Chapter 5 - WHAT THEY PUT INSIDE HER
Hope left before sunrise.
Not through the front gate.
Not in a car.
She climbed over a stone wall behind the Ferretti greenhouse, crossed half a mile of wooded property, and reached the coastal road before Luca realized she was gone.
At six fourteen, he found the empty guest room.
At six sixteen, he broke a lamp.
At six seventeen, Teddy decided not to comment.
“She left her jacket,” Teddy said.
Luca stared at the borrowed sweatshirt missing from the closet.
“She planned it.”
“Looks that way.”
“Find her.”
Teddy hesitated.
“Boss.”
Luca turned.
“She’s former military. She disabled three men in a kitchen, disappeared from a guarded estate, and spent the last few years apparently living out of a vehicle.”
“Your point?”
“My point is if Hope Whitaker doesn’t want to be found, yelling at me won’t improve Rhode Island’s geography.”
Luca stared at him.
“Find her politely.”
Teddy nodded.
“Much better.”
Hope made it twelve miles before her stolen pickup died.
Not her pickup.
Technically, a fisherman named Carl had lent it to her after she helped change his flat tire and gave him forty dollars.
She had planned to drive to Providence.
Instead, the engine began smoking outside Portsmouth.
Hope pulled into an abandoned gas station.
Her hands shook as she killed the ignition.
Second key.
Inside her arm.
It sounded insane.
But overseas, after the explosion, she had awakened in a military hospital with both arms bandaged and no clear memory of the first forty-eight hours.
Doctors told her they had removed metal fragments.
She had never asked to see them.
Why would she?
She had been too busy learning that everyone else in the vehicle was dead.
Hope pressed two fingers against the thick grafted skin beneath her right forearm.
There had always been a hard spot.
Doctors had called it scar tissue.
She suddenly felt sick.
A black SUV stopped twenty yards away.
Hope grabbed the tire iron.
The driver’s door opened.
Luca stepped out.
Alone.
She closed her eyes.
“Of course.”
He walked toward her.
“You stole a truck.”
“I borrowed it.”
“The registration expired in 2022.”
“Carl is an optimist.”
“Get in my car.”
“No.”
Luca stopped five feet away.
“You cannot keep running.”
“I’ve done okay so far.”
“You sleep in a Honda.”
“That Honda is paid off.”
His frustration flared.
“You think this is funny?”
“No.”
Her answer silenced him.
Hope looked down.
“I think if that key is inside my arm, everyone near me becomes a target.”
“They already are.”
“That’s why I’m leaving.”
“To go where?”
“Anywhere that isn’t your house.”
Luca stepped closer.
“Vittorio knows your name.”
“I know.”
“He has resources.”
“I know.”
“He hunted you for three years.”
“No.”
Hope looked at him.
“He couldn’t find me for three years.”
That made Luca stop.
She tapped the cheap delivery-company logo on the jacket she had forgotten to take.
“You know what broke delivery drivers are very good at?”
He waited.
“Becoming invisible.”
There it was.
A life Luca suddenly understood.
Cash motels.
Parking lots.
Temporary jobs.
Never staying long enough for anyone to remember.
“What happened after Syria?” he asked.
Hope’s face shut down.
“Nothing.”
“People do not usually go from decorated military medic to living in a car because nothing happened.”
“I wasn’t decorated.”
“Elias called you the best medic in Syria.”
“Elias exaggerated.”
“He also thought my haircut was criminal, so his judgment was inconsistent.”
Hope almost smiled.
Then she sat on the pickup’s hood.
Luca remained standing.
After a while, she spoke.
“I came home.”
He waited.
“My mother had died while I was deployed. Cancer. I made it back for the funeral.”
“I’m sorry.”
Hope nodded without looking at him.
“My fiancé lasted three months after I came back.”
Luca said nothing.
“I woke up screaming. Couldn’t sleep indoors. Couldn’t stand fireworks. Couldn’t let anyone touch my arms.”
She rubbed one wrist.
“He tried. Then he stopped trying.”
“What was his name?”
Hope looked at him.
“Why?”
“So I can dislike him accurately.”
That got a small laugh.
“Ryan.”
“I dislike Ryan.”
“He wasn’t cruel.”
“He left.”
“I pushed.”
“He could have stayed.”
“Not everyone wants to fight every day.”
Luca looked toward the road.
“My brother would have.”
Hope’s face softened.
“Your brother was an idiot.”
“Frequently.”
“He would’ve driven me crazy.”
“He specialized in that.”
Silence settled between them.
Then Luca said, “Come back.”
“I can’t.”
“Not to my house.”
Hope looked at him.
“To a doctor.”
Her body stiffened.
“No.”
“Hope.”
“No hospitals.”
“We need imaging.”
“No.”
“If there’s metal in your arm—”
“There is metal in my arm.”
“If it’s a key—”
“No.”
Luca studied her.
This was not stubbornness.
This was terror.
