Chapter 3 - Poison in the System
By dawn, Caleb was awake and eating warm oatmeal in his private room.
I stood in the doorway, watching him. The color had returned to his cheeks, and he was busy explaining to a smiling nurse how his stuffed bear, Barnaby, also needed a heart checkup.
"Mr. Moretti?"
I turned. Elena stood behind me, holding two cups of black coffee she had bought from the lobby. She handed one to me.
"Thank you," I said, taking the cup.
"The doctor said he can be discharged this afternoon," Elena murmured, looking at her son. "I... I need to find a way to pay for this room. Private suites aren't covered by my basic state assistance."
"The bill is settled," I said plainly.
Elena looked up at me, her chin rising in that stubborn, proud way I was beginning to recognize. "I can't accept charity from you, Mr. Moretti. I am your housekeeper. Or at least, I was."
"You are no longer my housekeeper," I replied.
Her heart seemed to stop. "You're firing me?"
"I am moving you and Caleb into the east wing of my estate," I corrected smoothly. "As my guests. Under twenty-four-hour armed protection."
Elena stared at me as if I had spoken in a foreign language. "Why would you do that?"
Before I could answer, Luca stepped up the corridor, holding an encrypted tablet. He signaled to me with a brief nod.
"Stay with Caleb," I told Elena. "I'll be right back."
I walked down the quiet hallway with Luca.
"What did you find on Daniel Hale?" I asked.
Daniel Hale was Elena’s late husband—the man who had supposedly died in a hit-and-run in Queens fourteen months ago.
Luca swiped through the tablet screens. "It wasn't an accident, Boss. Daniel Hale wasn't just a mid-level accountant at a freight firm. He was an auditor for a logistics company bought out by Bellandi Enterprises three years ago."
My eyes narrowed. "What did he discover?"
"He found out Bellandi was using the health clinic network—including Dr. Vance’s facility—to launder illegal pharmaceutical money and falsify pediatric insurance claims," Luca reported in a low voice. "Daniel Hale was preparing to go to the federal prosecutor. Two days before his scheduled interview, a black SUV struck him outside his office. The driver was never caught."
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the hallway.
Daniel Hale hadn't died in a random accident. He had been murdered by Marco Bellandi to protect a billion-dollar healthcare fraud scheme. And fourteen months later, Bellandi had targeted Daniel’s widow and son, using the very medical condition Daniel died trying to protect them from.
"Boss," Luca added grimly, "there's more. Daniel Hale hid a backup file containing the full audit records before he died. Bellandi’s men have been searching for those files for over a year. They thought Elena had them."
"She doesn't," I said. "If she did, she wouldn't be working as a maid to pay for Caleb’s pills."
"Bellandi doesn't know that," Luca pointed out. "He thinks she’s playing dumb."
I looked back down the hall toward Caleb’s room. Through the glass, I saw Elena sitting beside her son’s bed, laughing softly as the little boy pressed his stethoscope toy against her chest.
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They were innocent. Completely, entirely innocent. Yet they had been dragged into a nightmare built by ruthless men.
"Call the estate," I commanded Luca, my tone turning into tempered steel. "Prepare the master guest suite in the east wing. Have our private medical team install a full cardiac monitoring unit in Caleb’s room. And tell the perimeter guards that if anyone approaching the gates isn't on my personal clearance list, they shoot on sight."
