Adrian reached for the syringe.
Before he could take it, the study doors opened.
A silver-haired man entered carrying a leather medical case.
He stopped.
Only for a fraction of a second.
Then his face settled into a practiced smile.
“Marco.”
Dr. Victor Sanz.
Elena recognized him immediately.
He looked at the syringe in her hand.
Then at her.
Something flickered in his eyes.
Recognition.
Not of her face.
Her name.
Elena.
She saw it.
So did Marco.
“You know her?” Marco asked.
Sanz's answer came too quickly.
“No.”
Elena set the syringe on the table.
“I’m Elena Hart.”
“Yes. Your name was mentioned.”
“Where?”
Sanz ignored the question.
“I came for Mr. Bellucci's evening treatment.”
“No injection tonight,” Elena said.
Sanz turned toward her.
“I wasn't speaking to you.”
Marco's voice cut through the room.
“What’s in that syringe?”
“Your medication.”
“What medication?”
“The same medication you've received for seventeen months.”
“That isn't an answer.”
Sanz sighed.
“Marco, new caregivers sometimes become alarmed by things they don't understand.”
Marco leaned forward.
“Elena found puncture marks.”
The doctor's expression changed.
Only slightly.
But Elena saw it.
He wasn't surprised.
He was afraid.
Marco continued.
“She pressed one. My hand moved.”
Sanz stared at him.
“Neurological spasms can occur in severe spinal injuries.”
“Then why didn't you tell me?”
“I didn't think it was clinically significant.”
“You've been telling me for eighteen months that movement below my waist is nearly impossible.”
Sanz's face remained composed.
“I've been telling you what the scans show.”
Elena stepped closer to the medical case.
“Then you won't object to an independent laboratory test.”
Sanz's fingers tightened around the handle of his leather bag.
“That would be unnecessary.”
Adrian looked at him.
“Why?”
Sanz said nothing.
Marco watched him.
“I've known you twelve years, Victor.”
“I know.”
“You treated me after I was shot in Milan.”
“Yes.”
“You were there when my sister's son was born.”
“Yes.”
“You were in the hospital when they told me I'd never walk again.”
Sanz's expression hardened.
“I was.”
Marco looked down at his hand.
The thumb moved again.
This time deliberately.
A tiny movement.
A devastating one.
“Then tell me exactly what's in those syringes.”
Sanz waited too long.
“Baclofen. Analgesics. A low-dose sedative.”
Marco nodded once.
“Fine.”
He looked at Adrian.
“Send them to the lab.”
Sanz's voice changed.
“You shouldn't.”
Nobody moved.
Marco lifted his eyes.
“Why?”
Sanz stared at him.
For a moment, he looked older than his years.
Then he walked toward the windows.
“You believe the explosion was an assassination attempt.”
“It was.”
“No.”
Sanz turned.
“It was supposed to be.”
Marco's expression remained still.
“Explain.”
“The bomb was meant to kill you.”
“That part isn't new.”
“No.” Sanz looked toward the wheelchair. “What's new is what happened afterward.”
Elena felt cold.
Sanz continued.
“You survived.”
Marco's voice became hard.
“And?”
“And the people responsible had a problem.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“What problem?”
Sanz looked directly at Marco.
“You were still alive.”
The fire cracked again.
Rain struck the glass.
Sanz lowered his voice.
“So they changed the objective.”
Marco's fingers tightened around the armrest.
“What objective?”
Sanz looked at the wheelchair.
“If they couldn't bury Marco Bellucci…”
His eyes returned to Marco.
“…they decided to bury the man he used to be.”
The lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Adrian moved instantly.
“Down!”
A sharp crack tore through the darkness.
Elena dropped behind the wheelchair.
Glass shattered somewhere near the windows.
Marco's chair lurched as Adrian grabbed him and pulled him lower.
Another shot struck marble.
The smell of dust and smoke filled the room.
Someone had fired from inside the penthouse.
That was what terrified Elena most.
The security system was supposed to make that impossible.
Then came the elevator bell.
Soft.
Almost polite.
The doors opened.
Someone was already inside the private security perimeter.
Adrian raised his weapon.
“Stay behind me.”
Elena crouched beside Marco.
She could hear her own breathing.
Then a voice drifted from the darkness.
Calm.
Familiar.
“You should have kept your mouth shut, Victor.”
Sanz closed his eyes.
Marco looked toward the elevator.
“Who is that?”
No answer.
The stranger stepped into the faint emergency lighting.
Elena couldn't see his face clearly, only the outline of a coat and the silver glint of something in his hand.
Sanz whispered, “It's over.”
Marco stared at him.
“No.”
His hand moved.
Once.
Then again.
Slowly, deliberately, he lifted his thumb from the armrest.
The movement was tiny.
But everyone in the room saw it.
Marco looked at Elena.
“Do it again.”
She understood.
She pressed the same point beneath his shoulder.
His fingers responded.
Once.
Twice.
A little more each time.
The realization spread across his face with the force of a door opening inside a locked room.
For eighteen months, he had believed his body had betrayed him.
Now he understood something worse.
Someone had been betraying him through it.
Sanz stepped backward.
Marco's voice was almost quiet.
“You told me I would never walk.”
“I told you what I was paid to tell you.”
Elena looked at him.
“By whom?”
Sanz didn't answer.
The stranger near the elevator did.
“By people who were afraid of what would happen if Marco Bellucci ever stood up again.”
Adrian raised his weapon.
“Drop yours.”
The stranger complied.
A gun struck the marble floor.
Then he stepped into the light.
Elena recognized him from the photographs on Marco's office wall.
Thomas Bellucci.
Marco's older brother.
Dead for seven years.
Except this man wasn't Thomas.
He was his son.
Daniel Bellucci.
Marco stared at him as though the past had just walked through the door wearing a living face.
“Daniel?”
His nephew looked at him with something between guilt and exhaustion.
“I didn't come to kill you.”
“Then why did you shoot?”
“To stop Victor.”
Marco glanced at Sanz.
Daniel swallowed.
“Because he was going to leave.”
Elena st