Chapter 2 - The Tablet
For one second, nobody moved.
The restaurant had gone so silent that I could hear the soft jazz music still playing from the speakers above the bar.
Then Dominic Moretti’s voice cut through the room.
“Lock the doors.”
His men moved instantly.
The bodyguard near the kitchen door—the one who had started backing away—turned and ran.
He made it three steps.
A giant man in a charcoal suit slammed into him from the side, driving him into the polished marble floor hard enough to rattle the wineglasses on nearby tables. Guests screamed. Chairs scraped. Someone dropped a champagne flute.
Dominic didn’t look at any of it.
His eyes were on his son.
On me.
On the tiny white tablet I had managed to pull from the baby’s mouth with one careful sweep of my finger.
“Is he breathing?” Dominic asked.
His voice was low, but panic sat underneath every word.
I bent close to the baby’s face.
For a horrible second, I felt nothing.
Then—barely—a shallow, uneven breath brushed my cheek.
“Yes,” I said. “But not well.”
“Do something.”
“I am doing something.”
My hands shook, but I forced them steady. I had quit nursing school after Leo died. I had told myself I was done with hospitals, medicine, monitors, emergency calls, and the terrible false hope of waiting rooms.
But grief had not erased what I knew.
The baby needed air. Quiet. Space.
Not six armed men crowding around him.
“Everybody back up,” I snapped.
No one moved.
I looked directly at Dominic.
“Now.”
The entire restaurant seemed to stop breathing with him.
Then Dominic lifted one hand.
“Back away,” he ordered.
His men obeyed.
Even the ones who looked like they had never obeyed anyone in their lives.
I loosened the baby’s blanket and kept him positioned carefully, watching the color in his lips. Blue. Too blue. His little chest moved again, then paused too long.
The dispatcher’s voice came through the manager’s phone on speaker.
“Emergency services are on the way. Is the infant conscious?”
“No,” I answered. “He’s breathing, but it’s weak.”
Dominic crouched beside the table. His expensive suit jacket brushed the floor, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“What did they give him?” he asked.
No one answered.
His gaze lifted slowly toward the bodyguard pinned on the ground.
The man’s name was Luca. I knew that because the other guards kept shouting it.
“Luca,” Dominic said.
The man’s face had gone gray.
“I didn’t—”
“You were leaving.”
“I panicked.”
“You panicked because my son is dying?”
“I didn’t know it would—”
Dominic stood.
I had never seen fear turn into rage so quickly.
The air around him changed. The room changed. Even the guests who had been whispering fell silent.
But before he could take a step toward Luca, I said, “Don’t.”
Dominic looked at me.
His eyes were dark and terrifying.
“That man may know what happened to my child.”
“And if you hurt him before the police get here, you may lose the truth.”
For a beat, I thought he might ignore me.
Then the baby made a faint sound.
A weak, broken cry.
Everything in Dominic’s face shattered.
He dropped beside the table again.
“I’m here,” he whispered to his son. “Papa’s here.”
The word hit me harder than it should have.
Papa.
I remembered saying similar things to Leo in the hospital. Promises I had made when I knew, deep down, that love was not always enough to keep someone alive.
The ambulance arrived six minutes later.
It felt like six years.
Paramedics rushed through Bellavita’s locked doors, taking over with practiced urgency. I stepped back as they lifted the baby onto a small stretcher. Dominic followed so closely that one paramedic had to tell him twice to give them room.
“What’s his name?” she asked.
Dominic swallowed.
“Matteo.”
The name was soft in his mouth.
“Matteo Moretti.”
As the paramedics wheeled the baby toward the door, Dominic turned to me.
“You’re coming.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You’re coming to the hospital.”
“I’m just a waitress.”
“You’re the reason my son is still breathing.”
“I don’t know that.”
“I do.”
Before I could answer, two police officers entered the restaurant. Behind them, Luca began shouting that he wanted a lawyer.
Dominic’s men dragged him toward the back office.
The police immediately objected.
Dominic’s attention never left me.
“You have a name?” he asked.
“Claire.”
“Claire what?”
“Claire Bennett.”
His gaze held mine.
“Claire Bennett,” he repeated. “Get your coat.”
I should have said no.
I should have walked away.
Instead, I looked at the ambulance doors closing around a newborn fighting for breath.
May you like
And I followed.
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