Chapter 4 - Dr. Mercer’s TestDr. Samuel Mercer did not look like the kind of man who came when Mafia bosses called.
He was in his sixties, lean, gray-haired, and dressed in a wrinkled coat over a sweater that had seen better years. He carried a leather medical bag instead of a polished case, and when he entered the underground security room, he did not bow to Alessandro, flinch at the guards, or ask why the house smelled faintly of burned plastic.
His eyes went straight to Emma.
“Is this the child?”
I stood up so fast the chair scraped behind me.
“She’s my daughter.”
Dr. Mercer nodded.
“Then you stay with her. No one touches her without your permission.”
I liked him immediately.
Alessandro said nothing, but his eyes remained fixed on the tiny mark behind Emma’s ear.
Dr. Mercer washed his hands at a steel sink, put on gloves, then crouched in front of Emma.
“Hello, young lady.”
Emma hid half her face behind Mr. Rabbit.
“I’m Emma.”
“I’m Sam.”
“You a doctor?”
“Sometimes.”
“That means shots.”
“Not today unless your mama says yes.”
Emma looked at me.
“No shots.”
“No shots,” I promised, though I had no idea whether I could keep it.
Dr. Mercer examined the mark with a small light.
His expression did not change, but his silence frightened me.
He looked at Alessandro.
“How long ago?”
Alessandro answered before I could.
“Within the last hour.”
“What symptoms?”
“Crying from alarm, coughing from smoke, otherwise alert.”
Dr. Mercer looked at me.
“Sleepy? Dizzy? Nauseated? Slurred speech?”
“She’s three. Half her speech is slurred.”
His mouth twitched.
“Fair.”
Emma frowned.
“I talk good.”
“Yes, you do,” he said seriously.
Then he took out a small sterile wipe and cleaned the mark. Emma whimpered but did not cry. I held her hands, whispering nonsense about pancakes and cartoons and how brave she was.
Dr. Mercer swabbed the area and sealed the sample.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Too early to say.”
“Don’t do that.”
He looked up.
“Do what?”
“That doctor thing where you know something and hide it in your voice.”
For a second, the guards forgot not to stare.
Dr. Mercer stood slowly.
“It may be nothing. It may be a scratch. It may be a micro-needle puncture from a delivery patch or ring.”
“A ring?” I repeated.
Alessandro’s gaze sharpened.
“Valentina wears a ring.”
Nico nodded.
“Right hand. Ruby.”
Dr. Mercer’s mouth tightened.
“Poison ring sounds dramatic. More likely a spring-loaded cosmetic device modified for transdermal dosing.”
I stared at him.
“That is not less terrifying.”
“No,” he admitted. “It is not.”
My knees weakened.
I sat down again, pulling Emma into my lap.
Dr. Mercer took a small flashlight and checked her pupils, then her pulse, then her breathing.
“She appears stable. I want blood and urine tests.”
“No,” Emma said immediately.
I looked at the doctor.
“Is it necessary?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
Emma began shaking her head.
“No shots. Mama said.”
I felt like the worst mother alive.
Alessandro watched us from near the monitors. Something passed over his face when Emma pressed herself into me.
Pain.
Memory.
Not physical.
Something deeper.
He moved closer.
“Emma.”
She glared at him through tears.
“No shots.”
“I know.”
“You eat cookie but doctors still bad.”
“I agree.”
Dr. Mercer sighed.
“Thank you.”
Alessandro ignored him.
“But sometimes doctors need tiny samples to catch bad adults.”
Emma sniffed.
“Shiny lady?”
“Yes.”
Emma looked at her rabbit.
“She bad?”
Alessandro did not soften the truth, but he made it small enough for her to hold.
“She may have done a bad thing.”
Emma’s lower lip trembled.
“She said I pretty.”
“Bad people sometimes say nice things.”
I wished he had not said it.
I also knew Emma needed to hear it someday.
Just not at three.
Alessandro reached into his shirt pocket and took out a folded white handkerchief.
No initials.
No decoration.
He placed it on the table between them.
