Chapter 2 - Eight Minutes
“Get down.”
I didn’t think.
I dropped.
My husband lunged toward me at the exact moment the apartment’s front door crashed open.
The sound was enormous.
For half a second, everything froze.
My husband turned toward the hallway.
“What the hell?”
Heavy footsteps thundered across the hardwood.
Not one person.
Several.
My husband grabbed my hair.
Pain shot through my scalp.
I screamed.
“Who did you call?”
He ripped the phone from my hand and threw it against the bathroom wall.
The screen cracked.
But before he could touch me again, a man appeared behind him.
Tall.
Dark suit.
Expressionless.
I had seen him at the diner months earlier.
He had been one of the men standing near Vincent’s booth.
My husband spun around.
“Who the hell are you?”
The man grabbed his wrist.
My husband swung.
It was almost embarrassing how quickly the fight ended.
His fist never landed.
The stranger twisted his arm behind his back and drove him against the bathroom doorframe.
My husband screamed.
“What the—let go of me!”
Two more men entered.
Then the hallway became quiet.
Not empty.
Quiet.
The kind of quiet that happens when everyone knows someone important has arrived.
Black shoes stopped outside the bathroom.
I looked up.
Vincent Moretti stood in my apartment.
He wore a charcoal overcoat over a black suit.
No tie.
No visible weapon.
He didn’t need one.
I had served him coffee three nights a week for months, but the man standing in my destroyed bathroom did not look like the quiet customer who left hundred-dollar tips and read newspapers alone at one in the morning.
This Vincent was different.
His face was completely still.
His eyes found me first.
Not my husband.
Me.
They moved to my swollen arm.
Then to the blood near my lip.
Then to the bruises along my throat.
Something changed in his expression.
It was small.
Terrifyingly small.
“Lena.”
My husband stopped struggling.
“You know him?”
Vincent ignored him.
He stepped over the broken pieces of the bathroom door and crouched in front of me.
“Can you stand?”
“I think so.”
“Don’t.”
His voice softened.
“An ambulance is coming.”
My husband laughed nervously.
“An ambulance? She’s fine.”
Vincent turned his head.
That was all.
My husband stopped laughing.
Vincent looked at him for several seconds.
“You broke her arm?”
“It was an accident.”
I stared at him.
An accident.
Five years of bruises.
Five years of apologies.
Five years of promises.
Five years of telling myself tomorrow would be different.
And now my arm hung against my side at an angle no arm should ever hang.
An accident.
Vincent looked back at me.
“Was it?”
I shook my head.
“No.”
My husband’s face changed.
“Lena.”
Vincent stood.
My husband tried to pull away from the man holding him.
“Listen, you don’t know what she’s like. She gets dramatic. She starts fights and then—”
“Stop.”
Vincent did not raise his voice.
My husband stopped anyway.
Sirens approached outside.
That surprised me.
I looked at Vincent.
“You called the police?”
“I called an ambulance.”
“And the police?”
“They’ll come with it.”
My husband suddenly smiled.
“Good.”
Vincent looked at him.
My husband seemed to recover a little courage.
“Good. Let them come. I live here. She’s my wife. These guys broke into my apartment.”
He looked toward me.
“You think they’re going to believe her?”
That sentence did something to me.
Because he had said versions of it before.
Nobody will believe you.
Nobody cares.
Where will you go?
Who do you have?
For years, those questions had kept me trapped more effectively than any locked door.
Vincent glanced around the bathroom.
Broken door.
Broken phone.
My arm.
Bruises.
Then he looked at my husband.
“I think they’ll manage.”
Paramedics entered minutes later.
One of them knelt beside me.
“What’s your name?”
“Lena.”
“Lena, I’m Sarah. I’m going to look at your arm, okay?”
I nodded.
The moment she touched it, I nearly blacked out.
Vincent caught my shoulder with one hand.
“Easy.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
I almost laughed.
Why did everyone say that when clearly nothing was fine?
Police officers entered.
My husband immediately started talking.
Fast.
Confident.
He told them I had been drinking.
I hadn’t.
He said I attacked him.
I didn’t.
He said Vincent’s men broke into our home and assaulted him.
That part was technically true.
Then one officer looked at me.
“Ma’am, did your husband cause these injuries?”
My mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
My husband was watching me.
I knew that look.
I knew what happened after that look.
Except tonight there were police officers between us.
Paramedics.
Vincent.
His men.
And something I had not possessed in five years.
A choice.
“Yes.”
My husband’s face changed.
“Lena.”
I looked directly at the officer.
“Yes. He broke my arm.”
“You lying bitch.”
The officer nearest him immediately turned.
“Sir, keep your mouth shut.”
“She’s lying!”
“Enough.”
“She fell!”
I heard myself say, “No.”
Everyone looked at me.
I swallowed.
“He grabbed my wrist and twisted until it broke.”
My husband stared at me.
I continued.
“He’s hurt me before.”
His face drained.
“How many times?” the officer asked.
I looked down.
