Chapter 3 - Something Was Wrong With Maria
Antonio did not call the police.
That bothered Sophie.
He called someone named Vincent.
That bothered her more.
“Who is Vincent?”
“My attorney.”
“You say that like I’m supposed to relax.”
“He is an attorney.”
“What kind?”
Antonio looked at her.
“The kind who knows when not to ask unnecessary questions.”
“Terrible answer.”
Maria was sitting near the fireplace with a blanket over her knees.
She looked tired.
Not frightened.
That worried Sophie too.
“Maria, has anything else happened recently?”
Antonio turned.
“What do you mean?”
Sophie ignored him.
“Anything weird. Fainting. Confusion. Falling asleep unexpectedly. Headaches.”
Maria thought.
“I fell in the garden last month.”
Antonio’s head snapped toward her.
“You said you tripped.”
“I assumed I did.”
“Anything else?”
Maria sighed.
“Sometimes I wake up and do not remember going to bed.”
Antonio stood.
“Mama.”
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“How long?”
“Perhaps two months.”
Sophie’s skin prickled.
“Did these episodes start before Lena?”
Maria nodded slowly.
“After.”
Antonio walked toward the window.
His hands closed at his sides.
Sophie could practically watch fury assembling inside him.
“Do not do anything stupid.”
He turned.
“Define stupid.”
“Whatever you’re thinking.”
“You have no idea what I’m thinking.”
“I know your face.”
“You’ve known me four days.”
“It’s a memorable face.”
Maria covered a smile.
Antonio ignored her.
“Lena has been caring for my mother for six months.”
“Who hired her?”
“My family physician referred her.”
“Which physician?”
“Dr. Moretti.”
Sophie frowned.
“Related?”
“To us? No.”
Antonio called someone.
Within minutes he had Lena’s employment records, references, licensing information, and address.
Sophie listened.
This was Antonio’s world.
Information moved when he wanted it.
Doors opened.
People answered phones.
She understood why Marco feared him.
She also understood why Antonio trusted his own reach too much.
“What?”
He had caught her staring.
“You’re used to solving everything by making calls.”
“It works.”
“Until the person you call is part of the problem.”
His expression hardened.
“You’re assuming corruption.”
“I’m assuming nothing.”
“You just implied—”
“I said check everybody.”
Maria looked between them.
“You two argue like married people.”
Sophie nearly choked.
Antonio closed his eyes.
“Mama.”
“What? I am old, not blind.”
Sophie looked away.
Heat rose into her face.
Antonio spoke to his mother in Italian.
Maria replied.
They argued quietly.
Sophie did not understand every word, but she caught enough.
Antonio telling her to stop.
Maria telling him something about being emotionally dead.
Sophie decided not to ask.
The next day, they visited Maria’s cardiologist.
Antonio insisted Sophie come.
She resisted until Maria called personally.
Again.
Maria outranked him.
Sophie was beginning to enjoy that.
The cardiologist reviewed everything.
The pill mismatch was undeniable.
The wrong medication could lower Maria’s blood pressure dramatically.
Combined with another prescription, it could explain her dizziness.
“Could this be accidental?” Antonio asked.
The doctor hesitated.
“Yes.”
“But?”
“But professional caregivers follow procedures designed to prevent this.”
Sophie watched Antonio.
He was still.
Only his thumb moved once against the edge of his watch.
“What would happen if she took the incorrect dose repeatedly?”
“Falls. Loss of consciousness. Cardiac complications. Potentially stroke.”
Maria looked down at her hands.
Sophie reached over.
She did not think.
She just took one.
Maria squeezed her fingers.
Antonio saw that.
Something shifted in his face.
Not jealousy.
Something sadder.
Relief, perhaps.
Someone Maria trusted was there.
That evening, Sophie returned home and found her apartment door unlocked.
She froze in the hallway.
She had locked it.
She always locked it.
The neighborhood was not terrible.
It was not good enough to forget.
She stepped back.
Called 911.
Then Antonio.
She hated herself for doing the second one.
He answered on the first ring.
“Sophie?”
“My apartment door is open.”
Silence.
Then his voice changed.
“Where are you?”
“Hallway.”
“Leave the building.”
“Police are coming.”
“Leave now.”
“I’m already walking.”
“Do not hang up.”
She heard another voice in the background.
Carlo.
Antonio giving instructions.
Sophie went outside.
Police arrived six minutes later.
Antonio arrived in eight.
He was out of the car before it fully stopped.
“What happened?”
“Someone broke in.”
Police searched the apartment.
Nothing valuable was missing.
Because Sophie owned nothing valuable.
The television remained.
Laptop remained.
Cash in a kitchen jar remained.
But her nursing textbooks had been pulled from a shelf.
One lay open on the floor.
Pharmacology.
Antonio stared at it.
“This is not random.”
“No.”
“What are they looking for?”
“I don’t know.”
One officer walked out holding a clear evidence bag.
Inside was a folded piece of paper.
“We found this under the book.”
Sophie’s stomach tightened.
The officer unfolded it.
Three words.
MIND YOUR BUSINESS.
Antonio’s face became ice.
“No.”
Sophie looked at him.
“What?”
“You’re not staying here.”
“Antonio—”
“No.”
“I’m not moving into some fortress.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Watch me.”
His eyes flashed.
“This is because of my family.”
“And that doesn’t mean you own my decisions.”
“No. It means somebody threatened you because you helped my mother.”
“So?”
“So I am responsible.”
Sophie stepped closer.
“No. The person who broke into my apartment is responsible.”
He stared at her.
She lowered her voice.
“You see the difference?”
For several seconds, neither moved.
