Chapter 4 - The Doctor Who Never Wanted Him Well
Dr. Samuel Vance had the kind of face people trusted.
Silver hair.
Quiet voice.
No visible impatience.
He had spent thirty years treating executives, judges, athletes, and wealthy men who preferred illnesses that could be kept out of newspapers.
For three years, he had told Adrian Moretti the same thing.
“Your insomnia is stress-related.”
The words sounded different now.
Adrian sat across from Dr. Vance in the physician’s private office on Michigan Avenue and watched him lie.
“You look better today,” Vance said.
“I slept.”
“Wonderful.”
“Seven hours.”
The doctor smiled.
“That’s an excellent sign.”
“I skipped the tea.”
The smile weakened.
Only slightly.
“You’ve mentioned that herbal blend before.”
“My brother brings it.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what’s in it?”
Vance folded his hands.
“No.”
Another lie.
Mateo listened through a transmitter hidden in Adrian’s jacket seam.
The police were not involved yet.
Adrian wanted proof first.
Not revenge.
Proof.
That distinction had become important to him.
“I want new blood work,” Adrian said.
“Of course.”
“Full toxicology.”
Vance paused.
“That seems unnecessary.”
“Why?”
“Routine panels won’t explain chronic insomnia.”
“I didn’t ask for routine.”
The doctor’s eyes sharpened.
“What exactly are you concerned about?”
Adrian leaned back.
“I forget things.”
“We’ve discussed that.”
“My hand shakes.”
“Also discussed.”
“I sign documents at one in the morning and don’t remember.”
“Sleep deprivation does that.”
“Maybe.”
Vance studied him.
“Did someone suggest another explanation?”
There.
Not concern.
Fear.
Adrian stood.
“No.”
He left before the doctor could recover.
In the elevator, Mateo’s voice came through the earpiece.
“He knows.”
“Yes.”
“You pushed too hard.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted him scared.”
“That’s not strategy.”
“No.”
Adrian stared at his reflection in the metal doors.
“It was personal.”
Mateo sighed.
“Progress is ugly.”
By noon, they had more.
Dr. Shaw compared residue from Mrs. Ricci’s saved tea packets.
All four contained traces of the same compounds found in the fresh cup.
The packets dated back eighteen months.
Proof of long-term exposure.
Then Mateo found financial transfers between a consulting company controlled by Dr. Vance and one of Dominic’s private freight accounts.
Regular payments.
Monthly.
The same accounts Noah Carter had warned about.
Hannah sat in Adrian’s study while Mateo displayed the records.
Lily colored at a small table in the corner under Mrs. Ricci’s supervision.
Hannah read every line.
“How much was he paid?”
“Nearly nine hundred thousand over three years,” Mateo said.
“For poisoning Adrian?”
“Maybe more than that.”
Hannah looked at the photograph of warehouse twelve.
“My husband found medical shipments.”
Adrian nodded.
“What kind?”
“We’re checking archived customs manifests.”
“I want to know.”
“You will.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Talk like information belongs to you until you decide other people can handle it.”
Adrian went still.
Mateo became fascinated by his tablet.
Hannah crossed her arms.
“Noah is dead. If this has anything to do with him, I don’t need protection from facts.”
“You’re right.”
She blinked.
Adrian continued.
“Every record we find, you see.”
“Even if it makes your family look bad?”
“Especially then.”
That evening, Sofia Moretti asked Adrian to join her in the sunroom.
His mother was seventy, elegant, and still capable of turning a dinner invitation into a legal command.
“You’re fighting with Dominic.”
“I’m investigating him.”
“That is worse.”
“Depends what he did.”
Sofia studied him.
“You look awake.”
“I am.”
“For how long?”
“Since I stopped drinking the tea he brings.”
Her face changed.
Adrian told her enough to make denial difficult.
Not everything.
Sofia listened without interrupting.
When he finished, she stood and walked to the window.
“Dominic was always jealous of you.”
“That doesn’t make him a poisoner.”
“No.”
She touched the glass.
“Your father made jealousy into a competition.”
Adrian said nothing.
Their father, Carlo Moretti, had loved his sons according to usefulness.
