Chapter 10 - Two Plots, One Ballroom
For the next hour, Daniel Kessler dismantled every simple explanation they had built.
Valentina and Carlo had not been working together.
At least not according to him.
They had been running separate operations inside the same engagement party, each believing their own plan was hidden from the other.
Valentina had paid Daniel to make Aleandro's engraved glass easy to identify.
Carlo had later approached Daniel with a different offer and ordered him to wear the lion ring where cameras could see it.
"Why agree to both?" the investigator asked.
Daniel laughed bitterly.
"Because I was stupid enough to think I could take money from powerful people and walk away."
"What was Valentina planning?"
"She never told me."
"What did you think?"
"Blackmail."
"Why?"
Daniel hesitated.
"She asked whether the ballroom cameras captured audio near the head table."
Aleandro turned toward Marco.
"Do they?"
"Directional microphones cover the center floor for security."
"Did Valentina know that?"
"Apparently."
Samuel frowned.
"Maybe she intended to provoke a recorded conversation."
Sophia stared through the glass.
"Or record him after putting something in his drink."
Aleandro looked at her.
The possibility was ugly but plausible.
Daniel continued.
"Carlo contacted me the morning of the party."
"What did he say?"
"He knew about Valentina's glass plan."
"How?"
"He didn't explain."
"What did he want?"
Daniel's face tightened.
"He told me to wear the ring and make sure I was seen near the tray."
"Did he give you poison?"
"No."
"Did you put anything in Aleandro's glass?"
"No."
"Then who did?"
Daniel looked terrified.
"I never saw it happen."
"What about the vial in Sophia's locker?"
He closed his eyes.
"I planted it."
Sophia's nails bit into her palms.
Aleandro's voice remained low.
"Why her?"
The investigator repeated the question.
Daniel opened his eyes.
"Carlo gave me her locker number months ago."
"Months?"
"He told me if he ever sent a message with the word winter, I was supposed to place whatever package he gave me inside that locker."
"And he sent the message?"
"At ten thirty-eight."
"Before Valentina collapsed."
"Yes."
Samuel looked at Aleandro.
The framing had been activated before anyone drank.
That meant Carlo knew the poison was already in place.
"What about Detective Holt?"
Daniel shook his head.
"I don't know him."
"Who called police?"
"No idea."
"Who called the press?"
Daniel gave the same answer.
The investigator changed direction.
"Tell me about Emma."
Daniel looked toward the mirror again.
"I am sorry."
Sophia stepped closer to the glass.
"Sorry is cheap," she whispered.
Daniel could not hear her.
"Carlo told me the child had seen too much."
"What did he order?"
"Take her from Rosa and bring her to Red Hook."
"Then what?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"He said someone else would handle it."
The investigator's voice hardened.
"You handed a three-year-old to strangers without asking what handle it meant?"
Daniel looked sick.
"I told myself they were going to scare the mother."
Sophia left the observation room before she broke something.
She walked to the end of the hallway and pressed both hands against the wall.
Aleandro followed.
"Do not."
He stopped.
"Do not tell me to calm down."
"I wasn't going to."
"Do not tell me you're handling it."
"I wasn't going to say that either."
Sophia turned.
"Then what are you going to say?"
Aleandro looked at her for a long moment.
"That I understand why you ran."
She had not expected that.
"Four years ago, if you had told me someone from my family threatened you, I would have thought I could fix it."
He glanced through the glass at Daniel.
"Tonight proves I did not even know where the threat began."
Sophia's anger did not disappear, but it shifted.
"What happens now?"
"We find out what Valentina intended to put in my glass."
"She's in a guarded hospital."
"Her father controls the floor."
"Can you get in?"
Aleandro almost smiled.
"Yes."
Sophia shook her head.
"That wasn't admiration."
"I know."
Samuel came into the hallway holding his phone.
"You may not need to break into anything."
"Why?"
"Valentina requested to speak with Aleandro."
"Alone?"
"Very specifically alone."
Sophia laughed without humor.
"Convenient."
Aleandro looked at Samuel.
"Did she say why?"
