Chapter 2
I crouched beside the wheelchair, my pulse hammering in my throat.
The black device was smaller than my palm.
Flat.
Magnetic.
A blinking red dot flashed beneath the frame, hidden near the battery housing.
I did not touch it.
I had worked in emergency rooms long enough to know that unknown devices were not a nurse’s problem.
They were a police problem.
Or in Nico Alfieri’s house, something worse.
“Don’t move,” Nico said.
Nobody did.
Not Camille.
Not the guests frozen near the ballroom arch.
Not the men who had once called him boss with their heads bowed.
One of them, Dante Russo, stepped forward late.
Too late.
“Boss, let me—”
Nico cut him off with one look.
“You stood still while she hit me.”
Dante stopped as if slapped himself.
Camille found her voice.
“This is insane. You think I put something on your chair?”
I rose slowly.
“I saw you near his chair twenty minutes ago.”
Her eyes snapped to mine.
“You saw nothing.”
“I saw you bend down by the right wheel while everyone watched the champagne tower.”
Her lip curled.
“Careful, nurse.”
Nico pushed himself higher against the table leg.
His face had gone pale from pain, but his voice stayed terrifyingly calm.
“Dante. Call Rinaldi.”
A murmur moved through the room.
Rinaldi was not just a lawyer.
Everyone in Chicago knew that name meant the kind of attorney who could make a courtroom feel like a locked room.
Dante pulled out his phone.
Camille shook her head.
“No. Arthur will hear about this.”
Nico’s eyes sharpened.
Arthur Ashcroft.
Camille’s father.
Banker.
Board member.
Family friend.
The man who had toasted Nico’s “new chapter” ten minutes before his daughter slapped him.
Nico looked toward the ballroom.
“Bring him here.”
No one moved.
“Now.”
Two guards hurried away.
I knelt beside Nico.
“You need to get off the floor.”
“I know where I am.”
“I’m aware.”
His eyes flicked to me.
“I said don’t make me like you.”
“This is medical advice, not flirting.”
Something almost softened in his face.
Almost.
Then pain crossed it, and I saw the tremor in his left hand.
He hated that I saw it.
I kept my voice low.
“If you stay like this, your spasms will get worse.”
“I’m not being lifted in front of them.”
“Then I’ll block their view.”
His jaw tightened.
Pride was heavy in that room.
He looked around at guests who had enjoyed his wine, his food, his music, his name.
None had helped him.
I saw the damage settle in his eyes.
Not embarrassment.
Recognition.
I shifted my body between him and the crowd.
“Marcus,” I said to the nearest guard, “bring the transfer board.”
The guard looked at Nico first.
That angered me.
“Bring it,” Nico said.
The board came.
With Marcus and me on either side, Nico moved back into his wheelchair.
It took thirty seconds.
It cost him more than he wanted anyone to know.
Camille watched with a strange expression.
Not pity.
Calculation.
As soon as Nico was upright, power returned to the room.
Not completely.
But enough.
Arthur Ashcroft entered with his wife, Vivian.
He looked annoyed until he saw Camille’s face.
Then the device.
Then Nico’s red cheek.
“What is this?” Arthur demanded.
Nico held his gaze.
“Your daughter struck me.”
Camille gasped.
“Because he humiliated me.”
Vivian whispered, “Camille.”
Nico continued.
“Then my nurse found a device under my chair.”
Arthur looked at it.
His face shifted.
For half a second, he knew exactly what it was.
Then he hid it.
But I saw.
So did Nico.
“Maybe security installed it,” Arthur said.
Nico smiled.
“Did they?”
Marcus answered from behind me.
“No, sir.”
Arthur looked at him with irritation.
Nico turned toward me.
“Adeline.”
I stiffened.
“Yes?”
“You said upstairs there was something else.”
The room went silent.
Camille’s face drained.
I felt every eye land on me.
For three months, I had kept quiet because I needed this job.
Because Wes needed surgery.
Because women like me did not accuse women like Camille without proof.
But I had proof now.
Not enough for the whole truth.
Enough for the first wound.
“I found pills hidden in your medication supply,” I said.
Camille laughed too quickly.
“She’s lying.”
“I photographed them before I moved anything.”
Nico’s eyes darkened.
“When?”
“Two nights ago.”
His voice went colder.
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I was trying to confirm what they were. I sent one photo to a pharmacist I trust.”
“What did he say?”
I swallowed.
“That they looked like sedatives. Not your prescribed medication.”
The room erupted.
Camille shouted.
Arthur cursed.
Vivian grabbed her daughter’s arm.
Nico lifted one hand.
Silence fell.
He looked at Camille.
“You told me the confusion was from nerve pain.”
She shook her head.
“It was.”
“You told me I forgot signing documents.”
“You did.”
“You told me I accused people because trauma made me paranoid.”
Her eyes filled.
“Nico, please.”
That please was not love.
It was strategy.
Rinaldi arrived twenty minutes later.
Short.
Gray-haired.
Expensive.
He listened once, looked at the device, and called the police himself.
Camille went rigid.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
Rinaldi glanced at her.
“Miss Ashcroft, daring is not the issue. Evidence is.”
When officers entered the estate, guests began whispering again.
This time, not with amusement.
With fear.
Camille clung to her father.
Arthur whispered something into her ear.
I couldn’t hear it.
But Nico could read faces better than anyone I had ever met.
His expression changed.
“Search my office,” he said.
Arthur snapped, “You need a warrant.”
Nico turned slowly.
“It’s my house.”
Arthur went pale.
Rinaldi nodded to security.
I followed before anyone told me not to.
Nico rolled beside me down the hall.
His jaw was clenched against pain.
In his office, the safe behind the painting stood slightly open.
Nico stared at it.
“I locked that this morning.”
Rinaldi pulled on gloves and opened it fully.
Inside were folders.
Contracts.
Medical authorizations.
A new power of attorney.
At the bottom was a signed document transferring voting control of Alfieri Logistics to Arthur Ashcroft if Nico was found mentally incompetent.
Nico’s signature sat at the bottom.
He stared at it.
“That is not mine.”
Camille appeared in the doorway, crying.
“Nico, I did it for us.”
The lie cracked open right there.
May you like
Because no one had asked her.
And she had answered anyway.
