Clara reached beneath the blankets.
Nothing.
The bear was gone.
Vincent spun around.
“Lock every gate.”
Dominic spoke into his radio.
“All units, perimeter lockdown.”
Clara moved toward the balcony.
Rain covered the stone terrace outside.
Then she noticed something caught against the doorframe.
A tiny scrap of blue fabric.
The bear had been torn.
Whoever had taken it had opened it.
Vincent saw Matteo trembling.
He walked over and crouched beside him.
“Look at me.”
Matteo did.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.”
“What did he look like?”
“He had a mask.”
“Anything else?”
Matteo hesitated.
“He smelled funny.”
“Like what?”
The boy thought carefully.
“Like Grandpa’s office.”
Vincent went still.
“My father?”
Matteo shook his head.
“Mom’s grandpa.”
Vincent slowly looked toward the doorway.
Sofia’s father had died six years earlier.
But his study had always smelled of cedarwood cigars.
One other man in the family smoked the same brand.
Luca Marino.
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
Then Matteo whispered:
“And he called me principino.”
Little prince.
It was Luca’s nickname for him.
Vincent stood.
“Bring Luca upstairs.”
Dominic spoke into his radio.
No answer.
His face changed.
“What?”
Dominic looked toward Vincent.
“He’s gone.”
Luca had never passed through the gates.
Security footage showed him entering the ground-floor restroom.
Then nothing.
Another missing segment.
Eleven minutes.
Again.
Someone was deleting footage in real time.
And only three people had administrator-level access.
Vincent.
Dominic.
And the estate’s security systems consultant.
A company that had been hired fourteen months earlier.
On Dominic’s recommendation.
Vincent turned slowly.
Dominic looked back at him.
“Don’t.”
“Your recommendation.”
“I know.”
“Your access codes.”
“I know.”
“Your men.”
“I know what this looks like.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“What does it look like, Dominic?”
“Like someone wants you to shoot the one man who might still be loyal to you.”
Vincent stared at him.
Dominic opened his jacket and removed his pistol.
He placed it on a table.
“If I wanted Matteo dead, he would be dead.”
Clara flinched.
Dominic continued.
“If I wanted you dead, I have had seventeen years.”
“That’s supposed to reassure me?”
“No.”
Dominic’s expression became strangely tired.
“It’s supposed to make you think.”
Vincent’s phone rang.
The estate laboratory.
Matteo’s emergency blood screening was complete.
Vincent answered.
He listened for fifteen seconds.
His face slowly emptied.
Clara knew before he spoke.
“What?”
Vincent lowered the phone.
“Midazolam.”
Clara closed her eyes.
A sedative.
Not at a hospital dose dangerous enough to kill him.
Just enough to create drowsiness.
Confusion.
Memory gaps.
Someone had been keeping Matteo’s mind blurred.
For months.
Vincent looked toward the staircase.
“I want Mercer.”
Dr. Julian Mercer never reached the estate.
Police found his vehicle thirty miles south beside an abandoned marina.
The driver’s door was open.
Blood marked the steering wheel.
Mercer was gone.
But inside the glove compartment, investigators found something.
A photograph.
Sofia Rossi.
Aaron Hayes.
And Luca Marino.
All three standing beside an armored SUV four days before the explosion.
