Chapter 3 - Prescription of Silence.
Room 314 did not exist in Luca’s mansion.
That was the first thing Elena told him after locking the door to his upstairs library.
Luca rolled to the desk and set the brass key beside the untouched syringe, which Elena had quietly recovered from Serena’s dressing table while Serena was on the phone downstairs.
Maya sat in a leather chair with her feet tucked beneath her pink dress.
She looked far too small to be carrying a secret that adults had been afraid to touch.
Luca opened his laptop.
His hands were steady, but his thoughts were not.
“Search every property file for 314.”
Elena typed while Luca watched the hallway camera feed on a second screen.
Serena was pacing in the grand foyer.
She was no longer pretending to be calm.
She called Marcus twice.
Then she called someone listed only as A.M.
The conversation was too low for the hallway microphones to catch.
Luca zoomed in on her face instead.
He saw urgency.
He saw anger.
He saw fear.
He did not see grief.
That mattered.
Elena found the first reference to 314 in an old property inventory.
“Private storage annex, Moretti Medical Foundation.”
Luca frowned.
The Moretti Foundation occupied three floors of a downtown medical research building his father had funded before his death.
“Room 314 is an archive room.”
Elena nodded.
“It was closed after the foundation merged its rehabilitation program.”
Maya looked at the brass key.
“My mom worked there before she came here.”
Luca turned to her.
That had never appeared in the staffing file Serena had given him.
He searched Claire Bennett’s employment history.
The file had been stripped almost clean.
No foundation employment.
No disciplinary details.
No emergency contact.
Only the date she joined Luca’s home care team and the date Serena terminated her.
Luca leaned back.
“Someone edited this.”
Elena whispered.
“Mrs. Vale controls the household records.”
“Not the corporate servers.”
Luca opened the audit log.
His pulse increased.
The personnel file had been altered using an executive credential issued to Adrian Moretti.
Adrian was Luca’s older cousin, chief financial officer of Moretti Biotech, and the person who had run the company during Luca’s recovery.
Luca stared at the name.
A.M.
He looked toward the hallway camera where Serena had just ended her call.
Maya saw his expression.
“Is that bad?”
Luca forced his voice to remain gentle.
“It means there are more people I need to talk to.”
He called his private attorney, Daniel Cho, using an encrypted line Luca had not used since before the accident.
Daniel answered immediately.
“I was beginning to wonder if you remembered I existed.”
Luca closed his eyes for a second.
Serena had told him Daniel was pressuring him about company control while he was vulnerable.
Luca had stopped taking Daniel’s calls.
Now shame mixed with suspicion.
“I need a favor that stays between us.”
“That sounds like the old Luca.”
“Find out whether I ever signed a medical power of attorney naming Serena Vale or Marcus Vale.”
Daniel went silent.
Then his voice changed.
“You didn’t.”
Luca’s fingers froze above the desk.
“You’re certain?”
“I drafted your estate documents myself.”
Daniel paused.
“After the crash, Adrian sent me a scanned medical proxy with your signature.”
Luca felt the room tilt.
“I assumed you signed it in the hospital.”
“I didn’t.”
“Luca, if that signature is forged, we have a criminal problem.”
Luca looked at the syringe.
“We may have a bigger one.”
He asked Daniel to arrange an independent toxicology analysis without alerting company security.
Then he ended the call.
Elena wrapped the syringe inside a clean linen pouch.
Maya watched every movement.
Luca noticed something else.
“Why did your mother bring you here?”
Maya looked confused.
“She didn’t.”
Elena answered quietly.
“I did.”
Luca turned toward her.
Elena’s shoulders stiffened as if expecting punishment.
“After Claire disappeared, I found Maya staying with Claire’s sister across town.”
She explained that the sister had fallen ill two weeks earlier and asked Elena for temporary help.
Serena never knew Maya was Claire’s daughter.
Elena had brought the child into the mansion during her day shifts because she had nowhere else safe to leave her.
“She stayed in the staff wing.”
“Until she started wandering.”
Maya looked guilty.
“I wasn’t wandering.”
Luca almost smiled despite everything.
“What were you doing?”
“Watching.”
The answer chilled him.
Maya described Serena carrying small brown bottles from the blue sitting room after Luca’s morning injections.
She described Marcus arriving through the service entrance rather than the front door.
She described Elena being ordered out whenever Luca’s legs were examined.
Then she described the sunroom.
“Your foot moved a lot that day.”
“How much?”
Maya slid from the chair and demonstrated by pulling her own foot back several inches.
Luca’s mouth went dry.
That was not a twitch.
It was a withdrawal reflex, maybe more.
He placed both hands on his right thigh.
He closed his eyes.
Move.
Nothing.
He tried again.
His jaw clenched.
A dull warmth appeared deep above his knee.
He had not felt warmth there in months.
Luca opened his eyes.
Elena had seen his face change.
“You felt something.”
He nodded once.
A knock sounded at the locked library door.
Serena’s voice came through the wood.
“Luca?”
Nobody answered.
Her tone sharpened.
“Open the door.”
Maya backed toward Elena.
Luca slid the brass key into his inside jacket pocket.
He nodded at Elena to hide the syringe.
Then he unlocked the door remotely.
Serena entered with Marcus behind her.
The doctor carried a leather medical case.
Serena’s gaze moved immediately to Maya, then Elena, then Luca.
Marcus gave a humorless smile.
“I hear we are questioning treatment now.”
Luca looked at the case.
“No.”
May you like
He met the doctor’s eyes.
“We’re questioning you.”
