Chapter 13 - The Longest Three Minutes
The drive back became a blur of red lights and silence.
Nico had gone into respiratory distress thirty minutes after their departure.
Naomi had already transferred him to Mercy Children’s Hospital.
Liana and Matteo reached the pediatric intensive care unit at the same time as Gabriel.
Matteo nearly broke the locked doors trying to enter.
Naomi stopped him.
“They’re working on him.”
“What happened?”
“Withdrawal.”
“You said he was improving.”
“He was.”
“What changed?”
“We found another compound in his blood.”
Matteo stared.
“What compound?”
“The antidote Gabriel gave him.”
Everyone looked at Gabriel.
His face went white.
“What?”
Naomi continued.
“It interacts with Velorin.”
“I was told it neutralized it.”
“By who?”
Gabriel looked horrified.
“A Bellmore pharmacist.”
“Name.”
“Evan Cross.”
Naomi cursed.
“He worked for Calder.”
Gabriel sat down.
“I poisoned him.”
“No.”
Naomi snapped.
“You were manipulated.”
Matteo moved toward him.
Liana stepped between them.
“Don’t.”
“My son is in there because of him.”
“Your son is in there because Calder built this.”
Matteo’s breathing became heavy.
Gabriel looked at him.
“If you need to hit me, do it.”
Matteo stared.
Then turned away.
Sofia’s lesson.
Think.
Not revenge.
Three minutes later, a doctor emerged.
“Nico is breathing.”
Matteo’s knees almost gave out.
Liana gripped the wall.
“He’s stable.”
The doctor continued.
“We’ve intubated him temporarily.”
“When can I see him?”
“Soon.”
Matteo looked through the glass.
Nico lay surrounded by tubes.
So small.
So still.
Liana felt Ava’s hospital room slam into her memory.
The monitor.
The lights.
The helplessness.
She couldn’t breathe.
She backed away.
Matteo noticed.
“Liana?”
She shook her head.
“I can’t.”
He followed her into the hallway.
“I can’t do this again.”
Her voice broke.
“I stood in a room like that.”
Matteo said nothing.
“I watched Ava stop breathing.”
Tears came.
“I can’t stand beside another crib and wait for another machine to go quiet.”
Matteo looked through the glass.
Then back at her.
“You don’t have to.”
Liana wiped her face angrily.
“Yes, I do.”
“No.”
“Nico needs—”
“Nico has me.”
She looked at him.
Matteo’s voice softened.
“You taught me how to hold him.”
He said.
“You found what everyone else missed.”
“You got us this far.”
“You don’t have to destroy yourself to prove you loved your daughter.”
Liana froze.
The words struck deeper than he probably knew.
For twenty-two days she had been punishing herself.
Maybe longer.
Working until exhaustion.
Refusing sleep.
Refusing quiet.
As though surviving Ava required suffering every second.
Liana sat.
Matteo sat beside her.
Neither spoke for a while.
Then the doctor allowed one visitor.
Matteo stood.
He looked at Liana.
“Come.”
“You’re his father.”
“Yes.”
He held out his hand.
“But you’re the reason I learned he was hurting.”
They entered together.
Nico looked impossibly small beneath the blankets.
Matteo touched his foot.
Not his neck.
Not his hand.
His foot.
“Hey.”
His voice cracked.
“It’s Dad.”
Liana looked away.
Matteo continued.
“I know I’ve been bad at this.”
Naomi stood behind them.
“Talking helps.”
Matteo gave her a look.
She shrugged.
“He’s sedated.”
Matteo looked back at Nico.
“I let people I trusted near you.”
He whispered.
“I thought money bought safety.”
His jaw tightened.
“I thought fear bought loyalty.”
Liana listened.
“I was wrong.”
Matteo touched Nico’s toes.
“When you wake up, things are going to be different.”
Nico did not move.
“Your mother tried to make me understand.”
He swallowed.
“I was too angry to hear her.”
A monitor beeped steadily.
“This time I’m listening.”
Hours passed.
Nico improved slowly.
The breathing tube came out that afternoon.
By evening, he opened his eyes.
Liana was sitting in the corner.
Matteo leaned over the crib.
“Nico?”
The baby blinked.
Then made one hoarse little sound.
“Da.”
Matteo froze.
Liana covered her mouth.
Nico lifted his fingers.
“Da.”
Matteo laughed.
It was the first time Liana had heard him laugh.
Not coldly.
Not politely.
Like a normal father.
He lowered his forehead to Nico’s hand.
Liana began crying.
Not because the moment belonged to her.
Because it didn’t.
Because fathers and sons were supposed to get moments like this.
Because Ava should have had hundreds of ordinary moments waiting for her.
And because maybe keeping Nico alive was not replacing Ava.
Maybe it was refusing to let another mother’s child become a red line in a ledger.
That night, Helen arrived with news.
“Nolan is gone.”
Matteo looked up.
“Gone where?”
“He left his home six hours ago.”
“Calder warned him.”
“Maybe.”
“Or Emily.”
Liana looked at Helen.
“Why does Nolan matter now?”
“He signed the false medical and accident reports.”
Helen said.
“And he was first on scene after Sofia’s crash.”
Matteo’s expression hardened.
“You think he knows something.”
“He knows everything.”
Helen placed an evidence bag on the table.
Inside was a flash drive.
“We found this at Calder’s estate.”
“What’s on it?”
“Audio.”
“Of what?”
Helen looked at Matteo.
“Sofia’s crash.”
The room became silent.
“They recorded it?”
“Not intentionally.”
Helen replied.
“Nolan’s police radio was running.”
She connected the drive.
Static filled the room.
Then voices.
Nolan.
Another officer.
An unknown male.
A woman coughing.
Matteo stopped breathing.
Sofia.
She had survived the crash.
Her weak voice came through the recording.
“My baby…”
Matteo’s face shattered.
Liana looked at him.
The official report said Sofia died on impact.
But Sofia was alive after the crash.
The audio continued.
Nolan said.
“She’s conscious.”
The unknown man answered.
“Then finish it.”
Liana felt cold.
Nolan replied.
“Not here.”
A vehicle door opened.
Sofia coughed again.
“Matteo…”
Then the recording ended.
Matteo stared at the speaker.
His wife had survived.
Someone had taken her from the crash site alive.
Helen spoke quietly.
“We need Nolan.”
Matteo looked at her.
“Where did they take her?”
“We don’t know.”
Liana remembered Bellmore.
The hidden labs.
The refrigerated samples.
The false death reports.
“What if Sofia didn’t die that night?”
Everyone turned.
Matteo stared at her.
Liana’s heart pounded.
“What if the crash wasn’t where they killed her?”
No one answered.
Because suddenly, for the first time in eight months, there was a worse possibility than Sofia dying in the wreck.
She might have been alive afterward.
May you like
And whatever happened next had been hidden more carefully than anything they had found so far.
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