Chapter 4 - THE MAN BEHIND THE NEEDLE
Adrian was alive.
His wrists had been restrained with medical tubing.
A bruise darkened the side of his head.
Someone had injected him with a sedative from his own bag.
When he regained consciousness, he demanded an attorney.
Luca had him moved to a guarded room instead of calling the police immediately.
Elena opposed the decision.
“You cannot imprison a man inside your house.”
“He has poisoned me for twelve years.”
“Then give him to the authorities.”
“The authorities will ask questions.”
“They should.”
Luca looked toward Maya’s room.
“If this becomes public before I know who ordered it, the person responsible will disappear.”
Elena’s expression turned cold.
“That sounds like the kind of excuse powerful men use when they want their own rules.”
Her words struck harder because they were true.
Luca called Detective Marisol Vega.
She had investigated organized crime for fifteen years and had never accepted money from the Costello family.
Luca trusted her dislike of him more than he trusted the loyalty of many men inside his estate.
Marisol arrived with two detectives.
Adrian was formally arrested after the toxicologist provided preliminary evidence.
He refused to discuss Salvatore.
Then Marisol showed him the note found on his coat.
Adrian’s confidence cracked.
“That wasn’t Salvatore.”
“Who was it?” she asked.
Adrian stared at the floor.
“The man who hired me.”
Luca leaned forward.
“Name him.”
Adrian laughed nervously.
“You still think your uncle built this.”
“He benefited from it.”
“Yes.”
“But Salvatore never understood the medicine.”
“Someone else designed the compound.”
“Someone else chose the dose.”
Marisol placed a recorder on the table.
“Who?”
Adrian looked directly at Luca.
“Your father.”
The room became still.
Vittorio Costello had died fourteen years earlier.
Luca remembered him as a hard man who demanded obedience but loved his only son with fierce pride.
Two years after Vittorio’s death, Luca collapsed.
Adrian claimed the original plan began while Vittorio was alive.
Luca had wanted to move the family businesses toward legal real estate, shipping, and construction.
Vittorio believed his son was abandoning the empire.
He funded research into a compound that could incapacitate someone without killing them.
The intention was temporary.
A warning.
A way to stop Luca from signing control of the docks to an outside corporation.
“But my father was dead when I collapsed,” Luca said.
Adrian nodded.
“Someone continued his plan.”
“Who?”
Adrian looked toward the observation glass.
Then a shot cracked through the window.
The glass exploded.
Adrian fell backward.
Elena screamed from the hallway.
Luca turned his wheelchair toward her.
A second shot struck the wall above his head.
May you like
The shooter was not trying to kill Luca.
The shooter was making sure Adrian never finished the name.
