Chapter 7 - The Bellini Family Dinner Trap And The Stolen Syndicate Ledger Hidden Inside The Wedding Planner's Briefcase
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Caroline's scream echoed down the marble stairwell like a gunshot.
Luca didn't even bother going around his mahogany desk.
He vaulted straight over the leather top, knocking his crystal pen holder onto the Persian rug, and bolted out of the study with me right on his heels.
We took the grand staircase three steps at a time.
By the time we burst through Benjamin's bedroom door on the third floor, the scene inside made the blood freeze in my veins.
Benjamin was sitting upright in the middle of the navy flannel sheets, clutching at the collar of his pajama shirt with both hands.
His small chest was heaving violently, each inhale producing a high-pitched, terrifying wheeze.
Red, angry hives were spreading rapidly up his neck and across his pale cheeks, and his lips were already turning a faint, dusky blue around the edges.
"He's going into anaphylaxis!" Caroline sobbed, frantically tearing open the top drawer of the nightstand where his emergency medication was always kept. "Where is his EpiPen?! Luca, where is the yellow case?!"
"It's always in the top drawer next to his inhaler!" Luca barked, shoving the nightstand aside to check the floor behind it while I dove for the bathroom medicine cabinet.
I yanked open the mirrored door above the sink.
Empty.
Not a single prescription bottle.
No albuterol inhaler.
No yellow auto-injector case.
"It's not in the bathroom!" I shouted, running back into the bedroom. "Did he eat the birthday cake? Mrs. Carter knows he's deathly allergic to tree nuts—the kitchen doesn't even allow hazelnuts or almonds on the property!"
"Not the cake!" Caroline cried, pointing a trembling finger at the white coverlet and the pillowcases we had pushed to the foot of the bed earlier. "Look at the tag on the liner! And smell his corduroy bear!"
I grabbed Barnaby the bear from the pillow.
Beneath the faint scent of espresso grounds I had wiped off earlier, there was a heavy, sweet, unmistakable aroma soaked deep into the cotton stuffing of the bear's head.
Sweet almond oil.
And around the zipper of the new pillow protectors Vanessa's decorator had put on the bed that afternoon was a small laundry sachet filled with crushed macadamia husks and scented oil.
My stomach lurched with violent revulsion.
Vanessa hadn't just thrown Barnaby down the trash chute after dinner.
Before dinner—when she had first stripped the room—someone had poured concentrated almond diffuser oil onto the bear's fur and inside the pillowcases, knowing full well that if Benjamin hugged his bear or laid his head down tonight, his airway would close within twenty minutes.
"The backup EpiPen in the kitchen pantry!" I gasped, turning toward the door. "Mrs. Carter always keeps a spare inside the red first-aid box on the second shelf!"
"Get it!" Luca roared, scooping Benjamin up into his arms wrapped in a blanket. "I'm taking him down to the SUV right now—if we wait for an ambulance in this storm, we'll lose him!"
I flew down the back service stairs so fast my feet barely touched the treads.
When I skidded into the dark kitchen and flipped on the fluorescent lights, Mrs. Carter was already running in from the staff quarters in her bathrobe.
"The first-aid box in the pantry!" I yelled, yanking open the pantry door and reaching up to the second shelf.
My fingers closed around the red metal box.
I pulled it down and flipped the latch.
Inside were gauze pads, antiseptic wipes, and scissors.
The plastic clip where the two yellow EpiPens and the emergency rescue inhaler were always secured was completely bare.
"Where are they?!" I cried, turning to Mrs. Carter. "Mrs. Carter, where are the kitchen pens?!"
The older housekeeper's face went as white as chalk.
"Miss Bellini!" she gasped, clutching her robe at her throat. "Yesterday afternoon! She told me the pharmacy called about a batch recall on Benjamin's allergy injectors! She made me gather the ones from his bedroom, the kitchen, and his school backpack and give them all to her so her assistant could exchange them!"
A wave of pure, icy horror washed over me.
There was no pharmacy recall.
Vanessa had systematically disarmed every single life-saving device in this mansion twenty-four hours before dosing his bed and his favorite toy with almond oil.
She hadn't wanted to wait two years for the Swiss boarding school clause to kick in.
She had wanted an "accidental fatal reaction" on the night of her engagement party while thirty-two high-profile witnesses were downstairs to swear she never went near his food!
Wait.
If she collected them yesterday afternoon—did she throw them away at the house, or did she lock them somewhere before the movers came?
The silver serving cart.
At dinner tonight, Benjamin had pointed to the silver serving cart in the butler's pantry and said: She showed me the box this morning.
I sprinted out of the kitchen and burst into the butler's pantry beside the dining hall.
At the bottom of the heavy silver catering cart was a locked mahogany liquor drawer where the vintage cognac was kept during parties.
I didn't look for a key.
I grabbed a heavy cast-iron meat tenderizer off the prep counter and brought it down with all my strength onto the brass lock.
Once.
Twice.
On the third strike, the wood splintered and the lock snapped in half.
I yanked the drawer open.
Sitting right behind the box of pastel baby candles were three yellow EpiPen cases and Benjamin's blue rescue inhaler.
"Thank God!" I sobbed aloud, grabbing all three pens and the inhaler and sprinting toward the front foyer.
