Chapter 6 - The First Words
The sterile hum of the ICU monitor was the only sound in the small room as I stepped across the threshold. The air smelled of antiseptic and old linen. Nadia was propped up slightly against the pillows, her face a pale mosaic of purple bruising, her swollen lips cracked and dry. But her eyes—those sharp, familiar hazel eyes that she had inherited from Celeste—were open, fixed on me with a lucidity that cut straight through the armor I had worn all night.
Behind me, the door remained half-open. I could hear the muffled, sharp exchange of Detective Dillard arguing with the hospital administrator outside, his voice dropping from feigned authority into frantic, controlled panic as he realized the leverage had shifted.
"Dad," Nadia whispered. Her voice was raspy, barely scraping past her bruised throat. "You came home."
I closed the distance in two strides, falling to my knees beside the bed so my face was level with hers. I avoided touching her shoulders, terrified of aggravating hidden fractures, and instead gently cupped her cold hand in both of mine. My fingers were shaking—the only sign of the adrenaline crash hitting my nervous system.
"I'm right here, sweetie," I choked out, my voice breaking for the first time since I stepped onto the porch. "I'm not going anywhere. You're safe."
"The ledger," she whispered, her gaze shifting past my shoulder toward the heavy leather book I had left on the nurse's desk. "Did you find it? Dillard... Dillard told Leo to take it. He said if I didn't keep quiet about Tyler, they would..." She stopped, a shudder racking her small frame as tears welled in the corners of her swollen eyes. "Tyler didn't run away, Dad. They killed him. I saw the deposit slips in the lockbox at the storage yard. Tyler was trying to walk away from their drug ring, and Dillard signed off on it."
"I know, Nadia," I said, leaning closer, pressing my forehead gently against her knuckles. "I have the book. The whole department knows now. Dillard is outside right now, and he's run out of places to hide."
"No," she gasped, her grip tightening on my fingers with surprising strength, her breath catching in panic. "It's not just Dillard, Dad. It's not just the police department. Look at page forty-two in the back pocket of the ledger. Read the name on the wire transfer from the syndicate's primary account."
I frowned, lifting my head. "What name?"
Before Nadia could answer, the door of the hospital room swung fully open. It wasn't Dillard who stepped inside.
It was Celeste.
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Her face was deathly pale, her eyes wide with a terror that had nothing to do with the corrupt detective standing in the hallway, and everything to do with the man she had lived with for eighteen years.
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