Annie stopped three steps from the bed. “Mr. Moretti?”
“I didn’t listen to you,” he said. “I took the plate out of your hands. I made you watch me eat what you told me was poison. That was my mistake. Not yours.”
In the corner, Marco’s eyebrows lifted. The men who worked for Gabriel Moretti had seen him order beatings, bankruptcies, and negotiations that ended with men leaving pale and shaking. They had almost never heard him say, “I’m sorry.”
Annie studied him for a long moment. “Does it hurt?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“A lot?”
“A lot.”
She nodded. “Then next time, listen faster.”
For the first time since the dinner, Gabriel smiled. “I will.”
Adrienne arrived twenty minutes later. She swept into the hospital suite wearing a black coat and perfect grief. Her mascara had smudged just enough to look real. She rushed to Gabriel and threw her arms around him. “My God,” she whispered. “I thought I lost you.”
Gabriel did not embrace her.
Adrienne pulled back. Her eyes found Annie in the corner. “Why is that child still here?”
Lucia answered from the chair. “Because I know why she is here. I do not yet know why you are.”
Adrienne’s face crumpled. “Lucia, you cannot possibly think—”
“I am not your mother,” Lucia said. “Choose your next words carefully.”
Gabriel spoke before Adrienne could recover. “We are pulling the kitchen footage,” he said. “Prep counters, service hall, back door. Every camera.”
For half a second, Adrienne’s face did something strange. She did not look offended. She looked afraid.
Then the mask returned. “Good,” she said. “Then the cameras will prove what really happened. And maybe the child can apologize before this destroys my life.”
Annie did not blink. After Adrienne left, she said, “She wasn’t scared when you were sick.”
Gabriel turned toward her.
“She was loud,” Annie explained. “But she wasn’t scared. She got scared when you said cameras.”
Marco came back before dawn with worse news. “The kitchen footage between seven thirty and seven fifty is gone,” he said. “The main server is blank. The backup is blank. No access logs.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened. “Someone inside helped her.”
By noon, Adrienne had her answer ready. She requested a private meeting in the Moretti library and arrived with a laptop, a leather folder, and the calm face of a woman who had spent the morning deciding exactly how much pain to show.
Six capos sat around the room. Lucia sat near the fireplace. Gabriel, pale but upright, watched from a high-backed chair. Annie and Nora were not invited, but Annie was in the hallway, sitting on the floor with her bear while Isabella stood guard beside her.
Adrienne opened the laptop. “My own security firm recovered footage from an independent server,” she said. “I had extra cameras installed for the engagement preparations. I want my name cleared.”