He lowered his voice.
“What happened in the hospital?”
Hope stood abruptly.
“Nothing.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I said nothing.”
He moved without thinking.
Then remembered.
No grabbing.
He stopped.
“Tell me what you need.”
Hope stared at him.
Nobody asked that.
Doctors had told her what they needed.
Commanders had told her what they needed.
Employers.
Collectors.
Landlords.
Patients.
Everyone needed something.
“What?”
“To get through an examination.”
Hope swallowed.
“A room where I can see the door.”
“Done.”
“No restraints.”
“Done.”
“No sedatives.”
“Done.”
“A female doctor.”
“Done.”
“You don’t come in.”
That one cost him.
He nodded.
“Done.”
Two hours later, Hope sat inside the private imaging suite of a small clinic owned by one of Luca’s companies.
Dr. Naomi Chen studied the scan.
Hope watched her face.
“There’s something there.”
Hope’s pulse jumped.
“What?”
Chen enlarged the image.
A tiny rectangular metallic shape sat beneath scar tissue near the radius.
“It’s not surgical hardware.”
Hope stared.
“Can you remove it?”
“Yes.”
“Today?”
“Yes.”
Luca waited outside.
He had been pacing for forty-three minutes when the door opened.
Hope emerged with her right arm bandaged.
Her face was white.
Dr. Chen followed carrying a sealed evidence cup.
Inside lay a tiny black object.
Not a key.
A memory capsule.
Luca stared.
“Elias put that in her?”
Hope shook her head.
“No.”
Chen said, “Based on the scar tissue, it was inserted during treatment after the explosion.”
Hope’s expression hardened.
“Someone at the military hospital.”
Luca picked up the cup.
There was a microscopic number etched into the metal.
E.F.-17.
Elias Ferretti.
Hope sat down.
“He knew.”
“What?”
“He knew he wasn’t getting out.”
Luca looked at her.
Hope’s eyes filled.
“He must have put something in my medical kit before the explosion. Someone found it afterward and hid it inside me.”
Luca’s voice softened.
“So you could carry it home.”
“No.”
Hope looked at him.
“So no one could torture me for something I didn’t know I had.”
The thought sickened them both.
Teddy entered.
“Boss.”
Luca turned.
“What?”
“We found something about Vittorio.”
He handed over a file.
“Financial records from a shell company. Payments began three months before Elias died.”
“To who?”
Teddy hesitated.
“Someone inside the clinic system that treated Hope overseas.”
Hope stood.
“Name.”
Teddy looked at Luca.
“Dr. Calvin Mercer.”
Hope’s face drained.
Luca noticed.
“You know him.”
She backed into the chair.
Hope whispered, “He was my surgeon.”
The room fell silent.
Then Teddy’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“Where?”
He listened.
“Don’t touch anything.”
Luca stepped forward.
“What happened?”
Teddy ended the call.
“Dr. Mercer flew into Boston yesterday.”
Hope stared.
“Why?”
Teddy looked at the evidence cup.
“I think we just removed the answer.”
Luca took Hope’s good hand.
This time she did not pull away.
“We open it together.”
Twenty minutes later, a forensic technician connected the capsule.
One encrypted file appeared.
Video.
Hope pressed play.
Elias filled the screen.
Blood covered the side of his face.
The recording shook violently.
“Hope, if you’re seeing this, I’m sorry.”
Her breath broke.
Luca gripped the table.
Elias continued.
“I found the ledger. Vittorio is running Janus through Newport shipping. But he isn’t the one I’m afraid of.”
Luca leaned closer.
“The person above him is called Shepherd.”
Static crackled.
“They have influence in law enforcement, military contracting, ports. I don’t know the identity.”
Elias looked over his shoulder.
Gunfire sounded.
Then he faced the camera again.
“Hope, remember what I told you.”
Her eyes flooded.
Luca whispered, “What did he tell you?”
The recording continued.
“Sometimes surviving is the mission.”
Hope covered her mouth.
Elias smiled weakly.
“And Luke…”
Luca froze.
“If she made it home, don’t scare her.”
Hope made a broken sound that might have been a laugh.
“He knows you.”
“He knew me.”
Elias’s expression became serious.
“Trust her when she tells you who Shepherd is.”
The screen went black.
One second later, a second file appeared automatically.
A photograph.
A man shaking hands with Salvatore Ferretti at a Newport charity gala.
Hope leaned closer.
Luca stopped breathing.
Because the man in the photograph was standing inside Luca’s mansion at that exact moment.
Detective Raina Ortiz.
Not beside the man.
Beside his daughter.
Her father.
Retired Rhode Island Attorney General Samuel Ortiz.
And beneath the photograph Elias had typed four words.
SHEPHERD IS SAMUEL ORTIZ.
Hope looked toward the door.
“Where’s Detective Ortiz?”
Teddy’s face went pale.
“At your house.”
“With Marta and Dominic.”
May you like
Luca was already moving.
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