Chapter 13 - Before the Toast
Denise stood between Teresa’s bed and the medication cup.
“Nothing was taken,” she said immediately. “I checked before I gave her anything.”
Lorenzo reached his mother.
Teresa grabbed his wrist.
“Stay.”
“I’m here.”
Rocco cleared the hallway while Denise contacted the prescribing service and investigators.
The tablets remained untouched.
No one guessed what they were.
No one threw them away.
Nora arrived with Detective Ruiz twenty minutes later.
Vivien came upstairs behind them.
“What is all this?”
Lorenzo looked at her purse.
“You tell me.”
She gave an impatient laugh.
“I came to help Teresa dress.”
Denise spoke.
“You told the relief nurse I’d changed the medication procedure.”
“I did no such thing.”
“The nurse wrote it down.”
Vivien’s gaze moved to Ruiz.
For the first time all evening, she seemed to understand that this was no longer a family argument.
Ruiz asked her to come downstairs.
Vivien refused until Nora said, “You can explain it with counsel present.”
The dinner guests had begun arriving.
Their voices drifted from the entrance hall.
Charles stood beneath the chandelier, talking about harbor views.
When he saw Ruiz, his face hardened.
“Lorenzo. A word.”
“In the study.”
Charles followed him, with his attorney joining by phone.
Lorenzo’s own attorney and Ruiz were present.
No hidden gun. No locked door.
Charles noticed every difference.
“This is unnecessary.”
“The transfer is stopped,” Lorenzo said.
Charles blinked.
“Temporarily.”
“My mother’s accounts are secured. The original papers are with her lawyer.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“I already made it.”
Lorenzo placed his engagement ring box on the desk.
Vivien entered behind Ruiz.
She saw the box.
“No.”
“The wedding is canceled.”
Her eyes filled immediately.
The speed of it might once have fooled him.
“Because the maid told you some ugly story?”
“Because I heard you.”
The room went still.
“In your bedroom,” he continued. “The gates. The cameras. Terrible things.”
Vivien stopped crying.
Charles turned toward his daughter.
For one clean second, Lorenzo saw anger without any fatherly concern in it.
Vivien saw it too.
“You told me to handle her,” she said.
Charles’s face went gray.
“Be quiet.”
“You said we couldn’t let that woman ruin everything.”
“Vivien.”
She looked around the room and understood that the door she had helped close was now behind her.
May you like
Then she pointed at her father.
“Ask him what was supposed to happen after the wedding.”