"She told the nurse she knows who poisoned the glass."
The hospital's private floor was locked down by Romano security when Aleandro arrived.
Senator Dominic Romano met him outside Valentina's room.
"You have ten minutes."
"Move."
Dominic's eyes narrowed.
"My daughter nearly died in your house."
"My glass nearly killed your daughter."
The senator froze.
Aleandro watched the knowledge hit him.
"You knew it was my glass?"
Dominic recovered too slowly.
That was answer enough.
"Who told you?"
"Get out."
Aleandro entered the room.
Valentina looked smaller in the hospital bed than she had beneath the chandeliers.
Her skin was pale.
An IV line ran into her arm.
The arrogance was still there, but pain had stripped away some of the polish.
"You came."
"You lied to police."
Valentina closed her eyes.
"Not hello, not how are you?"
"Did Sophia hand you the glass?"
Silence.
"Answer me."
Valentina opened her eyes.
"No."
"Then why did you say she did?"
"Because I panicked."
"You committed perjury because you panicked?"
"I woke up with my father telling me your maid had poisoned me and that you were already protecting her."
"So you invented a sentence she never spoke."
Valentina's mouth tightened.
"I was afraid."
"Of Sophia?"
"Of losing everything."
Aleandro stared at her.
"Daniel Kessler talked."
Every trace of color left Valentina's face.
"What did he say?"
"You tell me."
She looked toward the door.
"My father cannot hear this."
"He won't."
Valentina lowered her voice.
"I was not trying to kill you."
"That is a very low bar for a fiancée."
"I was trying to test you."
Aleandro's expression changed from anger to disbelief.
"Test me?"
Valentina swallowed.
"I had a compound prepared."
"What compound?"
"Something harmless in the dose I ordered."
"For what purpose?"
"It causes temporary disorientation and lowers inhibition."
Aleandro's eyes became dangerous.
"You planned to drug me."
"For twenty minutes."
"You planned to drug me."
Valentina looked away.
"My father told me you were hiding assets before the marriage."
"So you intended to make me impaired and question me under hidden microphones."
"I needed to know whether you were planning to leave me powerless."
Aleandro laughed once, quietly.
"You have just ended this engagement."
Valentina's eyes filled with anger.
"You think you can walk away after what happened?"
"Watch me."
"My father will destroy the alliance."
"Then it was never an alliance."
She grabbed his wrist before he turned away.
"Wait."
He looked at her hand until she released him.
"The substance I ordered was blue."
Aleandro paused.
"What?"
"One drop turns champagne faintly blue for a few seconds before clearing."
"Why does that matter?"
"Because when I took your glass, it was already blue."
Aleandro went still.
"I thought Daniel had dosed it for me."
Valentina's voice dropped to a whisper.
"But Daniel says he never did, doesn't he?"
Aleandro said nothing.
"Someone knew my plan," she continued.
"Someone used it as cover."
Aleandro looked toward the door where Senator Romano waited.
Valentina followed his eyes.
"There is something else."
"What?"
"The night before the party, my father asked me one question."
Aleandro waited.
Valentina's face had finally lost every trace of performance.
"He asked whether your engraved glass would be on the tray before or after the photographers arrived."
Before Aleandro left Valentina's hospital room, he asked one final question.
"When did you first suspect Emma might be mine?"
Valentina did not answer immediately.
She stared at the IV line taped to her hand.
"Tonight."
Aleandro waited.
"That is not true."
Valentina's eyes hardened.
"I wondered before."
"When?"
"Months ago."
She admitted seeing Emma in the garden once while Sophia hung linens with another employee.
The child had looked up when Aleandro crossed a terrace above them, and the resemblance had been obvious enough that Valentina noticed.
She had asked her father who the maid's child belonged to.
Dominic told her to stop being ridiculous and changed the subject.
Valentina let herself believe him because the alternative threatened the marriage she had spent years constructing.
"So you saw it and chose not to know," Aleandro said.
Valentina looked at him with exhausted anger.
"People do that every day."
"Yes."
He glanced toward the door.
May you like
"And then they call the consequences unexpected."
