“And they’re asking who the girl is.”
Marco’s words seemed to travel through the room more slowly than everything else.
The humming fluorescent lights. The soft beeping beyond the operating-room doors. The faint rush of blood leaving my arm and collecting in the plastic bag beside me.
I looked at him.
“Who is asking?”
“Two men in the emergency department lobby.” His voice was low. “They came in claiming to be relatives of the crash victim. Security checked the visitor list. One of them gave Elena’s name before anyone told him she was here.”
Hannah’s face tightened.
“They said they were her family?”
Marco nodded. “They knew her full name. They also knew she was in surgery.”
A cold pressure settled behind my ribs.
I glanced through the glass again. Nurses moved around the operating table with practiced focus. Somewhere beneath the drapes, Elena Vasquez was still fighting for her life. My blood was being carried into her body while strangers searched for information about her.
“Are they still in the lobby?” I asked.
“They left before security could stop them.”
“License plates?”
“Partial. We’re working on it.”
I pulled my arm away from the technician too quickly. The needle came free, and she immediately pressed gauze against the inside of my elbow.
“Sir, you need to keep pressure here.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve lost enough blood to be lightheaded.”
“I said I’m fine.”
The words came sharper than I intended. The technician lowered her eyes, and shame passed through me before I could dismiss it.
I held the gauze in place.
“Sorry,” I said. “That wasn’t directed at you.”
She gave a small nod. “I understand.”
No, she didn’t. She had no reason to understand the chaos pressing against my skull.
Seventeen.
A crescent scar beneath her left eye.
Sofia’s eyes.
Mine.
The facts had been circling one another in my mind since the moment I saw Elena, but now they began to form a shape I wasn’t ready to name.
Hannah remained near the operating-room doors, her hands clasped tightly in front of her.
“She’ll need more blood,” she said. “Not necessarily from you, but the surgeons may request another donation if her condition changes.”
“Then I’ll give it.”
“You should rest first.”
“I’ll rest when she’s stable.”
Her expression softened, though concern remained in her eyes. “You don’t even know her.”
I looked through the glass.
“That’s what frightens me.”
Before Hannah could reply, a man in navy scrubs stepped out of the operating room. He was in his early fifties, with silver at his temples and tired eyes above his mask.
“Dr. Patel,” Hannah said.
He removed the mask and approached us. “The transfusion is helping. Her blood pressure is responding, and we’ve controlled most of the internal bleeding.”
A breath left me, one I hadn’t realized I was holding.
“But?” I asked.
Dr. Patel studied me. “But she sustained serious injuries. The next several hours are important. We’ve repaired damage to her spleen and liver, and we’re monitoring swelling.”
“Will she survive?”
“We believe she has a good chance.”
Good chance.
Two words that offered hope while protecting the speaker from promises.
“When can I see her?”
“Not yet. She’ll be moved to intensive care once we finish stabilizing her.”
“I’m not family.”
It came out more like a confession than a statement.
Dr. Patel glanced at Hannah, then back at me. “Were you involved in the accident?”
“No.”
“Then you’ll need to wait with everyone else.”
I almost told him who I was. Most people changed their minds when they heard my name. But the thought disgusted me.
Elena didn’t need my influence. She needed time.
“She’s alone,” I said.
Dr. Patel’s face shifted. “We haven’t been able to reach a parent or guardian. The number listed with her identification goes straight to voicemail.”
Hannah added, “The police are trying to locate someone.”
“Her parents?”
“We don’t know yet.”
I looked toward the lobby. “Has anyone from the crash come in?”
“Only the driver of the other vehicle,” Dr. Patel said. “He was treated for minor injuries and released to the police. Elena was alone in her car.”
Alone.
The word settled heavily.
A seventeen-year-old girl, injured on a frozen highway, with no family at the hospital and strangers asking questions before her doctors even knew where to find her home.
“What kind of car?” I asked.
