“Mr.
DeLuca no longer has authority over the trust,” the notary said.
“Ownership transfers directly to Miss Rossi upon her acceptance.”
Adrian pushed the original trust document toward me.
“Your choice,” he said.
No persuasion.
No demand.
No claim on the company.
I picked up my mother’s pen—the same pen she had offered me to surrender everything—and signed the acceptance page instead.
The notary examined my signature.
“As of this moment, Elena Rossi holds fifty-one percent of Rossi Holdings and the controlling interest in this estate.”
One of the directors quietly closed the disinheritance folder.
Victoria looked at him.
“Open it.”
He did not move.
For the first time in my life, my mother gave an order and the room did not obey.
I sat in my father’s chair.
“Continue the recording.”
Adrian pressed play.
Marco’s breathing sounded strained now, as though he had recorded the message while in pain.
“For several weeks, someone has been replacing my medication.
Dr.
Salvi confirmed the tablets I was given were not the tablets he prescribed.
Antonio arranged the payments through a Cardelli shipping account.
I do not yet know whether Antonio acted willingly or under pressure, but he keeps records of everything.
Find his black ledger.
Find the transfer dated October fourth.”
Pages shifted around the table.
Matteo’s head lifted sharply.
My father continued.
“The substance is digoxin.
I have never been prescribed digoxin.
In the concentration found in my blood, it can trigger the kind of rhythm disturbance that will be mistaken for a natural cardiac event.”
My medical training turned the words into something brutally clear.
Digoxin could be therapeutic in carefully controlled doses.
In the wrong patient, at the wrong concentration, it could disrupt the electrical rhythm of the heart.
Nausea, confusion, visual disturbances, then a fatal arrhythmia that might look like the collapse of a man with cardiac history.
My father had not simply feared someone wanted him dead.
He had known how they planned to disguise it.
The recording continued.
“If I die before I can take this to the prosecutor, the person who ordered the payment was—”
The audio dissolved into static.
Then it stopped.
Victoria laughed once.
The sound was thin and wrong.
“An unfinished recording proves nothing.
Marco was ill.
He was paranoid during his final months.
Adrian could have altered that file.”
The library doors opened behind us.
Two financial investigators entered with a prosecutor’s representative.
One carried a black ledger inside a clear evidence bag.
Matteo Cardelli closed his eyes.
The lead investigator introduced herself as Inspector Sofia Riva.
She placed the ledger on the table but did not remove it from the bag.
