Chapter 3
Dr. Rebecca Lin met Luca through play, not interrogation.
Vittorio watched from an adjoining room.
He had been warned not to ask leading questions, so he didn’t.
Rebecca gave Luca toy cups, plastic food, stuffed animals, blocks, and crayons.
For fifteen minutes he did nothing relevant.
He made a stuffed bear drive a wooden ambulance.
Then he arranged three toy figures around a table.
One was “Daddy.”
One was “Grandma Bernie.”
The smallest was Luca.
Rebecca did not react to the names.
Toy Luca received a cup.
Toy Daddy did not.
Toy Grandma Bernie said:
“Quiet boys drink.”
Vittorio looked away from the glass.
It was the first subtle clue that the tea had been part of a rule rather than a single incident.
Rebecca later cautioned him.
“Play behavior is information, not a verdict.”
“I know.”
“You need to keep knowing.”
He nodded.
The security review produced something more concrete.
At six family gatherings during the previous three months, Bernadette had personally poured Luca a drink.
Not always hibiscus tea.
Sometimes lemonade.
Once juice.
She did it even when staff were serving everyone else.
The camera could not show what was inside the drinks.
But the pattern existed.
On four of those six days, household notes recorded Luca falling asleep unusually early afterward.
Those notes had been written by his nanny, Megan Scott.
Vittorio summoned her.
Megan arrived shaking.
He noticed.
“You’re not in trouble.”
She looked doubtful.
“Sit.”
She did.
Vittorio placed copies of the household notes in front of her.
“You wrote these?”
“Yes.”
“Why did Luca sleep after these lunches?”
“I thought he was tired.”
“Every time?”
“No.”
She hesitated.
“Mrs. Rossetti said formal events overstimulated him.”
“Did she ever give him anything?”
Megan looked down.
That was enough to make Vittorio’s pulse jump.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did you see?”
“Little packets.”
“What kind?”
“I never saw labels.”
“When?”
“Sometimes she’d bring them from her purse before lunch.”
Vittorio’s hands tightened.
“You never asked?”
“I did once.”
“And?”
“She said it was something his pediatrician approved to help with travel and overstimulation.”
Vittorio stared at her.
“Did she say I approved it?”
Megan’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
There was the second clue.
Bernadette had not merely acted privately.
She had borrowed Vittorio’s authority.
Just like countless senior relatives did inside families where nobody wanted to challenge the person with the oldest name at the table.
Megan began crying.
“I thought you knew.”
Vittorio believed her.
That did not make the failure disappear.
May you like
He had created a household where people assumed family hierarchy was equivalent to parental consent.
Now his son had paid for that assumption.
