Chapter 4 - The Accident Victor Had Stopped Questioning
Dr. Adrian Mercer did not ask for a lawyer.
That was the first thing that kept Victor from ordering Nathan to remove him.
The second was that the physician looked more ashamed than frightened.
“I received a call from the hospital laboratory,” Mercer said. “They told me the first result was unreliable.”
“Who?”
“I don’t remember.”
Nathan opened a notebook.
“Try.”
Mercer rubbed one hand over his face.
“A technician named Harris. Paul Harris, maybe.”
Lena Cho already had her phone out.
“There was a Paul Harris in St. Vincent’s toxicology department.”
“Was?”
“He resigned four months ago.”
Victor’s gaze remained on Mercer.
“You removed a result without retesting?”
“We retested the blood.”
“Same sample?”
Mercer hesitated.
Lena answered.
“That matters.”
“It was another tube collected from the emergency draw.”
Nathan looked at the file.
“The second sample was logged twenty-two minutes after the first.”
“That’s impossible,” Clara said.
Everyone turned.
She pointed toward the emergency timeline.
“Victor was in imaging.”
Dr. Mercer looked down.
Clara continued.
“According to this, he was in CT from 11:18 to 11:46. The replacement sample is logged at 11:31.”
Nathan immediately understood.
“No one drew it from him.”
The room went silent.
Victor’s hand tightened around the wheelchair.
His accident had happened on Lake Shore Drive after a late board dinner. His car crossed a lane, clipped a barrier, and spun into the path of a delivery truck.
Victor remembered rain.
Headlights.
The steering wheel becoming strangely heavy in his hands.
Then nothing.
Police found no alcohol.
No mechanical defect.
No evidence another driver deliberately caused the crash.
Victor eventually accepted the explanation everyone gave him.
Fatigue.
Wet road.
Bad luck.
Now Clara opened the preserved medical timeline.
“Did you drink anything before driving?”
Victor stared toward the window.
“Coffee.”
“Where?”
“Boardroom.”
“Who prepared it?”
“Assistant service.”
Nathan was already accessing six-month-old security archives.
Victor looked at him.
“Those recordings still exist?”
“Corporate servers keep a year.”
The estate became an investigation center.
Aster? No. Moretti Global’s corporate security team retrieved the boardroom footage.
At 9:04 p.m., Victor entered.
At 10:38, the meeting ended.
At 10:41, most executives left.
At 10:44, Sebastian returned to the room alone.
He approached Victor’s chair.
Picked up the coffee thermos.
The camera angle did not show what his hands did.
At 10:46, he left.
Victor remained with two directors for another fifteen minutes.
At 11:06, he walked to the garage carrying the same thermos.
The accident happened at 11:27.
Victor watched the footage without speaking.
Sebastian had visited him every week in the hospital.
He had cried beside the bed after surgeons warned Victor might never walk normally again.
He had promised to protect the company.
Now the video placed him beside the last drink Victor consumed before nearly dying.
“It proves nothing by itself,” Clara said.
Victor turned toward her.
“I know.”
He sounded irritated.
“I’m trying to stop you from doing something expensive and irreversible based on anger.”
“Do you imagine I usually kill board members between therapy sessions?”
Clara’s eyes widened.
Dr. Mercer looked alarmed.
Victor almost smiled.
“Relax. That was a joke.”
“That needs work.”
Nathan returned to the hospital toxicology evidence.
Paul Harris, the technician who marked the first sample erroneous, had received a seventy-five-thousand-dollar payment three weeks after the accident through a consulting company.
The company belonged to a Moretti Global subcontractor.
The subcontractor was approved by Sebastian’s division.
Still not enough.
A financial route.
A suspicious video.
A manipulated test.
No direct proof Sebastian ordered anything.
Victor surprised everyone.
“Do not confront him.”
Nathan nodded.
Clara looked relieved.
Victor noticed.
“You expected me to?”
“I’ve known you three days.”
“And?”
“You fired me after seven minutes.”
“Reasonable inference.”
The independent medical team began rebuilding Victor’s treatment plan from the beginning.
No assumption survived automatically.
Every medication.
Every strength score.
Every setback.
Some decline belonged to the accident.
Victor had suffered real spinal and peripheral nerve trauma.
No one promised a miracle.
