Chapter 3 - The Sliced Plastic
The silence inside the dining room became suffocating. No one dared to breathe, move, or speak as Lorenzo turned his piercing gaze upon his inner circle.
Sophia, still standing by the doorway with raindrops dripping from her pink dress, reached out and gently tugged at the hem of Lorenzo’s dark trousers.
Lorenzo looked down at the eight-year-old child.
Sophia opened her small, wet palm. Lying across her pale fingers was a second object she had recovered from the rain outside.
It was a second hospital identification bracelet—sliced cleanly through the thick plastic band by a sharp blade.
"This was in the bag too," Sophia whispered softly, her eyes glancing toward the dark hallway behind her. "Underneath the blanket."
Lorenzo reached down and took the severed band from her hand.
He brought it up to the light of the chandelier. Printed across the clear plastic surface was Valentina’s name, clear as day. But as his eyes moved to the patient identification number printed below it, his brow furrowed into a deep, dangerous line.
PATIENT ID: 884-902-A
The letter at the end was an A, not a B.
Lorenzo slowly turned his head toward his wife. Valentina backed up half a step, her hand rising to clutch the diamond pendant at her throat, her lips trembling as she tried to form words that wouldn't come out.
At the far end of the table, Matteo looked across at the sliced plastic band in Lorenzo’s hand. The moment his eyes registered the letter A, every drop of color drained from his face, leaving him as pale as a corpse.
Matteo took one slow, silent step backward toward the curtained exit leading to the private terrace.
Lorenzo caught the movement instantly out of the corner of his eye.
"Marco," Lorenzo commanded, his voice dropping to a register that made the glass sconces vibrate.
May you like
From the corners of the room, four heavily armed men in dark suits stepped forward, their hands resting on their holstered weapons. Lorenzo’s head of security, Marco, stepped directly into the doorway behind Matteo, blocking the terrace exit entirely.
"No one leaves this room," Lorenzo said, holding his sleeping son against his heart. "And someone is going to tell me why my son was left in a trash bag behind my kitchen while I was signing away my family's legacy."
