Chapter 5: The Six Years I Stole From Him

They wouldn't let me in the room. I stood at the glass with my hands flat against it and I prayed to every saint my mother ever named. Inside, they laid my son on a steel table. They put a needle in Dante Moretti's arm. And I watched dark red climb the tube from a man who'd been dying himself twelve hours ago, into the body of a five-year-old boy. Nine minutes. At nine minutes, the monitor stuttered. At eleven, Leo's fingers moved. At fourteen, the doctor stepped back and pulled his mask...