Chapter 3 - THE SILVER BOTTLE
At 4:40 that morning, Sophia led me into the laundry room.
Not my office.
Not the security center.
The laundry room.
I had owned the house eleven years and had probably entered it twice.
Sophia locked the door behind us.
“You’re sure there are no cameras?” I asked.
“I clean this room myself.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No cameras.”
She moved toward a cabinet above the industrial sink, dragged over a stool, climbed onto it, and reached behind a stack of folded towels.
She brought down a plastic freezer bag.
Inside was a small silver bottle.
My pulse slowed.
Exactly as Lily had described.
Sophia handed it to me.
“I found it three weeks ago.”
“Where?”
“In the pocket of a jacket.”
“Whose?”
She hesitated.
“Mr. Gabriel’s.”
For one dangerous second, I heard nothing but the mechanical hum of the dryers.
My younger brother.
Gabriel Moretti was thirty-four.
Four years younger than me.
When we were children, I had broken a boy’s nose because he mocked Gabriel’s stutter.
When our father died, I had given Gabriel control of three legitimate companies because I wanted him to have a life outside what our family had become.
When Isabella died, Gabriel had sat beside me until sunrise.
He had held a glass of whiskey I never drank.
He had said, You don’t have to be strong with me.
Now a silver bottle from his jacket sat in my palm.
“You should have told me.”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“The day I found it.”
“I never heard about it.”
“I asked Mr. Russo to arrange five minutes with you.”
My chief of staff.
“He told me you were unavailable.”
“Russo doesn’t decide who sees me.”
“He said you did.”
That meant either Russo had lied or someone had lied to him.
“How did you know the bottle mattered?”
“I didn’t. Not at first.”
Sophia opened a drawer.
She removed a folded piece of paper.
“It was wrapped around this.”
It was a pharmacy receipt.
The name had been torn off.
The dosage instructions were intact.
Not a sleeping medication.
A compounded stimulant.
I had spent three years telling doctors that my body felt exhausted while my mind stayed violently alert.
They had blamed trauma.
They had been partly right.
Trauma had lit the fire.
Someone else had been pouring gasoline on it.
“I took a photograph,” Sophia said. “Then I put the bottle back in his jacket.”
“Why is it here now?”
“Because it appeared in the trash two days later.”
She swallowed.
“I got scared.”
“You should have gotten scared.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Mr. Moretti, I have a three-year-old daughter. I am scared every day I work in this house.”
That silenced me.
She did not say it disrespectfully.
She said it truthfully.
“I heard things before,” she continued. “Mr. Gabriel came into the kitchen late at night. Sometimes Dr. Antonelli came through the service entrance. They always stopped talking when they saw me.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I had nothing to say that wouldn’t get me fired or worse.”
I looked at the bottle.
“Did Lily see them?”
“I didn’t know she had.”
“She heard enough.”
Sophia covered her face briefly.
“She gets out of bed. I lock the cottage door, but Mrs. Ricci babysat her tonight while I helped with the dinner upstairs. Lily must have wandered into the main house.”
“And heard Gabriel.”
Sophia nodded.
I pulled out my phone.
Then stopped.
If Gabriel had access to my home, my doctor, my staff, and perhaps my communications, calling my security team would be the fastest way to tell him I knew.
I put the phone away.
“What time do you serve my breakfast?”
“Seven.”
“Who prepares the coffee?”
“Usually me or Mrs. Ricci.”
“Does Gabriel ever enter the kitchen before then?”
“Almost every morning he stays here.”
Of course he did.
Family ate together on Wednesdays.
Gabriel had slept in the west guest wing.
He was upstairs right now.
Maybe sleeping peacefully.
The thought nearly made me laugh.
“What are you going to do?” Sophia asked.
“Drink my coffee.”
Her eyes widened.
“No.”
“I didn’t say I would swallow it.”
“Then what?”
“Give Gabriel exactly what he expects.”
At seven, I entered the breakfast room looking like a man who had not slept.
That required no acting.
Gabriel was already there.
Gray suit.
Open collar.
Cedar cologne.
He looked up from the newspaper.
“Christ, Dante.”
I poured coffee.
“You look terrible.”
“Good morning to you too.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He watched me add nothing to the cup.
I lifted it.
Took a sip.
Or appeared to.
I let the coffee touch my lips, then set it down.
Gabriel relaxed.
It was almost invisible.
Almost.
“You have the Chicago Harbor meeting at nine,” he said.
“I know my schedule.”
“I could handle it.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
His jaw shifted.
“You haven’t slept in days.”
“I haven’t slept in years.”
“Exactly.”
That word landed differently now.
Exactly.
I leaned back.
“Maybe you should run everything.”
He looked at me.
I gave him a tired smile.
“Isn’t that what everyone is thinking?”
For half a second, hunger appeared in his eyes.
Then brotherly concern replaced it.
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re Dante Moretti.”
“And?”
“And this family follows you.”
“For now.”
He leaned forward.
“If you need me, I’m here.”
I almost admired the performance.
He had probably practiced it.
I rubbed my temple.
“I have a headache.”
“You need rest.”
“I can’t sleep.”
His expression softened.
“I know.”
Three years ago, those words would have comforted me.
Now they sounded like a confession.
I stood.
“I’m canceling Harbor.”
“I’ll take it.”
“No.”
His eyes sharpened.
“Then who?”
“Nobody.”
I picked up my cup.
“Maybe it’s time everyone sees what happens when I stop holding things together.”
I left before he could answer.
At 8:12, I sent a single handwritten note through Mrs. Ricci to one man.
Detective Samuel Kane.
Retired Chicago homicide.
My father had once saved his life.
Kane owed me nothing and disliked me enough to be useful.
The note contained six words.
Test this. Tell nobody. Come alone.
By noon, Kane sat across from me in an abandoned storage office beneath one of my hotels.
He put the sealed bottle on the table.
“Where’d you get it?”
“Answer first.”
His expression hardened.
“It’s a stimulant compound. Strong enough that regular exposure could wreck sleep patterns, increase agitation, cause paranoia, impair judgment.”
“For three years?”
He stared at me.
“You’ve been taking this?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you have, whoever did it didn’t want you dead.”
“No.”
Kane leaned back.
“They wanted you conscious.”
I looked at him.
“No.”
A darker thought settled between us.
“They wanted me incompetent.”
Kane said nothing.
I stood and walked to the window.
Three floors below, Chicago moved as if nothing in my world had changed.
“Can you test my coffee?”
“I already did.”
I turned.
He had taken the cup from Mrs. Ricci.
Kane slid a lab strip photograph across the table.
“Same compound.”
My brother had watched me raise that cup to my mouth.
He had watched me pretend to drink.
Kane studied me.
“Who has access?”
I thought of cedar cologne.
Shiny shoes.
A smiling fox.
“My family.”
At that exact moment, my phone vibrated.
Gabriel.
I answered.
“Dante.”
His voice was warm.
Concerned.
Perfect.
“I spoke to Dr. Antonelli. He thinks we need to discuss your health.”
“With who?”
A pause.
“The family council.”
I looked at Kane.
“When?”
“Tomorrow night.”
Gabriel lowered his voice.
“We’re worried about you.”
I smiled.
May you like
For the first time in three years, the words did not hurt.
“Then tomorrow night,” I said, “you can all tell me exactly how worried you are.”