“I don’t know.”
That was the truth.
I had stopped counting.
The officer became very still.
“Do you have photographs?”
“Yes.”
My husband swore.
“They’re nothing. She bruises easily.”
“I have hospital records too.”
He stared at me.
That surprised him.
He hadn’t known.
Neither had I, really.
Not until I said it aloud.
Three years earlier, after he shoved me down the stairs, I told the emergency room doctor I had slipped.
But the doctor had looked at me for a long time.
She had documented everything.
A year later, another nurse had done the same.
Maybe some part of me had been leaving breadcrumbs for the woman I hoped I would eventually become.
My husband was handcuffed.
He looked at Vincent.
“You think you can just walk into my house?”
Vincent said nothing.
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
One of Vincent’s men almost smiled.
Vincent didn’t.
My husband turned toward me as the officers pulled him away.
“This is your fault.”
Those words should have hurt.
Instead, something inside me finally snapped into place.
“No,” I said.
He stopped.
“This is yours.”
The police took him away.
The paramedics loaded me into an ambulance.
Vincent followed.
“You don’t have to come.”
“I know.”
I stared at him.
“Then why are you?”
He looked at my arm.
“Because you called.”
The emergency room confirmed two fractures.
One required surgery.
Three ribs were bruised.
My lip needed stitches.
The doctor asked whether I felt safe returning home.
“No.”
It was the first time I had answered that question honestly.
A social worker came.
Then a detective.
Then another doctor.
Vincent remained outside the room through all of it.
He never interrupted.
Never pressured me.
Never entered unless I asked.
At four in the morning, after medication dulled the pain, I found him sitting alone in the hallway.
“You stayed.”
He stood.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His eyes met mine.
“You asked me to save you.”
I looked away.
“I didn’t mean…”
“What?”
“I don’t know what I meant.”
“You were afraid.”
“Yes.”
“You needed help.”
“Yes.”
“Then you meant exactly what you said.”
Tears burned my eyes.
I hated crying in front of people.
Especially men.
Especially powerful men.
Vincent seemed to notice.
He looked away, giving me the strange gift of privacy while standing three feet from me.
“Where am I supposed to go?”
“You have options.”
“I don’t have family in New York.”
“Friends?”
“My husband made sure I stopped having those.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“I have a place.”
I immediately stiffened.
He noticed.
“No.”
“No?”
“You’re thinking I’m asking you to stay with me.”
I felt embarrassed.
“Aren’t you?”
“No.”
He reached into his coat.
Slowly.
Then handed me a key.
“There’s an apartment above the diner.”
I stared at it.
“I didn’t know there was an apartment.”
“The building belongs to me.”
Of course it did.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would you let me stay there?”
“Because it’s empty.”
“I can’t afford—”
“You can pay rent when you’re able.”
“I don’t want charity.”
“It isn’t charity.”
“What is it?”
“A locked door your husband doesn’t have a key to.”
That silenced me.
I took the key.
“Thank you.”
Vincent nodded.
Then his phone rang.
One of his men spoke urgently on the other end.
Vincent’s expression changed.
“What?”
He listened.
Then looked toward me.
Something in his eyes made my stomach tighten.
“What happened?”
He ended the call.
“Your husband made bail.”
My blood went cold.
“What?”
“His attorney was waiting.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It was arranged quickly.”
“By who?”
Vincent didn’t answer.
“Vincent.”
He looked toward the hospital entrance.
“Your husband has friends you didn’t tell me about.”
“I don’t know any of his friends.”
“I believe you.”
“What does that mean?”
Vincent hesitated.
Then he asked a question I didn’t understand.
“What exactly does your husband do for work?”
“Financial consulting.”
“For whom?”
“Different clients.”
“Names.”
“I don’t know.”
Vincent’s expression hardened.
“Did he ever mention the Carbone family?”
The name meant nothing to me.
“No.”
Vincent became silent.
“Who are they?”
“People you don’t want knowing your name.”
My heart accelerated.
“Do they?”
Vincent’s phone rang again.
This time he put it on speaker.
A man said, “Boss, we found Brooks.”
I frowned.
Brooks?
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“Where?”
“Outside the hospital.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
Vincent stepped toward the window.
Far below us, black vehicles lined the curb.
Then another car turned onto the street.
Silver.
Familiar.
My husband’s car.
It stopped across from the hospital.
The driver’s window lowered.
I could not see his face from six floors up.
But I knew.
I knew.
Vincent moved between me and the window.
“Get back.”
“What is happening?”
The silver car drove away.
Vincent stared after it.
Then his phone vibrated.
A photograph appeared.
He looked at it.
His face went cold.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward me.
The picture had been taken minutes earlier.
It showed me through the hospital window.
Underneath it was a message.
MORETTI SHOULD HAVE LEFT ANOTHER MAN’S WIFE ALONE.
I looked up.
“Who sent that?”
May you like
Vincent slipped the phone into his pocket.
“The reason you’re not going back to that apartment tonight.”
