Chapter 2 - THE NUMBERS VANESSA HID
By morning, Luca’s medical crisis had become a financial investigation.
Emma stayed because the hospital asked her to provide the timeline she had observed, and because Luca’s agency contract still made her responsible for his nursing care until formally discharged.
She did not become a detective.
That boundary mattered.
Detective Maya Torres asked Emma to describe exactly what she saw before the injection.
“Sweating. Tremor. Difficulty focusing. Weakness. He stopped speaking mid-sentence.”
“Anything else?”
“He was irritable.”
Luca, from the hospital bed, said, “That is baseline.”
Emma ignored him.
Torres almost smiled.
The medication cabinet inventory found no legitimate insulin prescription. But investigators discovered four empty injector pens in a cosmetic bag hidden behind Vanessa’s winter clothes.
All four were the same rapid-acting insulin.
The serial lots were traceable.
A pharmacy in Milwaukee had dispensed them under the name of Vanessa’s father, Carlo Bellini, who actually had type 2 diabetes.
Carlo said several pens had gone missing months earlier.
Vanessa’s lawyer called that coincidence.
Maybe it was.
Police needed more.
Luca’s business records supplied the next layer.
His episodes clustered around meetings.
The first occurred the morning he approved a temporary voting proxy giving Vanessa authority over a family trust while he was “medically impaired.”
The second preceded the sale of a warehouse to a Bellini-controlled holding company at below-market value.
The third happened during negotiations over a port logistics contract.
The fourth occurred before Luca changed a succession document.
Emma sat in the corner while lawyers explained the pattern.
She had no reason to be there except Luca had requested medical supervision and the physicians had warned recurrent hypoglycemia could continue if long-acting agents were involved.
Emma listened.
Then she asked, “Were any documents signed when his glucose was measured?”
Silence.
Luca’s attorney, Nathan Cole, frowned.
“No.”
“Then you don’t know he was hypoglycemic when he signed.”
Elena said, “But the episodes—”
“Suggest. They don’t prove.”
Luca looked at Emma.
Again that almost-smile.
“You enjoy ruining dramatic conclusions.”
“I enjoy conclusions that survive questions.”
That afternoon, continuous glucose monitoring was started.
Luca hated the sensor.
Emma applied it anyway.
“You are enjoying this.”
“Immensely.”
He looked healthier after regular meals and supervised medications.
That was its own evidence, though not courtroom proof.
For three months, Vanessa had controlled his schedule.
She brought morning coffee.
She arranged supplements.
She insisted he skip breakfast before “metabolic blood work.”
She often handed him protein shakes before meetings.
Emma requested the ingredient lists.
Most were ordinary.
One container from the Moretti kitchen tested positive for insulin residue around the lid.
Injectable insulin was not reliably absorbed through digestion, so the finding did not explain the hypoglycemia.
But it proved insulin had been handled near his food.
More important, a housekeeper remembered Vanessa carrying small pen needles in a makeup pouch.
The housekeeper, Rosa, had never questioned it.
“Miss Bellini said they were vitamin injections.”
Emma asked, “Did you ever see her inject Luca?”
“Twice.”
“Where?”
“Stomach.”
“Did he know?”
“He rolled his eyes. He said, ‘If this is another vitamin, I’m firing Andrew.’”
Dr. Keller heard that and went pale.
“I prescribed B12 once. Intramuscular. In clinic.”
Vanessa had apparently used the credibility of a real injection to normalize fake ones.
The pattern was becoming clearer.
Still, Emma warned Luca against deciding motive before evidence.
He was impatient.
“I was poisoned in my own house.”
“Medically manipulated, likely. ‘Poisoned’ is a broad word.”
“Do nurses always correct mafia bosses?”
“Only living ones.”
His mother laughed unexpectedly.
The sound broke something tense in the room.
Later, Sofia found Emma alone near the vending machines.
“Thank you.”
“For doing my job?”
“For refusing to be intimidated.”
Emma thought of her mother in Indiana, arguing with gravity.
“My mother raised me badly.”
Sofia smiled.
Then her face became serious.
“Vanessa wanted the wedding in six weeks.”
Emma waited.
“She pushed Luca to move it forward after his first collapse.”
“Why?”
“She said illness reminded her life was short.”
Sofia’s voice hardened.
“I thought it was romantic.”
Emma did not tell her she should have known.
Manipulation worked because it resembled ordinary care.
That evening, Torres arrived with a search result from Vanessa’s phone.
A deleted note had been recovered.
It contained dates.
Beside each date was a number.
4u.
6u.
5u.
8u.
Units.
Insulin doses.
Beside several entries were initials.
LM.
Luca Moretti.
The final entry was dated the night Emma intervened.
12u.
Dr. Keller read it twice.
“Given his glucose at the time, twelve units could have been catastrophic.”
Luca’s face went still.
Emma looked at the dates.
“Compare them to the business meetings.”
Nathan did.
Every major episode matched.
Except one.
A dose listed six weeks earlier had no corresponding collapse.
Luca frowned.
“I was in New York that day.”
Rocco said, “Vanessa wasn’t with you.”
Emma pointed to the entry.
“Then LM may not mean Luca Moretti.”
The room went quiet again.
Torres looked interested.
“Who else has those initials?”
Elena answered.
“Leonard Moretti.”
Their uncle.
The family accountant.
May you like
The man who had prepared every disputed document.
And the man who had insisted, for three months, that Luca’s illness was nothing more than stress.
