Chapter 2 - The Missing Ten Minutes
Adrian did not blink.
The underground garage seemed to swallow all sound except for the distant drip of drainage water.
His father, Arthur Moretti, had stood in the family library eight years ago and repeated the state coroner's words.
Luca died on impact, Adrian.
He didn't suffer.
He felt no pain.
That comforting lie had been Adrian's only shield against madness for nearly three thousand nights.
Now, a battered stranger was tearing that shield to shreds with ten words.
"My brother was conscious?" Adrian’s voice shook despite his iron self-control.
"He was alive for ten, maybe twelve minutes after I reached him," Ethan said softly.
"Did you call the emergency dispatcher?"
"I hit nine-one-one on my personal cell the second my boots touched the mud."
"Then where is the call log in the county archives?" Adrian demanded.
"I don't know," Ethan whispered.
"I know what I dialed, and I know someone answered."
Adrian grabbed Ethan by the collar of his jacket, pulling him forward.
"What did my brother say to you?"
Ethan swallowed hard, fighting through the pain in his cracked ribs.
"He kept clawing at my jacket, begging me for my phone."
"Why?"
"He wanted to dial your number."
Adrian let go of the jacket, his hands falling limp to his sides.
The cold air in the garage felt suddenly thin, suffocating him from the inside out.
"Did he reach me?"
"He couldn't remember the ten digits," Ethan said, a flicker of genuine sorrow in his eyes.
"He had a severe head injury from the steering column."
"He knew the area code, and he knew your name, but the numbers kept slipping away from him."
That simple detail pierced Adrian deeper than any accusation could have.
Luca had always relied on speed dials and personal assistants.
Luca had never memorized a single phone number in his entire privileged life.
A con artist inventing a dramatic deathbed confession would have claimed Luca delivered a clear final message.
Ethan’s account sounded tragically, painfully real.
"And then?" Adrian asked, his voice strained.
"Luca unbuckled the watch with his left hand," Ethan said.
"His fingers were broken, but he forced the clasp open."
"He shoved the watch into my coat pocket."
"He told me that if he didn't wake up before the ambulance got down the hill, I had to bring it directly to you."
Adrian looked down at the scratched black dial resting against Ethan's wrist.
"If he gave you that watch eight years ago, why are you showing up on my property tonight?"
Ethan let out a ragged, bitter breath.
"Because before the sirens ever reached the tree line, someone else came down that hill."
"The emergency crew?"
"No," Ethan answered.
"A black sedan pulled onto the shoulder above us."
"Two men came sliding down the muddy slope through the brambles."
"I thought they were other drivers stopping to help."
"Luca saw them coming through the rain."
Adrian watched Ethan's pupils dilate with remembered terror.
"What did Luca do?"
"He tried to pull away from them," Ethan whispered.
"He went into total panic."
"A man who can barely breathe doesn't scream like that unless he recognizes the devils coming for him."
"Did he say who they were?" Adrian pressed.
"He only shouted one single name before they reached the door."
Adrian waited, his fingernails digging deep into his own palms.
Ethan looked up, holding Adrian's gaze with steady gravity.
"He screamed the name Victor."
Adrian stepped back as if he had been physically struck across the jaw.
Victor Moretti.
Their father's younger brother.
The warm, charismatic uncle who took Luca to Italian raceways and taught Adrian how to sail on Lake Michigan.
"You're lying," Adrian said instantly, his tone razor sharp.
"Victor was at my father’s estate that entire evening."
"He sat in the front parlor having dinner with our father when the state police arrived at two in the morning."
Ethan shook his head slowly.
"I don't know your family, Mr. Moretti."
"I didn't know who Victor was eight years ago, and I don't know where he spent his dinners."
"I only know what the dying boy in that crushed car screamed into the storm."
Adrian stared at the floor, his mind racing through every alibi Victor had presented after the funeral.
"What happened to you down there?" Adrian asked quietly.
"The two men told me to pack my gear and clear out of the ditch."
"They said private medical units were thirty seconds behind them."
"I told them I wasn't leaving an injured kid alone in the mud."
"One of them drew a heavy steel flashlight and cracked it across my temple."
Ethan pulled back his thinning hair above his right ear, exposing a jagged, pale scar tissue line.
"When I regained consciousness, my head was resting in the drainage ditch."
"The black sedan was gone."
"The road above was empty."
"And my tow truck had its ignition wires completely severed."
Adrian knelt back down, his expression terrifyingly still.
"Where was Luca?"
"Luca's body was back inside the driver's seat."
"Both doors were shut tight."
"The state police cruisers rolled down the shoulder five minutes later with their lightbars blazing."
"They treated me like an opportunistic rubbernecker who had stopped after the accident occurred."
"You claim you told them about the men in the sedan?"
"I screamed it at the troopers while they put me in the back of a cruiser," Ethan said.
"And what happened to your official statement?"
Ethan gave a hollow, hopeless laugh.
"When I was released from the county clinic the next morning, the report said I arrived after impact and saw nothing."
"No record of my phone call."
May you like
"No record of the sedan."
"No record of Luca ever speaking a word."
