Chapter 12 - No More Private Solutions
Lorenzo took one step toward the man.
Rocco caught his arm.
Not hard.
Just enough.
Behind them, Mia began to cry.
That sound did what Rocco’s hand could not.
Lorenzo stopped.
Nora arrived from the study, phone pressed to her ear.
“I’ve called the police.”
Vivien stared at her.
“You have no authority—”
“I don’t need your permission to report this.”
Lorenzo looked at Nora.
She held his gaze.
“This cannot stay inside your house.”
He knew what she was asking.
Police in his hallways.
Statements.
Questions that might wander beyond the ones he wanted answered.
For years, he had protected his power by keeping outsiders away.
That privacy had protected Vivien, too.
“Give them the gate records,” he told Rocco. “The original files. Everything relevant.”
Vivien’s face drained.
“You can’t be serious.”
He looked at Elena.
She stood against the wall with Mia wrapped around her.
He had never seen someone hold a child so tightly while trying not to frighten her.
“I’m serious.”
The first officers arrived twelve minutes later.
A detective named Marisol Grant separated everyone before taking detailed accounts.
Nobody was allowed to turn the hallway into a courtroom.
The man in the jacket claimed he worked for a private transport contractor.
The driver said he had been told an elderly patient might resist relocation.
Neither had paperwork signed by Lorenzo’s mother.
Neither had authorization to transport Mia.
Grant looked at the wheelchair.
“Who told you the child was coming?”
The man glanced at Vivien.
Vivien said, “I want my attorney.”
“Then stop answering questions,” Nora told her.
Lorenzo almost laughed.
Even now, Nora insisted the process be clean.
Especially now.
The detective photographed the forged employment notice and arranged to collect the original documents properly.
She asked Elena whether Vivien had threatened her before.
Elena answered.
Once she started, she didn’t stop.
The blocked messages.
The insults.
The stolen wages Vivien called deductions.
The threats about Mia.
Lorenzo listened from the doorway until Grant asked him to step away.
He obeyed.
In the kitchen, Rocco handed him a glass of water.
“You all right?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Lorenzo looked up.
Rocco’s jaw tightened.
“If you were all right after hearing that, I’d worry.”
Across the hall, Vivien’s phone rang inside her handbag.
The screen lit up.
Adrian.
May you like
Then a message appeared beneath his name.
Tell me you got the signed original out of her room.
