Chapter 1
Vittorio did not wait for Bernadette to answer.
Luca doubled over again.
That ended every other question.
“Car. Now.”
One bodyguard lifted Luca carefully while another cleared a path through the garden.
Vittorio followed.
Behind him, Bernadette tried to stand.
“You’re overreacting.”
Vittorio stopped without turning.
“My three-year-old is in pain after drinking something you gave him.”
“It was tea.”
“Then you should have no problem explaining that to a doctor.”
Nobody moved to help Bernadette.
Not because Vittorio had ordered it.
Because every guest had seen her kick a child’s homemade dessert onto the ground and then reach toward him after he complained of pain.
The garden luncheon had stopped feeling like a family gathering.
It felt like evidence.
Vittorio reached the SUV.
Luca was crying quietly now.
That frightened him more than screaming would have.
“Daddy?”
“I’m here.”
“My tummy.”
“I know.”
Luca’s paper chef hat had fallen somewhere near the patio.
Vittorio did not go back for it.
The hospital was twelve minutes away.
They arrived in nine.
Doctors took Luca directly into pediatric emergency care.
Vittorio handed over the tea glass in a sealed plastic food container one of his security men had grabbed before leaving.
Then he told the physician something he hated admitting.
“I drank some too.”
The doctor stared at him.
“Why?”
Vittorio had no intelligent answer.
“I wanted to know if she’d put something in it.”
“That is not how we test unknown substances.”
“I understand that now.”
The doctor gave him a look suggesting she doubted it.
Both father and son were evaluated.
Luca remained awake.
His vital signs were stable, but he was unusually drowsy for a child who had just been frightened and rushed through an emergency department.
The physician ordered blood and urine testing.
Vittorio’s own examination was normal apart from a mild sense of fatigue he might otherwise have blamed on stress.
An hour later, Dr. Elaine Porter sat across from him.
“We found evidence of a sedating medication in Luca’s system.”
Vittorio’s face went completely still.
“Prescribed?”
“No.”
“Could it be accidental?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“How much?”
“I’m not giving you toxicology details while we’re still confirming the result.”
That answer irritated him.
It also made sense.
“Is he going to be okay?”
“At the level we’re seeing, we’re monitoring him closely. Right now, I’m optimistic.”
Vittorio exhaled.
Then Elaine asked:
“Has Luca been unusually sleepy before?”
Vittorio frowned.
“He’s three.”
“I mean unexpectedly. After meals. Family events. Drinks prepared by someone else.”
Vittorio started to say no.
Then stopped.
There had been afternoons.
Luca falling asleep in the car after garden lunches.
Luca missing dessert at two formal family dinners because he could barely keep his eyes open.
Bernadette joking that the boy “finally learned how exhausting manners were.”
At the time, Vittorio had thought nothing of it.
Now he remembered every one.
Elaine saw his expression change.
“How many times?”
“I don’t know.”
“That matters.”
Vittorio looked through the glass panel toward his sleeping son.
May you like
For the first time, the question stopped being what Bernadette had put into Luca’s tea today.
It became how long Luca had been drinking something Vittorio never knew about.
