Chapter 1 - Eight Minutes
“Can you… please save me?”
The words barely made it out of Lena Walsh’s mouth.
She sat wedged between the bathtub and the bathroom vanity, her back pressed against cold tile, her left arm held tightly against her body because allowing it to hang made the pain flare so violently that black spots crowded the edges of her vision.
Outside the door, Derek laughed.
That laugh had followed her through five years of marriage.
Sometimes it came after he threw a glass into the sink beside her head.
Sometimes after he blocked the apartment door and asked where she thought she was going.
Sometimes after he squeezed her wrist hard enough to leave finger-shaped bruises, then kissed the marks the next morning and told her she had made him angry.
Tonight had been different.
He had twisted.
The crack had been unmistakable.
Lena had screamed.
Derek had looked down at her arm bending wrong and smiled.
Not because he failed to understand what he had done.
Because he did understand.
Then he walked into the kitchen and poured bourbon.
That was when something inside Lena changed.
Not courage exactly.
More like exhaustion becoming heavier than fear.
She had locked herself in the bathroom, dug through her purse with one good hand, and found the black card she had been carrying for four months.
Vincent Moretti.
A name New Yorkers said differently depending on whether they knew him through newspapers, neighborhoods, courtrooms, or rumors.
Lena knew only one thing personally.
Four months earlier, she had spilled coffee beside his table during a midnight diner shift.
Everyone else in the restaurant had frozen.
Vincent had simply moved his cuff out of the way and said:
“It’s all right.”
When she cleared the table later, she found his card beneath the receipt.
On the back, handwritten:
If you ever need help.
Lena had nearly thrown it away.
Instead, she kept it.
Now the bathroom door shook as Derek hit it again.
“Who are you calling?”
Lena curled closer to the tub.
The phone rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then:
“Talk.”
The voice on the other end was quiet.
She swallowed.
“I don’t know if you remember me.”
Silence.
Then:
“Lena.”
Her eyes filled immediately.
She had not expected him to remember her name.
Derek slammed his shoulder against the door.
The frame cracked.
Vincent heard it.
“Who is that?”
“My husband.”
“What did he do?”
Lena looked at her arm.
“He broke it.”
The silence changed.
Nothing dramatic.
No threat.
No curse.
Then Vincent asked:
“Address.”
She gave it.
“Are you alone with him?”
“Yes.”
“Any weapons?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you get out through a window?”
“Fourteenth floor.”
“Lock anything you can.”
“The lock is breaking.”
Another impact.
This time a splinter shot across the bathroom floor.
Lena whispered:
“How long?”
“Eight minutes.”
The certainty in his answer frightened her almost as much as Derek did.
“What happens in eight minutes?”
“Help reaches you.”
Derek kicked the door.
The lock tore free.
The door burst inward and struck the wall.
Lena screamed and raised her good arm over her head.
Derek stood in the doorway, chest heaving, black T-shirt damp with sweat. He looked at the phone in her hand and grinned.
“Well?”
He walked toward her.
“Who’s coming?”
Lena backed against the bathtub.
Derek snatched the phone.
He looked at the screen.
The call was still connected.
“Vincent Moretti?”
He laughed.
Actually laughed.
Then held the phone to his ear.
“You know what, Vincent? Whatever story she told you, she’s dramatic. She fell.”
Lena stared at him.
Derek’s smile faltered slightly.
Vincent must have said something.
“What?”
Derek listened.
Then scoffed.
“No, you listen to me. This is my wife. This is my apartment.”
Another pause.
Derek’s jaw tightened.
“What did you say?”
Lena could faintly hear Vincent’s voice through the phone.
Not the words.
Just the tone.
Derek ended the call.
“There.”
He tossed the phone onto the floor.
“Your scary friend isn’t coming.”
Lena looked at the bathroom clock.
Seven minutes.
Derek crouched in front of her.
“You embarrassed me.”
She said nothing.
“You make me look like some monster.”
Nothing.
He reached for her injured arm.
Lena recoiled.
Then came a sound from the apartment entrance.
Not pounding.
One knock.
Heavy.
Derek stopped.
A second knock followed.
Then a man’s voice from the hallway.
“Mr. Walsh.”
Derek looked toward the bathroom door.
His confidence flickered.
Lena looked at the clock again.
Six minutes and forty-three seconds.
Vincent had not meant he personally needed eight minutes.
Someone had already been closer.
Then the apartment intercom buzzed.
Derek ignored it.
A moment later, another voice came through the hall.
“This is building security. Open the door.”
Derek’s face changed completely.
Because whatever he had expected after stealing Lena’s phone, it had not been witnesses.
And then someone outside added:
May you like
“NYPD is on the way.”
Cliffhanger: Vincent had not sent men to punish Derek—he had used the call to trigger a chain of building security, emergency medical response, and police attention, and Derek’s sudden panic suggested there was something inside the apartment he feared authorities discovering even more than Lena’s broken arm.
