I returned home three days later.

Not because I was fully recovered.

Because I wanted to see who became uncomfortable when I walked through my own front door.

Several men did.

Useful.

Emma was not there.

Neither was Sofia.

I had placed both in a hotel under a licensed protection service chosen by Sofia herself.

Not my guards.

She insisted.

I accepted.

Learning was painful.

The living room had been sealed for evidence review.

No coffee cup removed.

No bookshelf repaired.

The tiny hole where the camera had been hidden remained visible between two books.

I stared at it.

Someone had wanted a perfect view of the center of the room.

The sofa.

Coffee table.

Me.

Not the doors.

Not the windows.

Not a security feed.

A performance.

Rebecca joined me.

“We found the governance clause.”

She handed me the trust agreement.

If the controlling executive of Moretti Holdings became medically incapacitated for seventy-two consecutive hours, temporary authority passed to the designated family trustee.

Raffaele.

That authority included ordinary business decisions.

Contract renewals.

Debt management.

Emergency asset dispositions.

“How emergency?”

“Very.”

She turned a page.

A pending agreement existed to sell seventeen percent of Moretti Port Logistics to Ferretti Maritime.

I frowned.

“I rejected that six weeks ago.”

“Raffaele didn’t.”

“He doesn’t have authority.”

“Unless you’re medically incapacitated.”

“When does Ferretti’s option expire?”

“Tomorrow night.”

There it was.

A clock.

I had collapsed forty-eight hours before expiration.

If I had remained hospitalized and declared medically unable to manage business, Raffaele could have stepped in.

Maybe sold the stake.

Maybe not.

But the timing had become impossible to ignore.

“Who drafted the seventy-two-hour provision?”

Rebecca turned another page.

“Your father.”

That mattered.

Raffaele had not secretly created the mechanism.

He had inherited an opportunity.

Old family structures become dangerous because someone eventually discovers how to use the rules for something the people who wrote them never imagined.

Then Sofia called.

Emma wanted to speak to me.

I answered.

“Hi.”

“Mr. Alejandro?”

“Yes.”

“Are you dead?”

I nearly laughed.

“No.”

“Mama said you were okay.”

“She was correct.”

“Can you breathe?”

“Yes.”

A pause.

“Good.”

Then:

“Did I hurt your leg?”

“No.”

“The pen pokes hard.”

“I noticed.”

Emma sounded relieved.

Then I asked carefully:

“Your mother said you remembered somebody with blue gloves.”

“Yep.”

“Can you tell me?”

There was rustling.

Probably the bunny backpack.

“The man put something in your drink.”

Every muscle in my body tightened.

Sofia interrupted.

“Emma, are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“When did you see that?”

“When Mama was cleaning the shiny table.”

“Where were you?”

“Behind the couch.”

Of course.

She had wandered farther than Sofia knew.

“What did the man look like?”

“Black clothes.”

Useless.

Half my world wore black.

“Hair?”

“Brown.”

Still useless.

“Was it Nico?”

Emma thought.

“No.”

That stopped me.

“Not Nico?”

“Nico touched the books.”

There.

Two different actions.

Nico placed or adjusted the camera.

Another person touched my drink.

“What was different about the other man?”

Emma went quiet.

Then:

“He had doctor hands.”

I frowned.

“What does that mean?”

“Blue gloves.”

Sofia inhaled sharply.

Disposable medical gloves.

“Anything else?”

Emma said:

“He smelled like Grandpa medicine.”

That was child language.

Sofia explained.

“Her grandfather uses eucalyptus hand balm.”

Then Emma added:

“He told Mr. Nico, ‘Not yet.’”

My pulse changed.

The camera man and the drink man knew each other.

Two roles.

Then Emma said something stranger.

“The doctor man threw a red thing in the trash.”

“What red thing?”

“The pen box.”

My emergency injectors came in red-labeled protective cases.

Someone had removed them.

A man wearing medical gloves.

I thought of Dr. Serrano.

Too obvious.

Maybe.

But evidence did not care whether a suspect felt narratively satisfying.

Rebecca ordered access records.

Dr. Serrano had entered the estate that morning.

Official reason:

To drop off updated medication because I had complained of insomnia.

He left forty minutes before my collapse.

Security log signed him out.

By Nico Bellini.

I stared at the record.

Nico had lied about one thing.

He knew exactly when Serrano had been at the house.

Then Sofia asked quietly:

“Mr. Moretti?”

“Yes?”

“Emma said one more thing.”

I waited.

“The man with the gloves told Nico, ‘Your uncle wants enough time on camera.’”

Enough time.

The phrase matched Nico’s accidental sentence.

Sixty seconds.

My uncle did not need footage of my death.

He needed footage of something else.