“An older blue sedan,” Marco said. “It was registered to Elena Vasquez.”
I turned to him. “Find out where she lives.”
“Already doing it.”
“Quietly.”
Marco’s jaw tightened. “I know.”
He moved away, speaking into his phone.
Hannah watched him go. “You have people investigating her?”
“I have people making sure nobody reaches her before I understand why they’re looking.”
“That sounds like the same thing.”
“It isn’t.”
“Maybe not to you.”
Her words were calm, but they landed with more force than Marco’s warnings.
I stared at her. “You don’t know me.”
“No,” Hannah said. “But I know what fear looks like when it wears a tailored coat.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Outside, snow dragged itself across the windows in long white streaks. Inside, the hospital carried on around us—phones ringing, shoes squeaking across polished floors, families whispering in waiting areas.
I had spent seventeen years becoming someone people feared.
And a nurse who had known me for less than an hour had seen through all of it.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
“Sit down,” she said. “Keep pressure on your arm. Let the doctors work. And if you’re worried about that girl, try not to turn her hospital room into a battlefield.”
“I’m not here to hurt anyone.”
“I hope not.”
The quiet doubt in her voice was more difficult to bear than suspicion would have been.
I sat.
A few minutes later, Marco returned with his phone in hand. He waited until Hannah moved toward the nurses’ station before speaking.
“She lives in Logan Square,” he said. “A second-floor apartment on West Palmer. Lease is in her name.”
“Seventeen-year-olds don’t usually sign leases.”
“Her mother did. Sofia Bennett.”
The world narrowed.
I heard the name, but for several seconds I couldn’t connect it to anything beyond the sharp ache it created.
Sofia.
My hands went cold.
Marco watched me carefully. “You know her?”
I didn’t answer.
Seventeen years ago, Sofia Bennett had been the only person who could make me forget what my family was. She had laughed at my terrible coffee, stolen my jackets, and told me she could see the good in me even when I couldn’t.
Then my father discovered us.
He had given Sofia one choice: leave Chicago and never contact me, or watch her younger brother become collateral in a war he had nothing to do with.
That was how my father spoke about people—like lives were pieces on a board.
Sofia had left three weeks later.
Her letter had been brief.
_I love you too much to let you destroy yourself trying to save me._
I had searched for her until the search became a habit, then a sickness, then something I pretended no longer mattered.
I never found her.
“You’re certain?” I asked.
“Her mother’s name is listed on the lease. Sofia Bennett.”
“Where is she?”
“I’m checking.”
My throat felt dry. “Is she alive?”
“We don’t know yet.”
I stood too quickly. The hallway tilted, and Hannah caught my elbow before I could reach for the wall.
“Sit down,” she ordered.
“I need to find Sofia.”
“You need to avoid collapsing.”
“Marco—”
“Sit,” Hannah repeated.
There was no fear in her voice now, only authority. It reminded me of Enzo, who had spent half his life telling me when I was being an idiot.
I sat.
Marco lowered his phone. “I’ll send someone to the apartment.”
“No.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“I’ll go.”
“Absolutely not.”
“I said I’ll go.”
“You’ve just donated blood, and you’re pale enough to disappear into the wall.”
“I’m not leaving the hospital to search the apartment. I’m sending someone I trust to check whether Sofia is there.”
Marco considered correcting me, then decided against it.
“Who?”
“Your sister,” I said. “Clara.”
He blinked.
Clara Vitali was a social worker at a family resource center on the North Side. She knew how to enter a frightened person’s life without making them feel cornered. She also knew enough about my world to understand why I couldn’t send one of my men to Sofia’s door.
Marco’s expression softened with reluctant approval. “I’ll call her.”
“Tell her not to mention me unless Sofia asks.”
“And if she isn’t there?”
“Find out who is.”
Marco stepped away again.
Hannah returned with a cup of water and handed it to me. “Slowly.”
I drank.
She glanced at my bandaged arm. “You really knew the patient’s mother?”
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