Chương 6
Dante stopped beside her.
She looked at his empty hands.
“My ring?”
He held it out.
Her fingers curled but did not take it.
“Keep it.”
His throat tightened.
“For now,” she added.
The surgeon said, “We need to go.”
Grace’s eyes stayed on Dante.
“If I don’t—”
“Don’t.”
“Listen to me.”
He leaned closer.
“If I don’t wake up, you don’t give him to anyone in that family.”
“You’re going to wake up.”
“You promised not to lie.”
His jaw worked.
“All right.”
“You tell him I wanted him.”
“I will.”
“You tell him I fought.”
“He’ll know.”
“No Rossi name.”
Dante nodded.
She searched his face.
“And don’t make him pay for what she did.”
He understood that she did not mean Victoria alone.
The bed began to move.
Dante walked beside it until the red line marked the surgical boundary.
Grace’s hand slipped from his sleeve.
The doors closed.
He remained there until Detective Morales found him.
“We have a judge reviewing the warrant application,” she said. “There’s a problem.”
“My mother’s attorney.”
“Three attorneys, actually. They claim your wife was voluntarily receiving private psychiatric and obstetric care at the estate after a breakdown. They say she had expressed paranoid delusions and fears that rival families intended to kidnap her child.”
Dante laughed once, quietly.
Morales watched him.
“What?”
“That’s what my mother will do. She’ll use a truth from one room to support a lie in another.”
“What truth?”
“Grace was afraid.”
“Of whom?”
“My family.”
“And did she have mental-health treatment before she disappeared?”
“She saw a therapist twice after a miscarriage.”
“Your mother’s lawyers have records suggesting a longer history.”
“Forged.”
“Maybe. But they’ve already sent them to the judge.”
Dante looked at the operating-room doors.
“What do you need?”
“Evidence that the room was a prison, not an unconventional treatment space. Evidence that your wife couldn’t leave. Evidence that your mother controlled it.”
“There’s a cage.”
“Her attorney says it was already in the historic wine vault and that your wife chose to stay inside during episodes of self-harm.”
“Grace carved a warning into the wall.”
“They say she damaged property during an episode.”
“She had a padlock on the cage.”
“They claim staff used it only when medically necessary.”
Dante looked at her.
Morales’s mouth tightened.
“I’m not saying I believe them. I’m telling you what has to survive court.”
“The key was hidden behind Elias’s back.”
“Mr. Finch’s testimony helps. His involvement also gives them a way to blame him.”
Elias had served the family for forty-one years. Victoria could describe him as a rogue employee and produce photographs of him standing behind every Rossi Christmas dinner since Dante was born.
“What about the doctor?” Dante asked.
“We’re identifying him.”
“Adrian Vale. Grace said he smelled like whiskey.”
Morales wrote down the name. “Licensed?”
“Not that I know.”
“You know him?”
“He treated men who didn’t want gunshot wounds reported.”
Morales looked up from her notebook.
“There it is,” she said.
“What?”
“The point where helping your wife becomes dangerous to you.”
“It was dangerous before tonight.”
“Not like this.”
“No.”
“Are you still helping?”
Dante looked at the blood beneath his fingernails.
“Yes.”
Morales stepped closer.
“I’m going to ask questions that expose your crimes. I may arrest you. I may use your answers against you. You should have a lawyer.”
“My lawyers work for my mother.”
“Get another one.”
“I don’t know another kind.”
The operating-room doors opened. A nurse hurried out carrying a clear bassinet. Inside it, a tiny red-faced infant moved beneath a blanket while another nurse squeezed air through a small mask.
Dante forgot the detective.
“Is that—”
The nurse did not stop.
A doctor followed.
“Mr. Rossi?”
“Yes.”
“Your son is alive. He’s having some difficulty breathing, and he’s going to the neonatal intensive care unit. Your wife lost significant blood. The surgical team is controlling it now.”
“Can I see him?”
“Not yet.”
“Can I see her?”
“Not yet.”
The doctor touched his arm once and went back through the doors.
Dante stared down the corridor where his son had disappeared.
He had imagined this moment in a dozen safe rooms of his mind: Grace cursing him through labor, Victoria waiting outside with champagne she would pretend not to drink, his father’s watch on Dante’s wrist, the child placed against Grace’s chest.
Instead, the first sight of his son lasted three seconds beneath fluorescent lights while a stranger breathed for him.
Morales said nothing.
Dante put Grace’s ring on the smallest finger of his left hand because it would not fit anywhere else over his swollen knuckles.
“What do you need for the warrant?” he asked.
“Something your mother’s attorneys cannot reinterpret.”
He thought of the house.
Victoria’s rules had always been arranged around appearances. Bloodstains were removed before breakfast. Men who came through the west entrance never crossed the formal rooms. Phones were collected during business meetings, but household instructions were written on cream stationery because Victoria believed handwriting made people more careful.
Elias had delivered Grace’s meals.
“What happened to the trays?” Dante asked him when they returned to the waiting area.
“Washed in the scullery.”
“Medical packaging?”
“Burned.”
“Every piece?”
Elias hesitated.
Sofia leaned toward him. “Every piece?”
“I kept the labels from the IV bags.”
Dante stared.
“Why?”
“The first week, Mrs. Grace developed a fever. Dr. Vale changed medication without telling her what it was. I thought she might die, and I wanted to know what had been given.”
“Where are the labels?”
“My room.”
“At the estate?”
“Yes.”
Morales joined them. “Anything else?”
Elias’s fingers worked at the seam of his trousers.
“A household ledger.”
“What kind?”
“Deliveries, expenditures, instructions. Mrs. Rossi preferred verbal orders for illegal matters, but she required staff to record quantities. Food, linens, fuel, medical supplies.”
“Does it mention Mrs. Rossi?”
“Not by name. It uses initials.”
“V.R.?”
“Madam.”
Morales exhaled through her nose.
May you like
“Still useful. Where?”
“Behind the lower drawer of my writing desk.”