Adrian had been the heir.
Dominic had been the spare.
One received responsibility.
The other received comparisons.
“You protected him,” Sofia said.
“I tried.”
“Sometimes too much.”
“What does that mean?”
“You paid his debts.”
“He was twenty-two.”
“You covered his mistakes.”
“He was young.”
“You gave him jobs he had not earned.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“I thought I was helping.”
“You taught him consequences belonged to you.”
The sentence landed harder than Adrian expected.
Sofia turned.
“If he did this, you are not responsible for his choices. But you are responsible for the system that let him make them without anyone questioning him.”
Adrian thought of Hannah saying the same thing differently.
He had built a house where difficult truths were expensive.
His mother touched his cheek.
“Do not become your father while punishing your brother.”
Adrian almost smiled.
“Everyone has advice today.”
“Because you are finally awake enough to hear it.”
At 9:30 p.m., Mateo called.
“We found the shipments.”
Adrian put the call on speaker with Hannah present.
“What were they?”
“Medical-grade sedatives and controlled neurological compounds. Some legal. Some not authorized for domestic distribution.”
Hannah’s face drained.
“Warehouse twelve?”
“Yes.”
“Why move them?”
Mateo answered.
“Money, probably. Diverted pharmaceuticals sell high through illegal channels.”
Adrian stared at the table.
Dominic had used the freight business to move black-market medical products.
Dr. Vance had access.
Noah discovered it.
Then Noah died.
“Cause of the warehouse accident?” Adrian asked.
“Forklift brake failure.”
“Mechanical report?”
“Missing.”
Hannah stood.
“Missing?”
Mateo’s voice softened.
“Deleted from the company archive.”
“By Dominic?”
“His administrator account accessed it.”
Hannah closed her eyes.
Lily slept upstairs.
Her father had been reduced to one paragraph in an insurance report.
Accidental death.
No criminal finding.
A widow paid compensation.
Case closed.
Adrian looked at Hannah.
“I’m reopening everything.”
She shook her head.
“You don’t get to reopen my husband like a file.”
He stopped.
She was crying now.
“You get to find the truth.”
“Yes.”
“And if the truth is Dominic?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t protect your family name.”
“No.”
“You don’t pay me to disappear.”
“No.”
“You don’t decide Lily is safer never knowing who her father was.”
Adrian’s voice lowered.
“No.”
Hannah wiped her face.
“Then find the truth.”
At 10:08 p.m., a security alert sounded.
Not inside the mansion.
At the detached garage.
Mateo pulled up the feed.
A man in a hood moved beside Hannah’s car.
He crouched near the rear wheel.
Adrian’s blood turned cold.
“Zoom.”
The image sharpened.
The man reached underneath the vehicle.
Mateo called security.
The intruder ran.
He escaped over the rear wall before guards reached him.
But what he left behind remained.
A brake-line cutting tool.
Hannah stared at the screen.
Adrian felt the old rage rise.
Hot.
Immediate.
Predictable.
Then Lily’s voice returned to him.
Mama says mad makes people say dumb stuff.
Adrian exhaled slowly.
“Call the police.”
Mateo looked at him.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
That was new.
The Moretti family had spent decades solving problems privately.
Privacy had given Dominic room to become dangerous.
No more.
Hannah looked at Adrian.
“You’re really calling them?”
“Yes.”
“Even if it exposes your business?”
“If my business can’t survive the truth, it deserves to fall.”
For the first time, Hannah looked at him not as an employer or a frightening man with money.
As someone trying to become better than what he inherited.
Upstairs, Lily began crying from a nightmare.
Hannah turned toward the door.
Adrian followed.
At the top of the stairs, Lily ran directly past her mother and into Adrian’s legs.
He froze.
Tiny arms wrapped around him.
“The lion was gone,” she sobbed.
Adrian looked at Hannah.
Then crouched and lifted the child carefully.
“I’m here.”
Lily pressed her face against his shoulder.
“Don’t go.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
He had spent three years afraid sleeping would make him unable to protect anyone.
Now he understood something else.
May you like
Protection was not staying awake forever.
It was making sure children did not have to.
