He Laughed While I Was Hit novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Photo

Rocco shows her the photo already mocking her in the company chat, the police say his family filed first, and a locked phone in her coat pocket buzzes.

Rocco recovered fast.

He always did.

"Mr. Doyle," he said, and stepped over my threshold without being asked. "This is a family matter."

Brennan did not put his cup down.

"It's Britta's apartment," he said. "She decides who comes in."

I had not decided yet.

Rocco held the roses out to me again.

His phone was still shouting in his other hand, and he thumbed it to mute.

"Baby, look at yourself," he said. "You're upset. Nobody blames you for an upset."

"Nobody blames me?"

"Fiorella was out of line, I told her so." He sighed. "She's grieving. You know she's not herself."

Fiorella had been herself for five slaps.

I took the roses from him because it kept my hands busy.

Then I dropped them in the sink, thorns first.

Rocco's smile flickered.

He turned the phone around and showed me the screen.

It was the company group chat, with two hundred names in it.

The first message was a photo of my face, swollen and bleeding at the lip.

Underneath, someone had typed: Britta's tantrum. Fiorella calmed her down.

Dozens of people had put a laughing face on it.

"That went out at lunch," Rocco said gently. "I didn't send it. But you see how it looks. If you pull the license, the story is that you're unstable, and I'm the husband who stayed kind."

He stepped closer.

"Sign it back today and I'll have it deleted. Every copy."

I looked at the laughing faces.

"Get out of my apartment," I said.

"Sunday dinner at the house," Rocco said. "Father is expecting you. Bring the pen."

He looked at Brennan once more.

Then he walked out and left the door open.

Brennan crossed the room and shut it.

"You don't have to stay here," he said.

"I'm going to the hospital," I said. "Then the police."

"I'll drive you."

"You'll drive me to the door." I took my coat from the hook. "I do the rest myself."

He opened his mouth, closed it, and nodded.

I liked him a little for that.

The doctor in the emergency room asked me twice if I was safe at home.

"I'm not at home," I said. "I'm at my own place."

She photographed my cheeks from three angles with a ruler held beside each one.

She wrote in her notes: bilateral facial contusions, split lip, patient states five open-hand strikes while restrained.

I read the note upside down and asked her to add that two men held my arms.

She added it.

At the precinct a young officer took my statement at a desk by the window.

He typed slowly, and his ears went red when he looked at my face.

"Names of the men who restrained you?"

"I don't know. They work for my husband."

"Your husband is Rocco Venturi?"

I said yes.

The officer stopped typing.

He glanced at a sergeant across the room, and the sergeant glanced back.

"Ma'am," he said, "one second."

He went over and talked low.

The sergeant came back with a folder and set it on the desk, square to the edge.

"This came in at two this afternoon," he said. "A lawyer for the Venturi family filed it. A complaint against you."

I did not touch the folder.

"For what?"

"Assault on Mrs. Fiorella Venturi, and disturbing the peace in a place of business."

I laughed once.

It hurt my lip.

"I was the one held down."

"The complaint says you struck her first, and that your injuries came from the people who pulled you off her." He turned a page. "It has a signed statement from Mrs. Venturi."

He showed me the bottom of the page.

The signature was small and wobbly, and the last letters ran downhill.

It was Fiorella's.

I stared at it for a long moment.

I had not hit anyone in my life.

"Two department managers were in the room," I said. "Ask them."

"We will." The sergeant did not sound hopeful. "They work for the Venturis too."

I filed my report anyway.

I signed my name at the bottom, large and square, with the date beside it.

When I walked out, Brennan was leaning on his car across the street with his hands in his pockets.

I should not have been glad to see him, and I was.

I got in and sat with my bag in my lap.

"They filed first," I said.

He did not ask who they were.

"Then we file better."

I reached into my coat for a tissue.

My fingers hit something hard and plastic that was not mine.

I pulled it out.

It was a cheap gray flip phone, the kind sold at a gas station counter.

It had a cracked screen and a lock on it, and it had been in my coat since the boardroom.

Since the moment Fiorella's sleeve brushed my pocket.

My throat tightened.

Brennan looked at it, and at me.

"Is that yours?"

"No."

"Whose?"

I did not answer, because the phone buzzed in my hand.

The cracked screen lit with one message from a number I did not know.

It said: Not yet. Keep it charged.

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