Chapter 3 - Room 4B7
Mateo reached St. Catherine’s Hospital twelve minutes later.
He did not come alone.
Technically.
Luca’s vehicles remained two blocks away.
Mateo entered through the emergency department wearing the same black tuxedo from the gala.
Patients stared.
Nurses recognized him.
A security guard stepped forward.
“Mr. Valente, visiting hours—”
“Where is the basement elevator?”
The guard hesitated.
Mateo showed him the hospital tag fragment.
The man’s face changed.
“Where did you get that?”
“Answer.”
“Service corridor.”
“Thank you.”
Mateo walked away.
The hospital felt wrong at night.
Too bright.
Too clean.
Too many closed doors.
He found the service elevator and pressed B4.
Nothing happened.
A key card was required.
Mateo called Luca.
“I need access.”
“Thirty seconds.”
“You have ten.”
“Nineteen.”
The elevator beeped.
The button illuminated.
Mateo entered.
“Show-off.”
“You pay me well.”
The doors closed.
Basement four had no public signs.
Concrete walls replaced polished marble.
Fluorescent lights hummed overhead.
Room numbers began with 4B.
4B1.
4B2.
4B3.
Mateo reached 4B7.
Locked.
He held the broken tag against the reader.
Red.
His phone buzzed.
Luca had sent a digital access code.
Mateo entered it.
Green.
The door clicked.
Inside were filing cabinets.
Old computers.
Paper records.
Nothing dramatic.
Mateo turned on the lights.
A chair sat overturned near the far wall.
Blood marked the floor.
Fresh.
“Arya?”
No response.
He moved deeper into the room.
A laptop glowed on a desk.
One video file waited on screen.
PLAY ME.
Mateo clicked.
Elena appeared.
Older.
Thinner.
Alive.
Mateo forgot how to breathe.
“Mateo,” she said on the recording, “if you’re watching this, then Arya finally ran out of time.”
His hand tightened around the desk.
Elena continued.
“I’m sorry.”
Mateo stared at his sister.
“I know what you were told about the fire. I know what you buried. I know what my death did to you.”
His jaw trembled once.
“I could not come home.”
Elena looked away from the camera.
“Adrian Vale was falsifying outcomes in experimental cardiac procedures. He selected desperate families, changed consent forms, and hid complications. When children died, he altered reports.”
Mateo’s face became stone.
“Elena…”
“He wasn’t alone.”
The video continued.
“I found financial transfers linking hospital executives to shell foundations. Some of the money moved through accounts connected to the Valente Foundation.”
Mateo stepped back.
Impossible.
“My accounts?”
“Not yours directly,” Elena said, as though answering him. “Someone inside our organization.”
Mateo’s blood went cold.
“I planned to bring the evidence to you six years ago. Someone intercepted me first.”
A photograph appeared on screen.
Elena’s burned car.
“The warehouse fire was staged. One of my informants died instead of me.”
Mateo closed his eyes.
Someone had been buried in Elena’s grave.
A woman whose family might never have known.
“I disappeared because the person protecting Adrian had access to you.”
Elena leaned closer.
“I couldn’t trust anyone near my brother.”
The recording glitched.
Then resumed.
“Arya discovered part of the truth three months ago.”
Mateo opened his eyes.
“She was reviewing donor schedules when she noticed pediatric deaths connected to Adrian’s private research. She confronted him.”
Mateo felt sick.
“That was when the abuse began.”
His fists closed.
“He threatened patients. Families. Her younger brother’s medical residency. He convinced her that if she exposed him, innocent people would lose access to surgeries only he could perform.”
Mateo looked toward the blood on the floor.
“Elena, where is she?”
“She stayed because she was collecting evidence.”
The video changed.
Documents.
Patient files.
Payments.
Photographs.
Then a final image.
Arya with Elena.
“She was never protecting Adrian,” Elena said.
“She was trying to destroy him.”
A noise sounded behind Mateo.
He turned.
Nothing.
The hallway remained empty.
The video continued.
“Tonight was supposed to be the end. Arya was going to give me Adrian’s private access key during the gala.”
Mateo pulled the broken tag from his pocket.
4B7.
“But Adrian found out.”
Mateo froze.
“How?”
“He has someone watching your office.”
Mateo stared at the screen.
“Someone close to you.”
The laptop went black.
Footsteps came from the hallway.
Mateo stepped beside the door.
A man entered.
Hospital scrubs.
Mask.
Gloves.
He carried a syringe.
Mateo caught his wrist before the needle touched him.
The struggle lasted four seconds.
Mateo slammed the man against the wall.
The syringe fell.
“Where is Arya?”
The attacker remained silent.
Mateo twisted his arm.
“Where?”
“Too late.”
Mateo tightened his grip.
“For what?”
The man laughed.
“She volunteered.”
“For what?”
A security alarm began.
Doors slammed shut automatically.
Red lights flashed.
Mateo heard Luca shouting through his earpiece.
“Boss, hospital security system just locked the floor.”
“Override it.”
“Working.”
Mateo searched the attacker.
Phone.
Key card.
No identification.
A message appeared on the phone.
TRANSFER COMPLETE.
Mateo opened it.
An attachment followed.
Medical transport authorization.
PATIENT: ARYA MONROE.
DESTINATION: PRIVATE RESEARCH FACILITY.
PROCEDURE STATUS: EMERGENCY CONSENT.
Mateo stared.
“What procedure?”
The attacker smiled.
“You think the bruises were the worst thing Adrian did?”
Mateo’s blood turned cold.
Luca’s voice crackled.
“Doors opening now.”
The locks released.
Mateo shoved the attacker toward the floor and ran.
“Trace the transport.”
“I’m on it.”
“Now.”
“Mateo.”
Luca rarely used his name.
“What?”
“The ambulance left eleven minutes ago.”
“Destination?”
“Facility belongs to Vale Medical Research.”
“Address.”
Luca sent it.
Mateo reached the elevator.
Then stopped.
Another file had appeared on the attacker’s phone.
A consent form.
Arya’s signature.
Mateo studied it.
Something was wrong.
The signature looked perfect.
Too perfect.
The date was six months old.
Six months before Arya had discovered Adrian’s secret.
Mateo zoomed in.
Beneath the signature was a line specifying authorized next of kin.
One name.
Mateo Valente.
He stared at it.
Then Luca spoke through the phone.
“Boss, there’s something else.”
“What?”
“The ambulance never reached Vale Research.”
“Where did it go?”
“I don’t know.”
A security camera image appeared.
The ambulance had stopped beneath an overpass.
Another vehicle waited.
Black SUV.
Someone pulled Arya from the rear doors.
Mateo enlarged the image.
The person holding her turned toward the camera.
Mateo recognized the face.
Luca stopped speaking.
Because he recognized it too.
Mateo whispered:
“No.”
The man beside Arya was his oldest friend.
May you like
Luca Serrano’s father.
A man Mateo had watched die fifteen years earlier.
