Chapter 85: The Director Speaks

Dr. Ortiz would not get into the police elevator. He had one hand braced against the closing doors and his eyes fixed on me across the gallery, while Noah burned behind the pediatric glass. "Five minutes," the officer said. "He says he will use them only with Gabriel Vale's daughter." Noah made a ragged sound in his sleep. I turned before anyone else could turn it into an order. "Maya stays with him," I said. "Dr. Hall stays with him. Nobody moves him." Maya's face was white above Noah's dark hair, but she nodded. Dr. Hall did not offer me a promise. She only kept one hand near Noah's shoulder and said, "Go where you can still hear him." That was enough. I walked to the elevator with my phone and every small piece of my father's unfinished war pressed beneath my coat. Ortiz watched my hands as if he expected me to give them to him. I stopped at the blue line before the doors. "Not inside," I said. "You speak here. The officers stay. My son stays where I can see him." Vittoria's heel struck the marble behind me. "This man has been frightened into a fantasy," she said. "Elena, do not mistake panic for truth." I did not look at her. "You do not get to decide when a frightened man is useful anymore." Her fingers tightened around the black silk at her wrist. Dante stood three steps back, blood dried across the heel of his hand. He said nothing. He did not come closer. For once, silence from him was not an escape. It was the boundary I had left him. Ortiz swallowed. Without his white coat's authority, he looked smaller than I remembered. Not harmless. Just smaller. "Why Gabriel's daughter?" I asked. "Because he was the only person who ever said your name like it belonged to a living woman." Ortiz's voice broke on the last word. The elevator hummed behind him. Noah breathed unevenly behind me. Every second wanted to pull my body in two directions. "Say what you know," I told Ortiz. "Not what you think will save you." His gaze flicked to Vittoria, then away so fast it was almost a flinch. "Your pregnancy was not discovered when your child got sick," he said. "It was being watched while you were still trying to hide it." The gallery seemed to lose all its air. I heard myself ask, "Watched by who?" "I don't know the name." He rushed the words out. "I was not told names. I was told you had been seen. Leaving your father's office. Buying vitamins. Going to appointments alone. They knew before Clinic Six ever saw a file." My hand went to the side of my coat where the old prenatal packet lay flat against my ribs. Fourteen weeks. A sample taken. Bianca's signature on the receipt. Facts that had always felt like a knife left on a table. Now Ortiz had given the knife a shadow. "You were getting reports," I said. "I was getting warnings." His mouth twisted. "If anyone asked about the mother, I was to say there was no mother worth tracking. Only a possible heir." Vittoria made a soft, disgusted sound. "A coward repeating words he cannot prove." I faced her then. "He doesn't have to prove every crime in this room to prove you were afraid of a pregnant woman." Her expression did not crack. But Bianca, beside the far wall, took one sharp step backward. Her hand went to her throat as if she could feel an old receipt burning there. The officer shifted his grip on Ortiz's arm. "Did you direct anyone to follow Ms. Vale?" "No." Ortiz shook his head hard. "I only knew the calls stopped when Gabriel started asking questions. Then he came to me himself." He looked at me again, and the fear in his face was real enough to make my skin go cold. "He said they had made you into a route to the child. He told me if anything happened to him, I was never to put the last thing in Moretti hands." My father. For one violent second, I was not in the gallery. I was twenty-three again, staring at a phone that would never ring back, listening to people tell me Gabriel Vale's death had been clean and sudden and nobody's fault. Noah coughed. The sound snapped me back. I looked through the glass. Maya was already lifting him higher against her shoulder. Dr. Hall was there. Noah was still hot. Still fighting. Still mine to protect. I turned to Ortiz before grief could make me careless. "What is the last thing?" He shut his eyes. "Not here. Not for them." His chin lifted toward Vittoria and Dante without giving either man the right to answer. "Gabriel did not leave it for the police. He left it for his daughter." The officer pulled Ortiz toward the elevator again. I caught the door before it could close between us. "Where is it?" Ortiz looked at me through the narrow gap. "Find the place your father trusted when no one else could hear him," he said. "And find it before the people who watched you find you again." The doors shut on him.