Chapter 2 - The Second Wheelchair
There were two things Sophie knew about Elena Moretti’s wheelchairs.
The first was that one cost more than Sophie’s car.
The second was that Elena hated both of them.
“Mobility,” she had once said, glaring at the sleek black chair in her upstairs sitting room, “is a wonderful word invented by people who have never needed permission from their own legs.”
The chair in the foyer was her everyday model: lightweight titanium frame, narrow wheels, custom cushion.
The second had been purchased after surgery eight months earlier. It was heavier, motorized, and almost never used now.
Sophie had not seen it in weeks.
Luca stood in his mother’s bedroom with the letter in his hand.
“Where is it?”
“The second chair?”
“Yes.”
“In storage, I think.”
Marco shook his head. “Basement inventory doesn’t show it.”
Vanessa laughed from the doorway.
Every face turned toward her.
She was still guarded by two men, but some of the fear had left her expression. Anger had replaced it.
“This is insane.”
Luca said nothing.
“Your mother leaves a dramatic letter and suddenly I’m part of a kidnapping conspiracy?”
“You invited the kidnappers into my house.”
“I invited a seamstress.”
“Using Thomas Vescari’s phone number.”
“I didn’t know whose number it was.”
“You expect me to believe a stranger gave you his number, you arranged a four o’clock entrance through my mother’s private side door, and you never asked his name?”
Vanessa’s stare sharpened. “I was told it was a courier.”
“By who?”
Silence.
Luca took one step toward her.
“By who?”
Vanessa looked at Sophie.
That was a mistake.
Luca saw it.
“Get her out of here,” he told the guards.
Vanessa resisted. “Luca—”
“Library.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Maybe.” His voice stayed calm. “But for the first time today, it’ll be mine.”
The guards led her away.
Sophie almost felt sorry for her.
Almost.
Then pain pulsed through her left eye and reminded her what Vanessa’s ring had felt like against her cheekbone.
Dr. Heller had insisted on a hospital. Luca had negotiated like the doctor was a hostile banker and won exactly twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes to locate the second wheelchair.
Then Sophie was going for scans whether she liked it or not.
She looked at Elena’s bedroom.
Everything was precise.
Bed made.
Books aligned.
Reading glasses on the nightstand.
A cup of tea now cold beside the chair near the window.
The room did not look abandoned.
It looked interrupted.
That frightened Sophie more.
“Mrs. Moretti didn’t trust many people,” she said.
Luca looked at her.
“No.”
“She trusted you.”
His mouth tightened. “Not with everything, apparently.”
The bitterness surprised her.
Sophie looked at the open safe.
“She was trying to protect you.”
“People always call secrecy protection when they don’t want to admit they made choices for you.”
Marco looked away.
That sentence had history inside it.
Sophie did not ask.
Instead she walked toward the dressing room.
Her head swam for a moment.
Luca’s hand caught her elbow.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re leaning into a wall.”
“The wall started it.”
His eyes flicked to hers.
For half a second, something almost like amusement softened his expression.
Then it disappeared.
“What are you looking for?”
“Mrs. Moretti keeps lists.”
“Of what?”
“Everything.”
Sophie opened the top drawer of a narrow writing desk.
Medication schedule.
Physical therapy notes.
Christmas gifts.
Charity donations.
Then she found a yellow legal pad.
At the bottom of the first page were six words.
CHAIR TWO — ST. AGNES — M. R.
Marco read over her shoulder.
“St. Agnes?”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
Sophie knew the name. Anyone who had worked for the family longer than a week did.
St. Agnes was a deconsecrated church on the South Side owned through one of the Moretti charitable foundations. The main sanctuary had been converted into storage years ago after a roof collapse. Elena still paid to maintain a small chapel there because Luca’s grandparents had married in the building.
“What does M.R. mean?” Sophie asked.
Luca and Marco exchanged a look.
“Could be Matteo Rizzi,” Marco said.
Sophie waited.
Neither man explained.
Of course not.
In the Moretti house, names were treated like locked doors. The more dangerous the person, the less anyone said aloud.
Luca pulled out his phone.
“Send four men to St. Agnes. No sirens. Nobody touches the chair until I get there.”
Marco nodded.
“You’re not going,” Dr. Heller said from the bedroom entrance.
Sophie had forgotten he was still there.
“I know.”
“I meant him.”
Luca looked genuinely offended.
Dr. Heller pointed to Sophie. “She’s going to Northwestern. You’re going with her.”