Then Antonio said, “One night.”
“What?”
“Stay somewhere secure for one night. Tomorrow, choose wherever you want.”
Sophie looked back at her apartment.
The open door.
The scattered books.
The note.
She hated that he was right.
“One night.”
He nodded.
Maria insisted Sophie stay at the Russo house.
Naturally.
Sophie slept poorly.
At three in the morning, she wandered downstairs.
She found Antonio in the kitchen.
No suit jacket.
White shirt sleeves rolled up.
Coffee.
A stack of documents.
He looked almost ordinary.
Almost.
“You don’t sleep?”
“Sometimes.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“You’re awake.”
“Someone broke into my apartment.”
“Fair.”
She sat across from him.
“What are those?”
He slid one page over.
Lena’s employment file.
Perfect references.
Perfect background.
Too perfect.
Sophie read.
“Why was she hired?”
“Dr. Moretti said my mother needed monitoring after a blood-pressure episode.”
“When did that happen?”
“Seven months ago.”
“Before Lena.”
“Yes.”
“Who was with Maria during the episode?”
Antonio thought.
“My cousin Gabriel.”
Sophie looked up.
“Who is Gabriel?”
Antonio’s face gave away nothing.
“My father’s sister’s son.”
“What does he do?”
“He works for Russo Holdings.”
“Doing what?”
“Finance.”
There.
Sophie leaned back.
“You don’t like that question.”
“I dislike what you’re implying.”
“I didn’t imply anything.”
“You’re thinking loudly.”
She almost smiled.
“Does Gabriel gain anything if Maria becomes incapacitated?”
Antonio became very still.
“Sophie.”
“That’s a valid question.”
“Careful.”
She stared at him.
There was the wall.
The powerful man again.
Family.
Territory.
Lines she was not supposed to cross.
Sophie stood.
“Fine.”
She started toward the door.
Antonio’s voice followed.
“You’re angry.”
“I’m tired.”
“You’re angry.”
She turned.
“You asked me to help figure out what’s happening.”
“I asked you to help with medication.”
“And medications don’t arrange themselves.”
His jaw tightened.
Sophie pointed toward the file.
“Someone is messing with Maria’s pills. Someone broke into my apartment and left a threat. Your response is to warn me because I asked who benefits.”
She shook her head.
“That is exactly how people get away with hurting families like yours.”
Antonio stood.
“Families like mine?”
“Families where everyone is too scared to tell the powerful person something he doesn’t want to hear.”
The words landed.
Hard.
Antonio said nothing.
Sophie immediately regretted it.
Not because it was false.
Because it was true.
She walked away.
At breakfast, Maria seemed better.
Lena had disappeared.
Her apartment was empty.
Her phone disconnected.
Antonio’s people learned she had withdrawn eight thousand dollars in cash two days earlier.
Then Vincent called.
Antonio listened.
His expression changed.
“What?”
Sophie asked.
He ended the call.
“Lena was not originally referred by Dr. Moretti.”
Maria frowned.
“What?”
“His office sent three names.”
Antonio looked at her.
“Lena was added afterward.”
“By whom?”
Antonio did not answer immediately.
That told Sophie everything.
“Gabriel?”
Antonio stared at the floor.
“Yes.”
Maria’s hand tightened around her napkin.
“He said she came highly recommended.”
Antonio picked up his phone.
Sophie reached for his wrist.
He stopped.
“Don’t.”
“He endangered my mother.”
“We don’t know that.”
“He hired her.”
“That’s evidence of access. Not guilt.”
“He disappears for three days whenever money goes missing and suddenly—”
“You already dislike him.”
Antonio looked at her.
She released his wrist.
“That means you’re exactly the wrong person to confront him right now.”
He hated that.
Sophie could see it.
Maria surprised both of them.
“She’s right.”
Antonio turned.
“Mama.”
“She is right.”
Maria’s voice trembled, but not from weakness.
“Your father used anger like a hammer. Everything looked like a nail to him.”
Antonio’s face hardened.
“I am not my father.”
“Then prove it.”
Nobody spoke.
Later that afternoon, Sophie went through Maria’s medication log.
Lena had recorded every dose.
Perfectly.
Too perfectly.
Nurses were human.
Handwriting varied.
Times shifted.
Small notes appeared.
These entries looked copied.
Sophie held two pages against the window.
Same numbers.
Same slant.
Same pressure.
She called Antonio.
“Come here.”
He entered.
“What?”
“These logs were written at the same time.”
“How do you know?”
“Look.”
She showed him.
“Same pen pressure. Same exact formation. She wasn’t recording doses every day. She was backfilling the records.”
Antonio stared.
Sophie flipped another page.
One date was strange.
“Maria was hospitalized this night.”
“Yes.”
“The log says Lena gave her medication here at nine.”
Antonio’s gaze sharpened.
“She was in the hospital at nine.”
“Exactly.”
His phone rang.
Carlo.
Antonio listened.
Then looked at Sophie.
His face had changed completely.
“What?”
He ended the call.
“Gabriel is gone.”
“Gone where?”
“We don’t know.”
Sophie’s pulse quickened.
Antonio walked toward the door.
She looked back at the medication log.
Something near the spine caught her eye.
A faint indentation.
Writing from a removed page.
She shaded it lightly with the side of a pencil.
Letters emerged.
An address.
And beneath it, two words.
TRANSFER SIGNATURE.
Sophie stared.
Antonio returned.
“What?”
She held up the page.
Maria stepped closer.
When she saw the address, all color left her face.
“No.”
Antonio looked at her.
May you like
“Mama?”
Maria whispered, “That’s the office where your father signed the Russo family trust.”
