Chapter 3

They moved my father to a clear space against the wall. It was close to an exit and near Adrian. I sat at his feet and kept my eyes on the medical kit.

Matteo held his phone up for the representatives to see. "Preserve the bottle and the glasses right now. Every second of the hotel's security footage from the start of the gala until now needs to be preserved. If you want an investigation, fine by me. But the Vitale family does not get sole custody of the samples."

Adrian was already reaching for the bottle. Matteo blocked him. "Photograph and number everything first, then log every person who handles it."

"Since when does your family believe in procedure?" Luca asked.

"Since you tried to kill my father with a glass of wine."

While they argued, I signed to Nico, "This isn't a normal heart attack. Don't let them give him the injection."

Nico checked my father's pupils, then looked at me. Without asking how I knew, he tucked a scrap of wine-soaked napkin into his own emergency bag, then swabbed the residue from my father's fingertips. After sealing the bag, he used his phone to photograph its number and record the time. Then he uploaded my father's vitals to the hospital's system.

I didn't know whether those samples would be enough, but at least Luca couldn't leave with all the evidence from tonight.

Adrian still tried to take the glasses. Matteo had two representatives from different families witness the evidence being sealed. One of them was Paolo Bellini, the Bellini family's lawyer. They weren't necessarily on our side, but neither wanted to be told later that they hadn't been allowed to examine the evidence. As the glasses were bagged, Adrian said that I'd touched the table and risked contaminating the scene. Matteo replied, "Then write down everything she touched, too."

On the other side of the room, Gianna was explaining what the full conversation had actually been about. She'd asked about Evelyn's anxiety symptoms. She'd asked about interactions with alcohol. She'd asked whether the medical center could accept consultation fees from the foundation. Luca's people had kept only the fragments they could stitch into an accusation of murder.

Matteo tried to retrieve the backup from the cloud, but the screen showed that the account had been deleted remotely half an hour earlier. Luca turned on Gianna at once. "You deleted it?"

"I've never even changed the password."

"How convenient."

Gianna opened her mouth, then left her phone in Matteo's hands. She came over and signed to me, "Are you scared?"

Her hands weren't steady. Two of the signs nearly ran together. I shook my head.

I knew Gianna had been trying to find ways to help me, but I hadn't realized how far she'd gone. Last month, she'd asked whether we could have a car waiting outside during the gala. I'd assumed she was only worried that I'd get overwhelmed. I never imagined she'd spoken to Owen too. She hadn't tried to medicate me or decide for me that I needed treatment. She'd only made sure she could help if I needed it. Now Luca was twisting that kindness into a murder accusation.

She signed slowly, "Don't tell them about your past for my sake. That belongs to you."

I looked at her. She was the one being detained in this room, yet she still remembered to respect my secret. I wanted to tell her that I wasn't afraid to speak. I was afraid that once I did, the people who'd used patients as bargaining chips would follow my voice straight to this table.

Dante returned from the service corridor and quietly told Lorenzo that the surveillance server had lost power, but the kitchen's back door wasn't completely sealed off yet. Lorenzo wanted to get us out that way. Matteo pointed out that the back door led to the parking garage and that the guests were still inside. The moment anyone fired a shot, Luca would have an excuse to claim the Moretti family had broken the truce.

My brothers argued in low voices, growing more tense by the second. Every time my father gasped for air, I could feel precious seconds slipping away as they argued.

One of Luca's men carried the medical kit over and set it down in front of me. I'd only been watching the needle, but my gaze caught on a worn supply label on the corner of the case. The clinic in Malta had used the exact same labels: a blue border with the batch number handwritten in the bottom right corner. That label had no business being in New York, much less in the hands of Luca's men.

A chill ran through me.

This wasn't a poisoning he'd thought up on the spot. Someone had brought the past I'd escaped right to the Moretti family's door.

Luca opened the case and took out a syringe filled with clear liquid.

"Sign," he said, "and my doctor will save him."