swallowing mystery pills.”
Enzo gave her a look.
“What?”
“You called me your boss.”
“No, I called you his boss.”
“Important distinction.”
“Life-changing.”
She went back to the bedroom, grabbed the medication bottle and bagged tablet, then spread everything beneath a brighter lamp in the study.
She took photographs.
Imprints.
Labels.
Dosage.
Times.
Luca watched from across the room.
“What are you doing?”
“Building a chain.”
“A what?”
“A record. If somebody is changing his medication, I need to know when, where, and who touched what.”
“I can have the pill tested.”
“You will. But I want documentation first.”
“You think someone inside the house is doing this?”
“I think pills don’t change themselves.”
Enzo looked toward the door.
“My uncle.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“He arranges the medication.”
“Sometimes.”
“He also hired Hale.”
“Still not proof.”
“You are very careful with accusations.”
“I spent a year watching doctors pretend certainty was the same as competence. It cured me.”
“St. Agnes.”
The name landed differently now.
Less like surveillance.
More like a door neither of them wanted to open.
Enzo leaned back.
“What happened?”
“You already read it.”
“I read the hospital version.”
“That’s enough.”
“I doubt it.”
Wren sealed another bag.
“Patient was nineteen. Fentanyl exposure. Cardiac arrest. He came in cold and cyanotic. Attending called it after standard measures failed.”
“But you continued.”
“I saw something on the monitor.”
“What?”
“A rhythm.”
Luca frowned. “I thought you said his heart stopped.”
“It had. Then it didn’t. Not enough for a pulse. Just electrical activity. The attending said it was artifact.”
“And you disagreed.”
“I did.”
“So you kept going.”
“Yes.”
“Against orders.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Wren looked at him.
“Because I was right.”
Enzo’s mouth twitched.
She shook her head.
“Don’t admire that. It cost me everything.”
“Did the patient live?”
“Yes.”
“Then not everything.”
“You don’t know what it cost.”
“No,” he said. “But I know what it is to make the right decision and still lose.”
That shut her up.
Luca’s phone rang again.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He covered the receiver.
“They found Gabe.”
Wren’s chair scraped the floor.
“Where?”
“St. Vincent urgent care. He walked in twenty minutes ago.”
She closed her eyes.
Air came back into her body.
“Is he hurt?”
“Cut on his head. Two broken fingers. Bruised ribs.”
“Can I talk to him?”
Luca spoke into the phone, waited, then held it out.
“Thirty seconds.”
Wren grabbed it.
“Gabe?”
“Wren.”
Her brother’s voice sounded small.
Anger and relief hit at once.
“Oh my God. You absolute piece of garbage.”
“I know.”
“Where were you?”
“I can’t—”
“Don’t you dare say you can’t.”
“Listen to me. You have to leave.”
“I’m safe.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Gabe—”
“The man in that house is the reason this started.”
Wren’s eyes went to Enzo.
He had gone still.
“What are you talking about?”
“I took the drive because I was told it could clear the debt.”
“What drive?”
“The ledger. I didn’t know what it was then. They told me to move it.”
“Who told you?”
Gabe breathed hard.
“Uncle Matt.”
Wren frowned.
“What?”
“Matteo Marchetti.”
The room changed.
Enzo’s face emptied.
Luca’s hand moved toward his jacket.
Gabe kept talking.
“He said Russo wanted Enzo weak. He said he could fix everything if I just did one delivery. I swear, Wren, I didn’t know you were part of it.”
Wren could barely hear over her pulse.
“Why would Enzo’s uncle be working with Russo?”
“I don’t know. I saw him once. That’s all.”
“Where?”
“At St. Agnes.”
Enzo’s head snapped up.
“When?”
Gabe’s voice broke.
“The night Marchetti got shot.”
No one moved.
Wren stared at Enzo.
He looked like a man hearing the floor beneath his life crack open.
“Gabe,” she whispered, “what did Matteo do at St. Agnes?”
“I don’t know. I was waiting near the loading dock. But he came out with a doctor.”
Wren already knew the answer before she asked.
“Which doctor?”
Gabe said the name.
“Hale.”
The line went dead.
Luca swore.
Enzo said nothing.
Wren looked down at the pill beneath the lamp.
Eight months of paralysis.
Eight months of medication.
Eight months of a trusted uncle controlling access.
She felt sick.
“Enzo.”
He looked at her.
“Where is Matteo right now?”
Luca answered.
“He arrived twenty minutes ago.”
Wren turned toward the study door.
A shadow crossed beneath it.
Then someone knocked.
Three slow knocks.
May you like
And Matteo Marchetti said from the other side,
“Enzo? We need to talk.”
