The tailored suit. The silver at his temples. The hands that had buttoned Alessandro’s father’s coat at his funeral, that had held Alessandro upright when his heart seized in the garden last April.
“Don’t move,” Alessandro said.
It wasn’t loud.
Victor stopped.
Alessandro pressed the call button on his phone without looking away.
“Gabriel. Now. Dining room. No sirens. Lock the east and west service doors. No one leaves this house.”
A pause on the other end. Then Gabriel’s voice, flat and immediate. “Thirty seconds.”
Victor’s jaw shifted. Just once.
“Elena,” Alessandro said, more softly, “take Sophia to the corner by the window. Sit with her.”
Elena nodded, her throat working. She guided Sophia to the upholstered bench beneath the tall window where the late light was falling in. She sat and pulled Sophia onto her lap. Sophia’s yellow sweater was too big, the sleeves pushed up. Her small sneakers didn’t touch the floor.
Victor exhaled through his nose and let out a short, disbelieving laugh.
“You are going to lock down your own home because a child heard a rattle?”
Alessandro set the pill down on the white tablecloth. Carefully. As if it might detonate.
“I’m going to lock down my home because six minutes disappeared,” he said. “And because my cameras don’t fail. You taught me that.”
Victor’s hands, clasped behind his back, flexed once.
The dining room doors opened.
Gabriel entered with two men, not in a rush, which made it worse. Gabriel was fifty, broad, quiet, the kind of man who had worked for Alessandro since he was twenty and never once raised his voice. He took in the room in a single sweep — the bottle, the pill on the cloth, the woman and child by the window, Victor standing too still.
“Mr. Moretti,” Gabriel said.
“Victor’s office. His apartment above the garage. His car. Seal them,” Alessandro said. His voice was steady now. Cold. “Take his phone. Take his keys. Do it now.”
Victor finally reacted. He stepped back, his palms coming up.
“Alessandro. Think. Twenty-five years. I carried you out of that hospital. I sat with you when—”
“Gabriel,” Alessandro said, not looking at Victor. “The bottle goes to Dr. Ferraro tonight. Private lab. I want to know what is inside that pill and every pill left in that bottle. And I want the pharmacy log for the last six months. Every refill. Every signature.”
Gabriel nodded to one of his men, who stepped forward with a small evidence bag and, with two fingers, lifted the pill from the tablecloth without touching it directly. He unscrewed the prescription bottle and dropped it in as well. The plastic cap clicked.
Victor watched it happen. The color drained very slowly from his face.
“You’re making a mistake,” he said, but his voice had thinned.
Alessandro stood. He was taller than Victor had allowed himself to remember. He walked around the table until he was a foot away from the man who had been like a brother.
“You shook the bottle at 8:12,” Alessandro said, very quietly, so Elena and Sophia wouldn’t hear every word. “The kitchen clock clicks every minute. She heard it. You taught her to be invisible in that kitchen, Victor. You told Elena her daughter could sit quietly and draw while the staff worked. You gave her the crayons.”
Victor’s lips parted. Nothing came out.
“Three months,” Alessandro went on. “I’ve been tired for three months. Dizzy. My doctor said it was age. Stress. He increased the dose. You picked it up for me every time.”
For the first time, Victor’s eyes darted toward the doors.
