Chapter 5
I couldn’t speak.
For one terrible second, the hospital room disappeared.
All I could see was Wes at our kitchen window, folding paper cranes from grocery flyers because paper was cheap and hope had to be made from something.
The caller breathed softly into my ear.
“Do you understand me?”
Nico reached for the phone.
I shook my head, frozen.
The man continued.
“Tell the police you were mistaken about the pills. Tell Alfieri grief made you dramatic. Then go home.”
My hand tightened.
“Who are you?”
A small laugh.
“Someone who knows your brother’s school route.”
My knees weakened.
Nico pressed the nurse call button.
Detective Bell stepped closer, already signaling for silence.
I put the call on speaker.
The man said, “You have until noon.”
The line went dead.
I stood there shaking with the phone in my hand.
Nico’s voice was low.
“Where is your brother?”
“At school.”
Detective Bell moved fast.
“What school?”
I told her.
She called units.
Nico called Marcus.
Rinaldi called a security firm.
Everyone moved except me.
I was trapped inside the same thought.
I had taken this job to save Wes.
Now this job had put a target on his back.
Nico watched my face.
“Adeline.”
“I have to go.”
“No.”
“That is my brother.”
“And you will not reach him faster by running blind.”
I turned on him.
“You don’t get to give me orders about him.”
His expression did not harden.
That made it worse.
“You’re right.”
I blinked.
He continued.
“But I know what it is to have family used against you. Let me help.”
The words broke something in me.
I nodded once.
Thirty minutes later, police pulled Wes from class.
Not roughly.
Not with fear.
A female officer told him I needed him and brought him to a secure room at the hospital.
When he saw me, he ran.
“Addie!”
I dropped to my knees and held him so tightly he squeaked.
“You’re crushing my ribs.”
“Good. That means they’re working.”
He laughed.
Then he saw my face.
“What happened?”
I smoothed his hair.
“Some bad people tried to scare me.”
“Because of your job?”
“Yes.”
His eyes moved past me.
Nico sat near the window in his wheelchair, hospital blanket over his legs, face unreadable.
Wes whispered, “Is that him?”
“Yes.”
“The rich guy?”
“Wes.”
“What? You said he was rich.”
Nico’s mouth twitched.
“I am.”
Wes looked at him seriously.
“Did you get my sister in trouble?”
Nico looked at me.
Then back at Wes.
“She got herself into trouble by being brave.”
Wes nodded.
“She does that.”
I almost cried.
Detective Bell traced the call to a disposable phone near Wes’s school.
Security footage showed a man in a gray hoodie leaving it in a trash can.
Marcus identified him from the estate staff list.
Owen Vale.
A driver Arthur Ashcroft used sometimes.
By evening, Owen was arrested at a gas station outside Joliet.
He confessed within hours.
Not from guilt.
From fear.
Dante had hired him to threaten me.
Arthur approved it.
Camille knew.
The chain tightened.
But every link led to another.
At nine that night, Detective Bell came into the secure waiting room.
“We found something at Dante’s apartment.”
Nico looked up.
“What?”
“A hard drive.”
Rinaldi straightened.
“With what?”
“Surveillance from inside your estate. Months of it. Including footage from the night before the crash.”
Nico’s face went cold.
“Show me.”
Detective Bell hesitated.
“It’s difficult.”
“Show me.”
We gathered in a small conference room.
Wes sat outside with Edna, eating vending machine pretzels and asking too many questions.
Detective Bell connected the drive.
The video showed Nico’s garage.
Eight months ago.
Dante stood beside Nico’s black car.
Another man worked under the hood.
Arthur Ashcroft entered.
Then Camille.
My stomach tightened.
She wore a red coat and looked bored.
Dante asked, “If he dies?”
Arthur answered, “Then we mourn publicly and move faster.”
Camille looked toward the camera.
“Don’t damage his face. The funeral photos matter.”
No one breathed.
Nico’s eyes stayed on the screen.
The video continued.
Arthur said, “If he lives, we marry him into dependency. Camille gets medical control. The company follows.”
Dante laughed.
“Boss in a chair. Never thought I’d see the day.”
I glanced at Nico.
His face was stone.
But one tear slipped down his cheek.
He wiped it away immediately.
Not fast enough.
I saw.
So did Rinaldi.
Detective Bell stopped the video.
“That is enough for warrants.”
Nico’s voice was quiet.
“No.”
She looked at him.
“There’s more?”
“Play it.”
The video resumed.
Camille stepped closer to the car.
She placed one hand on the hood.
Then she smiled.
“He should have married someone easier to kill.”
The room went silent.
Nico closed his eyes.
And in that silence, I understood something terrifying.
Camille had not betrayed him because he became disabled.
She had planned the betrayal before.
May you like
The wheelchair was never the reason.
It was the result.
