Chương 4
“I can get records.”
“Legally,” Elena said.
He looked at her.
She held his gaze.
“Legally.”
By three in the morning, Isabella had left the hospital.
She said she was going home to collect his medication bottles.
She did not come back.
Marcus noticed first.
He had been standing near the window of Dante’s private room, drinking bad coffee from a paper cup. He checked his phone, frowned once, then walked into the hallway.
Dante watched him go.
Elena was asleep in a chair.
Her coat had been folded over the back. The champagne dress underneath made the hospital room feel stranger, as though some piece of the evening had survived when the rest of it had not.
Dante looked at his feet.
He tried to move them.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
He felt stupid.
That angered him.
He tried a third time.
The left big toe shifted a few millimeters.
He stopped breathing.
Then he did it again.
The movement was so small most people would have missed it.
Dante had spent three years studying stillness.
He did not miss it.
Elena opened her eyes.
“You’re going to exhaust yourself.”
“I moved it.”
“I know.”
“You weren’t looking.”
“I was.”
He glanced toward her.
She sat up and rubbed the side of her neck.
“You snore?”
“No.”
“You looked asleep.”
“I was asleep.”
“And saw through your eyelids.”
“I heard you stop breathing.”
He stared at her.
She gave a tired shrug.
“Occupational hazard.”
Marcus returned.
“Her driver took her to the apartment on Park.”
Dante’s expression changed.
They did not use the Park Avenue apartment anymore.
It had been Isabella’s before the accident, a place she kept after their marriage because she said married people should each have somewhere to go when they were tired of being married.
Dante had thought that was funny then.
He had not been there in almost four years.
“Why there?”
“She told the driver she needed clothes.”
“At three in the morning.”
“Yes.”
“Who’s with her?”
“Lena from her security detail.”
“Call Lena.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“She said Mrs. Moretti dismissed her downstairs.”
Dante looked toward the dark window.
“Find out who enters the building.”
Marcus did not move.
Dante turned.
“Did I stutter?”
“No.”
“Then do it.”
Marcus set the coffee down.
“With respect, what exactly do you want me to do?”
The question was so unusual that Dante stared at him.
Marcus had questioned orders before.
Never in that tone.
“You know exactly what I want.”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“You’re asking me to have private security monitor your wife’s residence after she dismissed her detail.”
“My residence.”
“Legally, I don’t know that.”
Dante gave a short laugh.
“You too?”
Marcus’s jaw moved.
“You hired me because I tell you when you’re crossing a line.”
“I hired you because you’re good at preventing people from crossing mine.”
“Those are not the same job.”
Elena was watching quietly.
Dante hated having an audience for this.
He lowered his voice.
“My wife may have been drugging me.”
“Maybe.”
“You saw her.”
“I saw her bring you a pill.”
“You saw her face.”
“I don’t arrest faces.”
“Neither do I.”
“Good.”
Dante looked at him for several seconds.
Before the accident, Marcus would have obeyed and explained later.
Three years in the chair had changed the power between them in ways Dante had refused to examine. Marcus had learned to say no because sometimes Dante physically could not force a different answer.
Dante had resented him for it.
Tonight, unexpectedly, he listened.
“What can you do?”
“Preserve what we already have. Get counsel involved. Request building records properly if we need them. Not create evidence that gets thrown out because you were angry at four in the morning.”
Dante looked at the pill bag on the counter.
“Call Rebecca.”
Marcus nodded.
Rebecca Lin, Dante’s attorney, arrived at six fifteen wearing jeans, sneakers, and an expression that suggested being rich did not make him less annoying before sunrise.
She listened without interrupting.
Then she asked the question no one else had.
“Who benefits from your medical incapacity?”
Dante leaned back against the hospital bed.
“Everyone, apparently.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Rebecca opened her tablet.
“After the accident, you executed a medical power of attorney naming Isabella.”
“Yes.”
“You also activated the incapacity provisions in your holding company.”
“I know.”
“Do you know what they actually say?”
He gave her a look.
She waited.
His annoyance answered for him.
Rebecca turned the screen toward him.
“While two designated physicians certify that you are unable to perform executive duties, your voting authority is exercised by the temporary control committee.”
“Isabella chairs it.”
“Yes.”
“With Malcolm Reeves and my brother.”
“Your brother resigned last year.”
Dante frowned.
“No, he didn’t.”
Rebecca said nothing.
The hospital room seemed to tilt in a way that had nothing to do with his medication.
“When?”
“Eleven months ago.”
“Why wasn’t I told?”
“You were.”
“No.”
“I sent the notice personally.”
“To whom?”
“To your office, copied to Isabella, Marcus, and your executive administrator.”
Marcus looked down.
Rebecca’s eyes moved to him.
“You never saw it?”
“No.”
Dante’s voice was quiet.
“Who was handling my email?”
Marcus answered.
“Isabella’s office.”
That made Rebecca stop typing.
A nurse entered carrying a breakfast tray.
The timing was so ordinary that nobody knew what to do with it.
She set down oatmeal, fruit, and coffee.
“Cardiology diet,” she said.
Dante looked at the oatmeal.
“I’m not in cardiology.”
She checked the label.
“Oh. Sorry.”
For ten seconds, six adults stood in a room contemplating someone else’s breakfast.
The nurse took the tray away.
Rebecca rubbed her forehead.
“Okay.”
Dante almost laughed.
Instead he said, “What did my brother’s resignation change?”
“It reduced independent family representation on the control committee.”
“Who replaced him?”
“An outside trustee nominated by Isabella.”
“Name.”
“Arthur Belden.”
Dante knew him.
Not well.
May you like
A retired bank executive who had attended two Christmas parties and once spent an entire dinner explaining olive oil.
He looked at Rebecca.
