บททั้งหมดของ Too Late To Love: I'm Gone Alpha: บทที่ 51 - บทที่ 60

Chapter 52ANNALISAThere was a compound that was unknown found in Antonio's blood, and from what we could tell from the tests carried out, to find out the components, it was a kind of drug with similar compounds used in other legal drugs that were being made but this one was different. It acted on compliance. That was the cleanest clinical description I could offer. It was sophisticated work and done by someone who knew what they were doing,That was what made it worse in some ways, the sophistication of it. This was not a crude sedative or a blunt instrument. This had been designed with specific intent by someone who wanted this outcome, to make Antonio, some sort of puppet to controlI ran the secondary screen.The secondary screen confirmed the primary and added detail that I had been hoping not to find, evidence that the compound had been administered more than once, the metabolic trace of repeated exposure over a period of three days and more, which in a way matched the timeline

Chapter 54ANNALISAWe had been working for two hours when my phone buzzed.I almost did not look at it immediately. We were in the middle of organizing the documentation into the sequence the council would need to follow it clearly, Dominic at the desk with the formal record structure open in front of him and me beside him with the medical findings laid out in order, and the work had the particular momentum of something that needed to be completed before it could be interrupted.But something made me pick up the phone.Cora.I answered before the second buzz finished."Dr. Voss." Her voice had the quality that stopped me completely, the careful control of someone who was not panicking but was close enough to the edge of it that the control was visible. "I need to tell you something and I want you to know that Eli is fine. He is inside and he is with Clara and he is perfectly safe right now.""Tell me," I said.Dominic had looked up from the desk."One of the grounds guards flagged so

Chapter 57ANNALISAThe summons arrived at seven fourteen in the morning.I know the exact time because I was looking at my phone when it came through, waiting for Cora's morning update on Eli, and the council notification appeared in the same minute as her message so I read both of them at the same time which was not the ideal way to receive either.Cora first.Eli had slept through the night. He had eaten breakfast already, which she described as enthusiastically, his word apparently having been that the eggs were excellent which was high praise from a child who had opinions about eggs. He had asked about us four times before eight in the morning which Cora said with the warmth of someone who found this charming rather than exhausting.I held onto that for exactly thirty seconds before I read the council notification.Formal summons. My name, Dominic's name, Dr. Henare's name listed as the substantiating medical witness. The submission had been received, reviewed at the emergency in

Chapter 58ANNALISAWe pulled through the gates of the Vael estate at half past two in the afternoon.I saw Eli before the car had fully stopped.He was in Cora's arms on the front steps, which meant he had been watching for the car long enough that Cora had brought him outside to wait, and when the car came into view he began doing the thing he did when he was too excited for his body to contain it, a full-body movement that was not quite bouncing and not quite wriggling but was something in between that I had never seen any other child do and was entirely his own.The car stopped.I had the door open before Dominic had fully applied the handbrake, which he accepted without comment because he knew better than to comment on it.Eli was already reaching for me from Cora's arms.He came across the distance between us with the complete commitment of a child who had assessed the gap and decided that falling was an acceptable risk compared to the alternative of waiting another half second,

Chapter 60CHRISTIANAI had been preparing for this since the morning after I used the vial.That was the part none of them had accounted for. They had built their documentation carefully, I did not doubt that, Annalisa was a precise woman who always did everything in increments making sure that she missed nothing out, that could either make or mar a case and Dominic Vael was not someone who filed things sloppily, but they had built it from the position of people who believed they were ahead of the situation, and they were going to pin me down.That they had found something, confirmed something, and were now moving to act on information that I did not know they had.They did not know that I had been watching.Not the testing. I had not known about the testing until the submission was already filed, which was a gap in my preparation that I had noted and accepted and moved past, because spending time on what I had not anticipated was not useful when there was still time to shape what c