Chapter 5 - The Report ArrivesThe pancakes arrived on a silver tray carried by Mrs. Bellini herself.
She was older than the other staff, with white hair pinned tightly at the back of her head and eyes that had probably seen every sin the Moretti estate had ever tried to hide. Her hands shook when she set the tray down in the underground security room.
Not from age.
From fear.
She opened the milk carton in front of me. She broke the seal on the syrup. She cut the strawberries herself with a knife Nico inspected first.
I hated every second of it.
Emma loved the pancakes.
Children can survive inside chaos if someone gives them something familiar. A blanket. A toy. A warm bite of food. She sat at the long security table swinging her legs, Mr. Rabbit tucked beside her plate, eating as if men with guns were not stationed outside every door.
Alessandro stayed near the monitors.
He had not eaten more than one bite of the cookie.
When Emma noticed, she pointed her fork at him.
“You too.”
Mrs. Bellini went very still.
Nico looked away.
Alessandro turned.
“What?”
“You eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Emma frowned.
“That’s what sad people say.”
No one breathed.
Then Alessandro wheeled closer to the table.
“What do bossy people say?”
Emma thought about it.
“They say please.”
A sound escaped Mrs. Bellini.
Half cough.
Half laugh.
She looked horrified at herself.
Alessandro picked up a piece of toast from the edge of Emma’s tray.
“Please,” he said dryly.
Emma nodded, satisfied.
“That good.”
I watched him take a bite and felt something in my chest shift in a way I did not welcome.
Dangerous men should not look lonely.
It confused the people who needed to fear them.
While Emma ate, Nico updated Alessandro in low tones.
The estate was locked.
Valentina was missing.
The west garden wall alarm had been disabled for exactly four minutes.
A black sedan registered to a shell company had been found abandoned three miles from the estate.
Its back seat contained a scarf, a burner phone snapped in half, and one burgundy acrylic fingernail.
Valentina had escaped.
Or someone had made it look like she had.
By noon, the Moretti house no longer felt like a mansion.
It felt like a trap slowly realizing one of its own doors had been cut open from the inside.
At 12:43 p.m., Dr. Mercer called.
Alessandro answered on speaker.
“Tell me.”
Dr. Mercer did not waste words.
“The child is clear.”
My body nearly collapsed with relief.
I covered my mouth.
Emma looked up.
“Mama?”
“You’re okay,” I whispered.
“She has trace adhesive residue behind the ear,” Dr. Mercer continued. “No measurable systemic toxin. Whatever touched her did not deliver a dose, or not enough to matter.”
I pressed my face into Emma’s hair.
Thank God.
Thank God.
Thank God.
Alessandro closed his eyes for one second.
Only one.
Then they opened, hard again.
“And my injection?”
A pause.
“Not B12.”
Nico’s jaw clenched.
“What was it?” Alessandro asked.
“Low-dose neuromuscular suppressant combined with a sedative. Very sophisticated. Not meant to kill you quickly. Meant to weaken, blur, and mimic progression of neurological damage.”
Mrs. Bellini made the sign of the cross.
I held Emma tighter.
Alessandro’s voice remained even.
“And the lunch?”
“Water contained the same sedative at a lower concentration. Soup had nothing. Bread had nothing. Pear slices had trace contamination, probably from handling.”
Valentina’s red fingernails touching each pear.
Arranging them beautifully beside soup he never ate.
My stomach turned.
“And the old blood sample?” Alessandro asked.
The line went quiet.
Even the monitors seemed to hum softer.
Dr. Mercer exhaled.
“Positive.”
One word.
It changed the room.
Alessandro did not move.
Nico lowered his head.
Mrs. Bellini whispered something in Italian that sounded like a prayer and a curse at once.
I felt the meaning before I understood the science.
Two years ago, before the bullets, before the crash, before the spinal cord damage, before the wheelchair, Alessandro Moretti had been drugged.
Not by enemies on the road.
Before he ever reached them.
By someone close enough to reach his food, his drink, or his medicine.
Alessandro’s face looked almost peaceful.
That frightened me most.
“What compound?” he asked.
“The same base family. Not identical formulation, but chemically related. I’ll send the report encrypted. Alessandro…”
“What?”
“You need to hear this from me before you read it.”
Nico looked up.
Dr. Mercer continued.
“The old sample also contains a stabilizing agent. Rare. Pharmaceutical grade. It narrows the source.”
“To whom?”
“To the private clinic that managed your rehabilitation after the ambush.”
Alessandro’s hands tightened.
The Moretti Rehabilitation Clinic.
I knew the name because one of the maids had mentioned it that morning with pride. The Moretti family had built it after Alessandro’s accident. A state-of-the-art neurological center. Donor plaques. Charity galas. Newspaper photos.
Valentina Rossi had run its patient coordination program.
Dr. Mercer’s voice lowered.
“But the authorization code on the supply chain order was not Valentina’s.”
Alessandro’s eyes lifted slowly.
“Whose?”
Another pause.
“Luca Moretti.”
Nico swore.
Mrs. Bellini sank into a chair.
I did not know the name, but I knew family when I heard it.
Alessandro’s voice changed.
Not louder.
Not angrier.
Worse.
Emptier.
“My cousin.”
“Yes,” Dr. Mercer said.
Alessandro stared at nothing.
Luca Moretti.
His own blood.
The laboratory report had named the betrayal.
Emma licked syrup from her finger.
No one stopped her.
She looked from one adult face to another, suddenly aware that the air had changed.
“Bad news?” she asked.
Alessandro turned to her.
For a second, the feared Mafia boss looked like a man standing over his own grave.
“Yes,” he said. “Bad news.”
Emma slid off her chair.
I caught her.
“Sweetheart—”
But she pulled free and walked to Alessandro.
Nico moved as if to stop her.
Alessandro raised a hand.
Emma stood in front of his wheelchair and held out Mr. Rabbit.
He looked at it.
“What is this?”
“For bad news.”
His throat moved.
“I don’t know how to hold rabbits.”
“You just hold.”
Alessandro took the stuffed rabbit awkwardly, as if it were more dangerous than any weapon in the house.
Emma patted his knee.
The knee he could not feel.
“It okay,” she said. “Mama cries sometimes too.”
Nobody spoke.
Then Alessandro Moretti bowed his head over a child’s stuffed rabbit, and for the first time since I had entered his office, I saw the full weight of the wheelchair.
Not the metal.
Not the injury.
The betrayal.
The years stolen.
The body imprisoned.
The family name used as a knife.
His voice, when it came, was barely human.
“Nico.”
“Yes, boss.”
“Bring Luca to me.”
Nico’s eyes hardened.
“Alive?”
Alessandro looked at Emma.
Then at me.
Then at the lab report arriving silently on the monitor.
“Yes,” he said. “Alive.”
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A few hours earlier, that word might have sounded merciful.
Now it sounded like a threat.
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