Chapter 3 - The Blue Capsule
The toxicology result came back at 2:13 in the morning.
Nathan read it twice.
Then he asked the nurse to close the door.
“There’s a muscle relaxant in your blood that you were never prescribed.”
Alessia stared at him.
“How much?”
“Not enough to stop your breathing. Enough, over time, to increase weakness, dizziness, and falls.”
Valerio’s jaw tightened.
“Name.”
Nathan told him.
Valerio sent it to his security chief, Marco D’Angelo.
“Trace every pharmacy purchase under Alessia’s name.”
Alessia watched him. “Don’t turn this into a war.”
“It became one when someone medicated you.”
“No. It became a crime.”
He looked at her.
She held his stare.
“Handle it like one.”
That was harder for Valerio than anything else she could have asked.
By sunrise, security had delivered the wedding footage to the hospital.
The video showed Veronica walking behind Alessia, glancing once toward the nearest camera, then placing two fingers on the chair as Alessia began to sit.
She waited.
Then she yanked it away.
No accident.
No misunderstanding.
The second angle showed something worse.
After Alessia fell, Veronica did not look surprised.
She looked annoyed.
“Pause,” Alessia said.
Marco froze the frame.
Veronica’s eyes were not on Alessia.
They were on Alessia’s clutch purse lying beside the table.
Valerio leaned forward.
“Run it.”
The footage continued. During the commotion, Veronica kicked the purse beneath the table. A man in a catering jacket picked it up and walked away.
“That’s not our caterer,” Marco said.
Mateo, the teenage waiter, had already identified him as a stranger who appeared ten minutes before dinner.
“What was in the purse?” Valerio asked.
Alessia closed her eyes, listing the contents.
“Phone. Lipstick. My mother’s ring. A flash drive.”
Valerio looked at her.
“What flash drive?”
“The trust documents.”
His expression went blank.
Three weeks earlier, Alessia had discovered a discrepancy in the family foundation accounts. She had copied several ledgers because she wanted to understand why money from a charitable medical fund had been routed through a shell company.
She had told no one.
Not even Valerio.
“I was going to show you after the wedding,” she said.
“How much?”
“Four point six million.”
Marco swore under his breath.
Valerio did not.
He reached for his coat.
Alessia caught his hand.
“Where are you going?”
“To the archive.”
“The key?”
He nodded.
“What’s down there?”
Valerio’s gaze dropped to the brass key in the evidence bag.
“Documents my father ordered sealed after your car crash.”
Alessia’s fingers went cold.
“You told me the crash investigation found nothing.”
May you like
Valerio did not answer quickly enough.
And that was when Alessia realized her husband had been hiding something too.
