Chapter 5
St. Bartholomew’s had been closed for six years.
At least, that was what the public record said.
The old rehabilitation wing sat behind the hospital’s main campus, hidden by construction fencing and winter-dead trees.
Franklin Ashcroft owned the redevelopment company scheduled to turn it into luxury medical suites.
Of course he did.
Men like Franklin always buried crimes under permits.
Nico insisted on going.
Jonah argued.
The police argued.
I argued too.
“You can barely sit upright after tonight.”
Nico looked at me.
“They took your brother because of me.”
“They took him because they’re monsters.”
“Both can be true.”
His voice was calm, but his hands shook on his wheels.
Not from fear.
From rage held too tightly.
We went in three vehicles.
Police ahead.
Nico’s men behind.
Me in the middle beside Nico, because I refused to stay at the estate while Wes was missing.
He did not try to stop me.
That mattered.
The city blurred outside the window.
My phone sat in my lap.
Silent.
Too silent.
I kept seeing Wes by the radiator, folding paper cranes from grocery ads.
You’re supposed to worry after dinner.
I had not fed him dinner.
That thought almost broke me.
Nico noticed.
“He’s smart,” he said.
“You don’t know him.”
“You do. And you’re smart.”
I looked at him.
“That’s your comfort?”
“I’m bad at comfort.”
“Yes.”
His mouth almost moved.
Then the car stopped.
The old hospital wing loomed ahead, windows boarded, brick stained dark by years of weather.
But a light glowed in the basement.
Someone was inside.
Helen had given police an access code.
It still worked.
That made every officer’s face harden.
Inside, the air smelled of dust, bleach, and old fear.
We moved through a service hallway.
Nico’s chair made almost no sound on the cracked tile.
I walked beside him with my heart beating in my throat.
Officer Hale lifted a fist.
Stop.
Voices came from below.
A man.
Then a child crying softly.
Wes.
I almost ran.
Nico caught my wrist.
Not hard.
Just enough.
“Wait.”
I hated him for one second.
Then the officer signaled.
They moved fast.
Down the stairs.
Through a metal door.
“Police!”
Shouting exploded.
A chair scraped.
Someone ran.
I pushed past Nico and saw Wes tied to a rolling hospital bed, his face red from crying, his glasses crooked.
“Adeline!”
I broke.
I ran to him.
An officer cut the ties while I wrapped my arms around him.
“I’m here. I’m here. I’m so sorry.”
Wes sobbed against me.
“I told them you’d come.”
“I did.”
“They said you wouldn’t if the rich man told you not to.”
My throat closed.
“No rich man tells me whether to come for you.”
Nico had rolled into the room behind me.
Wes looked at him through tears.
“Are you the rich man?”
Nico paused.
“Yes.”
Wes sniffed.
“You look tired.”
A stunned silence.
Then Nico let out one short breath that might have been a laugh.
“I am.”
A man in scrubs was dragged from behind a curtain.
Not Franklin.
Not Camille.
A doctor.
Helen gasped from the doorway.
“That’s Dr. Voss.”
Nico went still.
Dr. Edmund Voss.
His rehabilitation specialist.
The man who had told him month after month that his spinal swelling was too severe, his progress too limited, his expectations too high.
Voss looked at Nico and smiled weakly.
“This is not what it looks like.”
Nico’s voice was soft.
“Then explain the child tied to a bed.”
Voss said nothing.
Police searched the room.
They found files in a locked cabinet.
Helen’s.
Two other nurses.
Nico’s.
Mine.
Wes’s medical records.
And a file labeled POST-MARRIAGE TRANSFER.
Jonah opened it with gloves.
His face darkened.
“Nico.”
“What?”
“It’s a competency petition.”
Nico stared at him.
Jonah continued.
“Prepared for after the wedding. It claims your disability and medication dependency make you unable to manage Alfieri assets. Camille would petition as spouse.”
Nico’s eyes went to Voss.
“You were going to certify me incompetent.”
Voss swallowed.
“You were declining.”
“Because you drugged me.”
“Because Camille instructed you,” Jonah said.
Voss looked away.
That was answer enough.
Wes clung to me.
“Can we go home?”
“Yes.”
But as I lifted him, he winced and pressed a hand to his chest.
My blood froze.
“Wes?”
“I’m okay.”
He was not.
Stress was dangerous for his heart.
Very dangerous.
His lips looked pale.
I shouted for a medic.
Nico’s face changed.
“Move,” he ordered.
No one argued.
The ambulance ride was the longest twenty minutes of my life.
Wes lay on the stretcher with monitors attached.
I held his hand.
He tried to smile.
“Worry after dinner,” he whispered.
I cried.
“Stop giving advice and breathe.”
At the hospital, doctors stabilized him.
Not fine.
Stable.
They admitted him to pediatric cardiology.
I sat beside his bed until dawn with his hand in mine.
Nico came just after sunrise.
He looked exhausted, cheek still bruised, eyes hollow.
But he was there.
“I spoke to the surgeon,” he said.
I blinked.
“What?”
“Dr. Kline. The one who reviewed Wes’s case.”
My throat tightened.
“Nico—”
“His surgery is scheduled for Friday.”
I stood.
“No.”
He frowned.
“No?”
“You don’t get to buy my silence with my brother’s life.”
His face flinched.
“I didn’t.”
“That’s what powerful men do.”
“Maybe. But it’s not what I’m doing.”
“How do I know?”
He looked at Wes sleeping in the bed.
Then back at me.
“Because the paperwork is already in your name. No condition. No debt. No favor owed. Fire me as your patient tomorrow if you want.”
My eyes burned.
“I can’t pay you back.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to belong to you.”
His voice softened.
“You don’t.”
For the first time since I entered the Alfieri house, I believed he wanted that to be true.
Then Jonah called.
Nico put him on speaker.
Jonah’s voice was grim.
“Camille and Franklin are gone.”
Nico closed his eyes.
“How?”
“Private helicopter from the north lawn before the estate lockdown completed.”
My stomach dropped.
Jonah continued.
“And Nico, they emptied the medication room before they left.”
Nico’s face turned cold.
May you like
“Then they’re not running.”
“No,” Jonah said. “They’re cleaning.”