But repeated exposure to the depressant had made his neurological picture appear worse.
Dr. Mercer requested temporary leave from Victor’s care while an independent board reviewed his decisions.
Victor agreed.
Before leaving, Mercer stopped beside Clara.
“You noticed what I should have.”
Clara shook her head.
“You saw a patient with a major injury and interpreted the symptoms through that injury.”
“That is how mistakes happen.”
“Yes.”
“I dismissed inconsistency.”
“So did six caregivers?”
“No. Most of them were told inconsistency was expected.”
He looked toward Victor.
“I was responsible for questioning harder.”
Victor heard.
He did not forgive Mercer.
He did not humiliate him either.
“Cooperate with Nathan.”
“I will.”
The next four days were different.
Victor’s mind became clearer first.
He had not realized how often he felt foggy because the sensation had blended with pain, sleep disruption, and frustration.
Then his arm endurance improved.
Then his balance.
On the fifth clean day, he stood for thirty-four seconds.
Clara smiled.
Victor noticed.
“Do not celebrate.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I have a very supportive face.”
“You apologized to a statue.”
“It looked judgmental.”
He laughed.
A real laugh this time.
Everyone in the rehabilitation room froze.
Victor Moretti apparently laughed so rarely that security considered it an event.
He immediately returned to his normal expression.
“Continue.”
Clara tried not to grin.
That afternoon, Nathan found another clue.
Elise Ward’s employment contract contained an unusual amendment signed after Victor’s accident.
A private retention bonus.
One million dollars if Victor remained under home nursing through the twelve-month incapacity review.
The money did not come from Victor’s personal account.
It came from Sebastian’s discretionary corporate fund.
Elise had claimed the bonus rewarded difficult care.
Nathan found something else.
Her daughter’s medical school tuition had been paid anonymously.
Same corporate fund.
Victor closed the file.
“Bring her back.”
Elise arrived with an attorney.
She denied poisoning him.
Then Nathan placed the payment records on the table.
Her attorney whispered into her ear.
Elise’s composure cracked.
“I did not cause the accident.”
Victor’s eyes sharpened.
No one had mentioned the accident.
Elise realized too late.
“You knew it was not an accident,” Nathan said.
She began crying.
“I knew afterward.”
Victor’s voice turned cold.
“What did Sebastian tell you?”
Elise looked at the attorney.
Then at Clara.
Finally, at Victor.
“He said the crash failed.”
Clara stopped breathing.
Elise continued.
“He said you were supposed to look impaired, lose control, and survive with enough uncertainty that the board could question your judgment.”
Victor’s face became still.
“He expected me to crash?”
“I don’t know what he expected.”
“What did he ask you to do?”
“After you came home, he wanted your recovery slowed.”
“Why?”
“The trust.”
Of course.
“If you returned before twelve months, he lost his chance.”
Nathan asked how she administered the medication.
Elise described only that she had been instructed to ensure Victor periodically received an unprescribed sedating medication through beverages or supplements, enough to create inconsistent weakness. She claimed Sebastian provided it and the schedule.
Clara felt sick.
Victor stared toward his legs.
Months.
Painful therapy.
Humiliation.
Days when he believed his body had betrayed him.
Someone had been adding failure from the outside.
Elise looked at Clara.
“I was told it wouldn’t permanently hurt him.”
Victor’s gaze lifted.
“You were told?”
“Yes.”
“And that was enough?”
She cried harder.
“No.”
“But you did it.”
“Yes.”
Nathan asked whether Sebastian personally tampered with the coffee before the accident.
Elise shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Then she added something none of them expected.
“But someone does.”
“Who?” Victor asked.
Elise swallowed.
“Your sister.”
Victor’s expression changed.
“Sofia hasn’t spoken to me in three years.”
“She called me after the accident. She said she had evidence Sebastian planned something.”
“Why didn’t she come forward?”
“She said you would never believe her.”
Victor stared at the floor.
Sofia Moretti had left Chicago after a vicious family dispute.
Victor believed she tried to sell confidential corporate information.
Sebastian had been the one who brought him the evidence.
Now the only person Elise claimed knew what happened before the crash was the sister Victor had spent three years refusing to answer.
Clara spoke carefully.
“Where is Sofia?”
Nathan checked.
“Montreal.”
May you like
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“Call her.”