Outside under the porte-cochère, the black Escalade's engine was already roaring, the headlights cutting through the driving rain.
Luca was in the back seat with the door open, holding Benjamin upright as the boy fought desperately for a single breath of air, his tiny fingernails digging into his father's forearms while Caroline wept beside him.
"I found them!" I screamed, leaping up onto the running board and diving into the back of the SUV as Marco slammed his foot on the gas.
The heavy truck fishtailed out of the wet cobblestones and rocketed through the open iron gates before I even pulled the door shut.
"Give it to me!" Luca commanded, his hands steady as steel despite the terror in his eyes.
Wait—Caroline's hands were shaking too violently, and Luca was holding Benjamin's convulsing body still against the seatbelts so he wouldn't jerk the needle.
"Hold his right leg down, Mr. Moretti!" I said, dropping to my knees on the floorboard of the speeding SUV and popping the blue safety cap off the yellow auto-injector with my teeth.
Luca pinned Benjamin's thigh firmly against the leather seat with one massive hand, his eyes locked onto mine.
"Do it, Rachel."
I pressed the orange tip firmly against the outer middle of Benjamin's thigh through his thin pajama pants until the spring-loaded needle clicked loudly.
"One, two, three, four, five..." I counted out loud, keeping my hand rock-steady as the SUV swerved around a flooded intersection on Lake Shore Drive at eighty miles an hour. "...six, seven, eight, nine, ten."
I pulled the injector away and immediately massaged the spot for ten seconds while prepping the rescue inhaler.
For thirty agonizing seconds, nothing happened.
Benjamin's chest heaved silently, his eyes rolling back slightly beneath his fluttering lids.
"Ben!" Luca's voice cracked—the only time I had ever heard the ruthless head of the Moretti family sound like a man whose soul was being ripped out of his body. "Ben, stay with Daddy! Breathe for me, buddy, breathe!"
Then, suddenly, Benjamin let out a sharp, ragged gasp.
Air rushed back into his constricted bronchial tubes with a loud cough.
"It's working!" Caroline cried, pressing her forehead against her son's tiny hand. "He's breathing! Luca, he's breathing!"
"Hold the spacer to his mouth," I instructed, fitting the plastic chamber onto the blue albuterol inhaler and pressing it gently over Benjamin's nose and mouth. "Two deep breaths, sweetheart. Look at Miss Rachel. In... and out. Good boy, Ben. One more time."
Benjamin's brown eyes focused weakly on my face over the plastic mask.
As the epinephrine surged through his bloodstream, the angry red hives along his throat began to fade slightly, though he started shivering violently from the adrenaline rush.
Three minutes later, Marco drifted the Escalade right up onto the concrete ambulance bay of Northwestern Memorial's pediatric emergency room, laying on the horn.
Four trauma nurses and an ER physician came running out through the sliding glass doors with a gurney before the tires even stopped smoking on the wet pavement.
"Nine-year-old male, severe tree-nut anaphylaxis!" I called out as Luca lifted Benjamin onto the gurney and ran alongside the doctors into the bright white lights of Resuscitation Bay 1. "Zero-point-three milligrams epinephrine administered four minutes ago in the right lateral thigh, followed by two puffs of albuterol! Second EpiPen is right here in my hand!"
The lead ER doctor glanced at me in surprise as they hooked Benjamin up to the cardiac monitors and slipped an oxygen mask over his face.
"Fast thinking," the doctor said, checking Benjamin's pulse oximeter as the numbers climbed from 84% back up to 97%. "If you had waited until you got through our doors to give that shot, his airway would have completely obstructed in the car. Whoever found that pen saved this boy's life tonight."
Inside the trauma bay, Caroline collapsed into a plastic chair beside the gurney, sobbing in relief as she held Benjamin's left hand.
Luca stood on the other side of the bed, his hand resting gently on his son's chest, feeling every rise and fall beneath his palm until the doctors administered intravenous antihistamines and steroids to prevent a secondary reaction.
Only when Benjamin's eyes drifted shut into a calm, medicated sleep—his oxygen reading a steady 99%—did Luca slowly step back from the gurney and walk out into the quiet hospital corridor where I was standing in my rain-soaked maid's uniform, still holding the empty yellow injector tube in my white-knuckled hand.
Luca didn't say a word as he walked toward me.
He stopped directly in front of me, gently pried my stiff fingers open, and took the empty plastic tube out of my hand, tossing it into the medical waste bin on the wall.
Then, right there in the middle of the fluorescent-lit hospital hallway, Luca Moretti pulled me straight against his chest and wrapped both of his arms around me so tightly I could barely breathe.
My cheek pressed against the damp linen of his dress shirt, right over the steady, thunderous beat of his heart.
"Twice in one night," Luca whispered into my hair, his voice raw and shaking against my ear. "You gave me back my son twice in one night, Rachel."
He held me for a long moment before slowly drawing back just enough to look down into my face, his hands framing my jaw.
The tenderness in his dark eyes vanished as he glanced past my shoulder toward Marco, who was standing guard at the end of the ER hallway.
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"She didn't just try to steal his birthright," Luca said, his voice dropping to a terrifying, icy calm that made the hairs on my arms stand up. "She tried to murder my nine-year-old son in his own bed."
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