“If you let Dr. Mercer do one tiny needle, I will let Mr. Rabbit sit on my desk for five minutes next time.”
Emma considered this.
Nico looked like he was witnessing the negotiation of an international treaty.
“My Rabbit doesn’t like desks.”
“Then my chair.”
Emma’s eyes narrowed.
“He gets dizzy.”
Alessandro nodded gravely.
“That is a concern.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
Dr. Mercer cleared his throat.
“I have a butterfly needle. Very small.”
Emma turned to me.
“You hold me?”
“Always.”
She cried anyway.
Of course she did.
She was three.
I held her while Dr. Mercer drew the smallest vial of blood he could. She sobbed into my neck, accusing all of us of betrayal without words.
When it was done, Alessandro looked away.
Not because he was bored.
Because he could not stand it.
That told me more about him than any internet article had.
Dr. Mercer sealed the samples in a refrigerated transport pouch.
“I’ll run the child’s toxicology first,” he said. “Then the tray. Then your injection residue.”
Alessandro’s voice was quiet.
“And the old blood sample?”
Dr. Mercer stopped.
Old blood sample.
Nico’s eyes flicked to his boss.
Alessandro continued.
“You said the hospital retained trauma admission bloodwork after the shooting.”
“Yes,” Dr. Mercer said carefully. “For legal reasons.”
“Test it again.”
The doctor held his gaze.
“For what?”
“For whatever you find today.”
A silence stretched between them.
Dr. Mercer’s face changed.
He understood before I did.
“You think this connects to the ambush.”
“I think my body failed me before the first bullet hit.”
“No,” Dr. Mercer said. “Your body was in shock.”
“My hands were numb before the roadblock. My vision blurred before the first shot. I told the hospital. Everyone said trauma confused memory.”
“You had lost blood.”
“I had not yet been shot when it started.”
The security room became so still I could hear the hum of the monitors.
Alessandro looked at me.
“Two years ago, I was returning from a courthouse meeting. Three vehicles boxed us in near the river road. My driver died instantly. My front guard died reaching for his weapon. I saw the gunman. I saw his face. But I could not lift my arm fast enough.”
His mouth hardened.
“Men called me unlucky. Enemies called me weak. Doctors called it neurological shock.”
He turned back to Dr. Mercer.
“I called it wrong.”
Dr. Mercer picked up the transport pouch.
“If the same compound appears in both samples…”
He did not finish.
He did not have to.
The lab report would not just prove someone tried to poison Alessandro that morning.
It would prove someone had helped put him in that wheelchair.
Emma hiccupped against my shoulder.
“I want pancakes.”
Dr. Mercer’s face softened.
“I recommend pancakes.”
Alessandro pressed the phone.
“Mrs. Bellini.”
Her voice trembled when she answered.
“Yes, sir?”
“Pancakes. Plain. No syrup unless sealed bottle. Fresh fruit cut in front of Ms. Carter. Milk from an unopened carton.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Mrs. Bellini?”
“Yes?”
“If anyone except Nico comes near the child, I want their name.”
“Yes, sir.”
He hung up.
Dr. Mercer looked at me.
“I’ll have preliminary results within hours.”
“Hours?”
“My lab owes him favors,” he said, nodding toward Alessandro.
“I don’t want favors. I want my daughter safe.”
The doctor’s eyes softened.
“Then keep her here until I know what touched her skin.”
I hated that answer.
Because I believed it.
Nico escorted Dr. Mercer out through the lower entrance.
The door shut.
Alessandro turned his chair toward me.
“I am sorry.”
I stared at him.
“For what?”
“For the fact that my war found your child.”
I looked down at Emma, exhausted and tear-streaked, clutching Mr. Rabbit like he was the only honest soul in the mansion.
Then I looked back at Alessandro Moretti.
“Your war didn’t find her,” I said.
“She wandered into it.”
He accepted that.
But his face told me something else.
No.
May you like
Someone had let Emma wander exactly where they needed her to be.
And now we were all waiting for a laboratory report to tell us why.
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