His Test Was Fake, But My Death Was Real novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Four Minutes

At the hospital Maeve loses a pregnancy and her heart stops. She wakes beside the man who caught her and tells him to let the Family believe she is dead.

The ceiling lights above the gurney slid past me one by one.

Someone cut my white dress up the middle with shears.

"Herbicide," a woman's voice said. "She drank it this morning. Get the lavage started."

"Pressure's falling," another voice said. "She's bleeding."

A man in grey held my hand through the whole hallway and did not let go at the doors.

"Maeve," he said. "Look at me."

I looked, and the ceiling went dark.

When I woke up, the room was quiet and the window was black.

My mouth tasted of metal.

A doctor stood at the foot of the bed with my chart held against her coat.

"You're awake," she said. "Don't sit up."

"What happened?"

"You swallowed a poison that burns the throat and the stomach. We pumped it out in time."

She stopped for a moment, and then she went on in a flat, careful voice.

"You were also seven weeks pregnant."

I stared at her.

"Were," I said.

"I'm sorry. The pregnancy ended in the ambulance. Your heart stopped on the table, and we worked on you for four minutes."

"I was dead?"

"For four minutes, yes. You came back."

I put my hand low on my stomach, where the cramps had been.

There was nothing there but a dull ache.

I had not known.

I had been sick every morning for a week, and I had told myself it was the vigil.

Stefano had not known either.

Nobody had known, and now there was no one left to tell.

I did not cry.

I lay and looked at the white blanket, and something in me went very still.

The doctor left.

The man in grey was sitting in the corner chair with his coat folded over his knee.

He was older than Stefano, with grey at his temples and a pale scar through his left eyebrow.

He had Stefano's jaw and none of Stefano's smile.

"Who are you?" I said.

"Dario Carrano."

I knew the name.

It was the name nobody in the house said out loud.

"Aldo's first son," I said. "Stefano's brother. You were sent away."

"Six years ago, yes."

"You were on the bridge."

"I was parked at the end of it."

"You didn't clap."

"No."

"Why were you there?"

He took a moment to answer.

"I heard my brother had a plan for his bride. I wanted to see what kind of man he'd turned into."

"And you saw."

"I saw a woman climb a rail in a wedding dress. I got to the road before you did. That's all I'll say for tonight."

I turned my face to the window.

"Tell me the rest in the morning, then."

"There may not be a morning like this one," he said.

His phone buzzed, and he read it.

"Your fiancé's men are in the lobby," he said. "Four of them. They've told the desk you fainted at the estate and they're here to bring you home."

My whole body went cold.

"Stefano knows I'm here."

"Stefano knows you went down the road. He sent them to collect you. In three days, he thinks, you walk down the aisle and the whole Family sees how well he tested you."

"He said I'd be back by morning."

"He'll say it again when they carry you out of here."

I looked at the heart monitor above my head.

It had stopped once tonight, and it was ticking steadily now.

Footsteps went by in the hall, and a radio crackled somewhere near the elevators.

"What do you want to do?" Dario said.

"I want to go home."

"Then I'll walk you down to them."

"Not that home," I said.

I had no other one.

Aldo Carrano had taken me in when I was twenty-one, after the highway took my parents.

He had given me a room, a name at his table and a son to marry.

I had thanked him every day for six years.

A knock sounded on the door, and a nurse put her head in.

"There are some men downstairs asking for Miss MacNamara," she said. "Should I say she's awake?"

"Give us a minute," Dario said.

She went out.

He moved the chair closer to the bed.

"They'll come up with a family lawyer in an hour," he said. "You can go with them, and I'll put you in the car myself. Or you can tell me what the Family should believe."

"What do you mean, believe?"

"Everyone on that bridge saw you walk away doubled over in pain. Whatever you say tonight is the story they will tell for years."

I thought about the roses in Stefano's hand.

I thought about the lieutenants with their phones out, and about Camille wiping her eyes.

They had made me die for them for sport.

I had nearly died for real, and not one of them knew.

"Is there a doctor here who owes you a favour?" I asked.

"The one who worked on you."

"Then tell her what I want."

Dario waited.

"I want them to believe I died," I said.

His eyes did not change.

"It's what he asked of you on the bridge," he said. "He just didn't expect you to do it."

"Then he can have it."

Dario stood and went to the door.

When it opened, the doctor was already standing on the other side with a clipboard in her hand and a pen.

"Time of death," she said quietly. "I'll need to write one."

"The bridge," I said. "That morning."

She wrote it down.

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