“I have—”
“A missing mother. Yes. And if your employee loses vision because you wanted to play detective for another hour, your mother will personally rise out of that wheelchair and kill you.”
Marco coughed into his fist.
Luca stared at the doctor.
Then at Sophie.
“Fine.”
Twenty-seven minutes later, Sophie sat in the back of Luca’s armored SUV with an ice pack over her left eye.
The city moved beyond the tinted windows in smeared bands of gray and gold.
Luca sat opposite her, phone in hand.
He had made nine calls since they left the mansion.
One to a judge.
One to a police commander.
Three to men Sophie did not know.
One to the head of security at the private airfield his family used.
Two to hospitals.
And one to Salvatore Moretti.
That call lasted twelve seconds.
“Where are you?” Luca asked.
A pause.
“No. Stay there.”
Another pause.
“If my mother is hurt, there won’t be a country far enough away.”
Then he hung up.
Sophie lowered the ice pack.
“He denied it?”
Luca looked at her.
“I didn’t ask if he did it.”
“What did you ask?”
“Where he was.”
“And?”
“Lake Geneva.”
“You believe him?”
“No.”
Sophie looked out the window again.
After a moment Luca said, “Why did Vanessa hit you?”
She kept her face turned away.
“You already know.”
“I know you said she stopped you from calling security. I want to know exactly what happened.”
Sophie pressed the ice back to her eye.
“I ran downstairs. She was in the foyer. I told her two men had Mrs. Moretti. Vanessa told me to lower my voice.”
“Then?”
“I tried to get past her.”
“And?”
“She grabbed my arm. I pulled away. I said I was calling you.”
Sophie paused.
“She asked if I had seen the man’s face.”
Luca became very still.
“What did you say?”
“I said yes.”
“Then she hit you.”
“Not immediately.”
“What happened first?”
Sophie swallowed.
“She said, ‘You always have to notice everything.’”
The SUV suddenly felt smaller.
Luca leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“Those exact words?”
“Yes.”
“Had she said that before?”
Sophie thought about it.
Then nodded.
“Last week.”
“Why?”
“I found your mother’s medication in the wrong bottle.”
Luca’s expression emptied.
“What?”
“The label said gabapentin. The pills were different.”
“Different how?”
“Wrong color. Wrong shape. Mrs. Moretti told me not to give them to her. She called her doctor herself.”
“What were they?”
“She never told me.”
“And Vanessa knew?”
“She walked in while we were talking about it.”
Luca sat back.
The driver glanced in the rearview mirror and immediately looked away.
Sophie realized something.
“This started before today.”
“Yes.”
“You think somebody was trying to make your mother sick.”
“I think somebody wanted her weak.”
“For what?”
Luca looked at the folded letter in his hand.
“I don’t know yet.”
At the hospital, the scan showed no fracture, but there was swelling behind Sophie’s eye and a small corneal injury. The ophthalmologist warned that her vision might remain blurred for several days. She needed medication, rest, and immediate evaluation if the darkness increased.
Sophie nodded through the entire lecture.
Luca did not.
He asked questions until the doctor started speaking to him instead of her.
“Mr. Moretti,” Sophie finally said, “it’s my eye.”
His gaze cut to her.
“I’m aware.”
“Then perhaps I could answer one question.”
The doctor hid a smile.
Luca did not apologize.
By the time they returned to the SUV, Marco was waiting beside it.
His face told Luca the news before he spoke.
“We found the second chair.”
“At St. Agnes?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Seat had been cut open.”
Luca’s expression hardened.
“Anything inside?”
“Not anymore.”
Sophie’s heart dropped.
Marco held out a plastic evidence bag.
Inside was a narrow metal cylinder no longer than a cigarette.
“We found this wedged in the motor housing.”
Luca took it.
“What is it?”
“USB capsule.”
“Contents?”
“Encrypted.”
“Take it to Niko.”
Marco did not move.
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
There was always more.
Marco removed his phone and opened a photograph.
It showed the storage room at St. Agnes.
The wheelchair stood beneath a dusty crucifix.
Beside it, spray-painted across the brick wall in white letters, were six words.
SHE WILL SIGN OR SHE WILL DIE.
Sophie felt cold.
Luca stared at the photograph without blinking.
Then Marco swiped to a second image.
A close-up of something taped beneath the chair.
A photograph.
Not of Elena.
Of Sophie.
May you like
Taken outside the Moretti mansion three days earlier.
Across her face, someone had drawn a red X.
