Chapter 1 - The Second Slap
Adeline moved before Camille’s hand could rise again.
Her palm closed around Camille’s wrist.
The room stayed silent.
Nico was still on the marble beside his overturned wheelchair, one hand locked around the console table, his breathing clipped and controlled.
“Let go of me,” Camille said.
“No.”
Camille’s eyes narrowed.
Behind her, Victor Alfieri pushed through the doorway with two security men at his shoulder.
He didn’t look at Nico’s cheek.
He didn’t look at the broken glass near the wheelchair.
His eyes went straight to the medication tray scattered across the floor.
“Did he miss his evening dose?”
Adeline looked at him.
The question landed wrong.
Nico heard it too.
His head turned.
Camille ripped her wrist free.
“This is exactly what I was talking about,” she said. “She’s been getting inside his head for weeks.”
Adeline bent and lifted Nico’s wheelchair upright.
“I can transfer you,” she said.
“I can do it.”
“You’re on the floor.”
“I noticed.”
That tiny flash of irritation was the closest thing to normal in the foyer.
Adeline braced the chair.
Nico locked his arms against the console table, shifted his weight, and pulled himself onto the seat with enough force to make sweat bead along his hairline.
Nobody offered to help.
Nobody wanted to be the person he remembered helping.
Camille folded her arms.
“You embarrassed me in front of my family.”
Nico adjusted one foot on the plate.
“You hit me in front of mine.”
“You humiliated me first.”
“You mean I said no.”
Camille’s jaw flexed.
Victor stepped between them.
“Enough.”
Nico looked at his uncle.
“Get her out.”
Victor lowered his voice.
“We have thirty guests in the ballroom and three reporters outside the gate. Think about what you’re doing.”
“I am.”
Camille laughed once.
“You’re listening to a nurse who has been here three months instead of the woman you’re marrying.”
Adeline’s pulse ticked harder.
Camille looked at her.
Then at Nico.
“Ask her.”
Nico did not move.
“Ask her what?”
Camille’s mouth curled.
“What she stole from your bedroom.”
The room changed.
Adeline saw Edna turn her face away.
Victor stopped breathing for half a second.
Nico’s gaze moved to Adeline.
“What did you take?”
Adeline could lie.
She had the two white tablets hidden in a specimen bag inside an old shoe in the closet upstairs.
She had photographs of a bottle whose label did not match what was inside.
And she had no proof yet that Camille had been the one replacing them.
“I removed two tablets from one of your prescription bottles.”
Victor’s face hardened.
Camille smiled.
Nico’s voice dropped.
“Why?”
“Because they shouldn’t have been there.”
Victor stepped toward her.
“You removed medication from a disabled patient without authorization?”
“I isolated a sample.”
“You stole controlled medication.”
“No.”
“You don’t know that.”
Adeline met his eyes.
“Yes. I do.”
Nico held up one hand.
Victor stopped.
Adeline continued.
“The bottle is labeled baclofen.”
Nico’s fingers tightened on the wheel rim.
“That’s what I take for spasms.”
“The tablets inside aren’t the same shape as the ones from the pharmacy.”
Camille’s smile vanished.
Victor’s did not.
Adeline watched both.
Nico said, “Where are they?”
“Upstairs.”
Camille moved first.
She turned toward the staircase.
Adeline blocked her.
Camille’s shoulder hit hers.
“Move.”
“No.”
Victor said, “Adeline.”
She did not look at him.
Nico’s voice came from behind her.
“Everybody stays where they are.”
Camille stopped.
A phone vibrated.
Not Adeline’s.
Not Nico’s.
Victor slipped one hand inside his jacket and silenced it without checking the screen.
Adeline saw the movement.
She stored it away.
Nico pointed at the hall.
“Edna. Lock the front doors.”
Victor’s head snapped toward him.
“Nico—”
“I said lock them.”
Edna moved.
The click of the deadbolt sounded too loud.
Camille looked suddenly less certain.
Nico turned toward Adeline.
“Bring me the tablets.”
She went upstairs fast.
The old shoe sat exactly where she had left it.
Toe pointing toward the closet wall.
Adeline reached inside.
Empty.
Her hand froze.
She checked again.
Nothing.
She pulled the shoe apart.
The specimen bag was gone.
Then she saw the medication cabinet.
The door stood open.
The bottle she had photographed was missing too.
Footsteps approached behind her.
Nico’s wheelchair clicked against the threshold.
Adeline turned.
He had come alone.
“Tell me.”
“Someone took them.”
His eyes moved to the open cabinet.
“Who has access?”
“You. Me. Camille.”
She stopped.
Nico caught it.
“And?”
Adeline swallowed.
“Victor.”
A shadow crossed the hall outside.
Nico looked toward it.
Camille stood at the far end, coat on, one hand around the newel post.
Her other hand was empty.
Adeline looked past her.
Victor was gone.
Then Camille leaned over the railing.
“You still think I’m the one you should be afraid of?”
Nico rolled forward.
“Where’s my uncle?”
Camille’s eyes flicked toward the dark east corridor.
May you like
She smiled without humor.
“Probably checking whether you missed your dose.”
