Chapter 3 - Elena Knew the Name of the Poison
“Why take a job in my house?”
Elena flinched.
There it was.
The question she had expected.
“I needed work.”
“Try again.”
She looked down.
“I saw your name.”
“Where?”
“The employment listing.”
“And you deliberately applied?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Her answer came quietly.
“Because I wanted to see whether you were still alive.”
That silenced me.
Elena sat across from me.
“I followed your story for years. The newspapers stopped talking about your condition, but sometimes there were photographs.”
“So you knew who I was when you walked through my door.”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I was scared.”
“Twelve years later?”
“You don't understand what happened.”
“Then make me understand.”
She took a breath.
“The night you were admitted, Vale ordered a medication that wasn't in the normal electronic system. He told me it was part of an emergency protocol.”
“You prepared it?”
“No. I refused.”
That mattered.
“Why?”
“The dosage made no sense.”
“What happened?”
“He took the vial himself.”
“And afterward?”
“Your neurological condition deteriorated.”
My jaw tightened.
“Who else was there?”
Elena hesitated.
“A woman.”
“What woman?”
“I didn't know her name.”
“Describe her.”
“Dark hair. Expensive red dress. Diamond necklace. She was angry because security wouldn't let her into the treatment room.”
My stomach turned.
Twelve years disappeared.
A charity dinner.
Champagne.
Music.
A woman in red.
“Vivian.”
Elena frowned.
“Who?”
“Vivian Moretti.”
My former fiancée.
The woman who had been beside me the night my legs failed.
The woman who stayed through the first two years of rehabilitation.
The woman everyone praised for sacrificing her future for a disabled man.
We separated ten years ago.
Not because she left.
Because I told her to.
I had believed I was freeing her.
Elena watched my face.
“You know her.”
“Yes.”
My phone rang.
One of my men.
“Boss, you need to see something.”
“Bring it.”
Minutes later, Marco entered with an old security file.
“We found Dr. Vale.”
“Where?”
“Wisconsin.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Marco placed another photograph on my desk.
“And we found this.”
Vale stood outside a restaurant ten years earlier.
Beside him was Vivian.
Elena covered her mouth.
“That's her.”
I stared at the photograph.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
Marco asked, “You want Vale brought here?”
“No.”
He seemed surprised.
“No?”
“I want him comfortable.”
“Boss?”
“If he's frightened, he'll lie.”
I tapped the photograph.
“Invite him.”
Vale arrived the next afternoon.
He was seventy-three now.
He entered my study expecting business.
Then he saw Elena.
His face lost its color.
I noticed.
So did she.
“Hello, Doctor,” Elena said.
Vale turned toward the door.
Marco closed it.
I spoke calmly.
“Sit.”
Vale did.
I placed the medical report in front of him.
He didn't touch it.
“Do you know what that is?”
“No.”
“You haven't opened it.”
“I don't need to.”
“Interesting.”
His eyes moved toward Elena.
I leaned forward.
“Did I have a stroke?”
He swallowed.
“Your case was complicated.”
“That wasn't my question.”
“Luca—”
“Did. I. Have. A. Stroke?”
“No.”
The word barely escaped him.
Elena closed her eyes.
My hands trembled, but my voice didn't.
“What happened?”
Vale stared at the floor.
“I was told it would be temporary.”
“By whom?”
Silence.
I slid Vivian’s photograph across the desk.
Vale stared at it.
Then he whispered, “She said forty-eight hours.”
My stomach turned.
“What was supposed to happen in forty-eight hours?”
“You were supposed to lose motor control temporarily.”
“Why?”
Vale looked at me.
“So you would miss the Costello board vote.”
I remembered it instantly.
The vote that transferred operational authority over three major companies.
I had missed it because I was in intensive care.
My uncle Dominic had voted in my place.
Vivian's family gained control of two lucrative contracts afterward.
“But I never recovered.”
Vale began crying.
“The dosage was changed.”
“By you?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
I slammed my hand onto the desk.
“Do not lie to me.”
“I DON'T KNOW!”
The room went silent.
Vale was shaking.
“When your symptoms didn't reverse, Vivian panicked. She told me to change the scans, change the notes, create a vascular explanation.”
“And you did.”
“Yes.”
“For money?”
“For fear.”
I laughed without humor.
“Everyone becomes honorable when explaining cowardice twelve years later.”
Vale lowered his head.
Then Elena asked the question I hadn't.
“Who changed the dosage?”
Vale slowly looked at her.
“I only know one thing.”
“What?”
“The vial disappeared from my possession for seven minutes.”
“Who had access?”
Vale looked at me.
May you like
“Someone from your own family.”
And suddenly the betrayal became much closer than Vivian Moretti.
