Chapter 14 — Sixty Seconds

Wendy Vance stood there, in her expensive coat and her pristine white gloves, and for the first time I saw uncertainty in her, the faint tremor of a person who has played a card she was certain would win, and watched it lose.

Luca pulled his phone from his pocket, and tapped the screen, and held it up.

“You have sixty seconds,” he said, “to walk out of this room, and out of this hospital, and out of our lives, before my attorney, my security detail, and a federal compliance officer I have had on standby for exactly this possibility all arrive at that door.

Sixty seconds, Mother.