The Street Boy Who Saved the Millionaire's Life

CHAPTER 3 - THE SONG ROSA KNEW

Leo followed the nurse down the hall so fast he nearly slipped.

Rosa lay in a narrow bed, small as folded laundry beneath a white blanket. Her curls were damp with sweat. Her cheeks were flushed from fever. But when she saw Leo, she smiled.

"You came back."

He took her hand. "Always."

Then she looked past him, toward Mr. Balzac in the doorway.

"The lady with the blue ring," she whispered. "She said you would come if the song didn't work."

Mr. Balzac stopped walking.

Leo turned. "What is she talking about?"

Rosa's eyes drifted half shut. "The pretty lady at church. She gave me soup. She knew Mommy's scarf."

Mr. Balzac stepped closer to the bed, and for the first time, Leo saw the man lose control of his expression.

"My wife had a blue sapphire ring," he said.

"Had?" Leo asked.

Mr. Balzac looked at Rosa, not at him. "She died eight months ago."

Leo shook his head. "Then it wasn't her."

"Maybe not," Mr. Balzac said, but his voice had thinned. "What song, sweetheart?"

Rosa hummed weakly.

It was only four notes.

Mr. Balzac sat down hard in the chair beside the bed.

Leo had heard that tune before. Their mother used to hum it while mending clothes. A nonsense little melody. The kind adults make without thinking.

But not nonsense now.

"My mother sang that," Leo said.

Mr. Balzac looked up sharply. "What was her name?"

Leo hesitated. Street life had taught him that names were power. But Rosa was sick. The doctor was kind. And this man had not handed them to the police.

"Elena Cruz."

The silence that followed was heavier than anger.

Mr. Balzac reached into his wallet with unsteady fingers and pulled out an old photograph, worn at the corners. In it, a younger Elena stood in a church kitchen, smiling beside a woman with dark hair and a sapphire ring.

"My wife, Claire," he said.

Leo stared at the picture.

On the back, in faded ink, were five words in his mother's handwriting:

If anything happens, find Gabriel.

Leo looked up slowly.

"Your name is Gabriel Balzac?"

Before the man could answer, another voice cut through the room.

"He can't help you," said a woman from the doorway.

A tall woman in a navy coat stepped inside and held up an ID badge.

"I'm Detective Mara Hines. And Mr. Balzac may be the next target."