Chapter 5: The Room at St. Anne's
Julian drove himself.
Daniel sat in the passenger seat and said nothing for the first several minutes, which meant he was thinking carefully about what he was about to say.
"Michael had a key card for St.
Anne's," Daniel said finally.
"Administrative access.
It was issued eight months ago under a corporate donor account.
The account is registered to a shell company — Langford Heritage Group."
Victoria's name.
Victoria's company.
"She gave him access," Julian said.
"The hospital confirmed it when I called ahead.
The key card has been used fourteen times in the past eight months.
Always late at night.
Always the same ward." Daniel checked his phone.
"Pediatric long-term care.
Room 14."
Julian kept his eyes on the road.
He had grown up with Michael.
Twelve years younger, always smaller, always looking up at Julian the way younger brothers do when the gap between them is wide enough to feel like a wall.
Their father had been easier with Michael.
Softer.
Julian had always assumed it was simply because Michael had arrived later, when Giovanni was older and less guarded.
Now he wondered if it was something else.
If Giovanni had looked at Michael and felt the particular tenderness of a man who knew what it meant to leave a child behind.
They pulled into the hospital parking structure at 1:17 a.m.
The night ward was quiet.
A nurse at the station looked up as they came through.
Daniel showed his credentials and she pointed them toward the east corridor without a word.
Room 14 had a window beside the door.
Julian looked through it before entering.
Michael was seated in a chair beside a hospital bed.
In the bed, connected to a monitor whose green line moved in slow, steady waves, was a boy.
He looked to be about eight or nine years old.
Dark hair.
Thin wrists on top of the blanket.
Eyes closed.
Michael's head was bowed.
He was not asleep.
His shoulders were moving in the way shoulders move when someone is trying very hard not to make a sound.
Julian opened the door.
Michael looked up.
His face was swollen around the eyes.
He had clearly been crying for some time.
He looked at Julian and then looked at the floor, and for a moment he looked exactly like the twelve-year-old he had once been, caught doing something he could not explain.
"Who is he?" Julian said quietly.
Michael wiped his face with the back of his hand.
"His name is Marco."
"And?"
A long pause.
The monitor beeped softly.
The boy's chest rose and fell.
"He's Elliot's son," Michael said.
Julian went very still.
"Elliot doesn't know he exists," Michael continued, his voice rough.
"His mother — Marco's mother — she came to me eighteen months ago.
She was sick.
She knew she wasn't going to make it.
She was terrified of what would happen to Marco when she was gone.
She didn't know how to find Elliot.
She knew the Ricci name." He exhaled slowly.
"She came to me because she didn't know who else to ask."
"And you didn't tell me."
"I told Victoria." Michael's jaw tightened.
"That was the worst decision of my life."
Julian pulled the second chair to the other side of the bed and sat down.
The boy — Marco — stirred slightly and then settled.
His breathing was slow but steady.
"What does Victoria know about him?"
"Everything.
I told her because I thought she could help.
I thought she had hospital connections, charity connections." Michael laughed bitterly, a short and humorless sound.
"She did have connections.
She used them to bury Marco's records.
To make sure nobody could trace him back to the Ricci name.
She said it would protect the family if Elliot ever came forward with a claim on the trust."
"She said the child was supposed to be d*ad," Julian said.
"Allison heard her say it."
Michael's face went gray.
"I didn't know she said that.
I swear to you, Julian.
I didn't —" He stopped.
"She told me once that Marco was a liability.
That if anyone connected him to Elliot, and Elliot connected himself to our father's trust, the entire structure of the inheritance would unravel." He pressed both hands over his eyes.
"I thought she meant legally.
I didn't understand what she was willing to do."
"The s*dative in the maid's water.
The deleted footage.
The forged trust document.
The intercepted letters." Julian looked at his brother.
"You built the access for all of it."
"Yes." The word came out flat and final.
Michael didn't try to qualify it.
"Harold Kent."
"I introduced him to Victoria three years ago.
He needed money.
She needed someone on the inside of the property systems." Michael lowered his hands.
His eyes were red.
"I didn't know about the s*dative until tonight, Julian.
You have to believe that."
"I don't have to believe anything right now." Julian looked at Marco.
"How sick is he?"
"A heart condition.
He's been here four months.
The prognosis is — they say with the right procedure, he has a very strong chance." Michael's voice broke on the last word.
He steadied it.
"The procedure costs $340,000.
Victoria promised to arrange the funding through the donor account.
She kept delaying it.
Every time I asked, she delayed it again." He looked at Julian.
"That's when I understood.
She was never going to pay.
Marco was leverage to keep me in line.
As long as that boy needed the surgery, she owned me."
The monitor beeped.
Julian stood up.
"Where is Victoria now?" Michael asked.
"My office.
With Daniel's team."
Michael nodded slowly.
He didn't ask what came next.
He already knew.
"I'll cooperate," he said.
"With everything.
Whatever you need."
Julian looked at him for a long moment.
Then he looked at the boy in the bed — his nephew, though neither of them had used that word yet.
May you like
"I know you will," Julian said.
And walked out into the corridor to make the call that would begin dismantling everything Victoria Langford had built.
