perfume reached me before her mouth did.
“Die before Friday, honey,” she whispered against my ear, soft as a lullaby. “The money moves so much faster once you stop breathing.”
Every muscle in my body wanted to reach up and grab her by the throat.
I didn’t move a finger.
She straightened, smoothed her coat, and walked out already composing her face for the hallway.
Three minutes later, quieter footsteps came in.
“Mr. Whitfield?”
Rosa Delgado. She’d cleaned my penthouse for seven months — quiet, careful, the kind of woman people like Vanessa talked around because they’d never once considered her worth talking to.
She set down a fresh vase of white lilies, then made a face at them.
“I’ve never liked these,” she murmured. “They smell like a funeral pretending to be a wedding.”
I nearly smiled.
Then she tucked the blanket higher over my shoulder, not for the nurses,
just because she thought I might be cold, and my chest went tight in a way that had nothing to do with the broken ribs.
“I heard her,” Rosa whispered.
My pulse jumped.
“I heard Miss Vanessa yesterday too. She said grief only counts if somebody’s there to see it.” Rosa’s hands twisted the hem of her apron. “People like me get paid to pretend we don’t hear anything, Mr. Whitfield.”
She stepped closer.
“But what she just said wasn’t grief.”
Her voice shook.
“That was a countdown.”
The room went silent enough that I could hear the monitor’s next three beeps.
“I think they mean to finish what the crash didn’t,” Rosa said.
Her fingers brushed mine under the blanket.
I moved my smallest finger against her hand.
Rosa froze.
Her breath caught as my eyes opened all the way for the first time in six days.
