Chapter 3 - The Doctor Philadelphia Trusted
Vincent did not move.
The screen showed a silver-haired man in his late fifties.
Elegant suit.
Calm face.
One hand resting on Adrian Cross's desk as though he owned it.
Evelyn looked at Vincent.
“Who is Michael?”
Vincent's eyes remained fixed on the monitor.
“My uncle.”
The answer made no sense.
“Your uncle?”
“Michael Moretti.”
Lucas stumbled toward Evelyn.
Samuel rushed from the SUV and caught him.
Vincent never looked away from the screen.
Michael smiled.
“It's been a long time.”
Vincent's voice changed.
Harder.
“You're dead.”
“Legally.”
Evelyn felt cold despite the rain.
Michael leaned back.
“Ten years is a long time to stay buried.”
Vincent stepped closer to the monitor.
“Where are you?”
Michael smiled.
“You always did skip the polite part.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere you won't reach before I'm finished.”
Adrian stood behind the desk.
His face was pale.
Evelyn stared at him.
For weeks, she had believed Adrian was the center of everything.
Now he looked terrified.
“Evelyn,” Adrian said.
She flinched.
Vincent looked at the screen.
“Don't speak to her.”
Michael laughed.
“That protective instinct. Your father had it too.”
Vincent's jaw tightened.
“What did you do to Lucas?”
“Nothing permanent.”
Samuel examined the tubing.
“Sedative infusion,” he called. “Low dose.”
Lucas shook.
“They kept me awake.”
Evelyn touched his face.
“You're okay.”
“No.”
He looked toward the monitor.
“I saw things.”
Michael continued.
“Lucas became curious. Evelyn became inconvenient. Adrian became weak.”
Adrian finally spoke.
“You said no one would be hurt.”
Michael turned his head.
“I say many things.”
Evelyn stared at Adrian.
“You came to my apartment.”
His face collapsed.
“I was trying to get the files.”
“You hit me.”
“I pushed you.”
“You locked me inside.”
“No.”
That stopped her.
Adrian stepped toward the camera.
“I did not lock your door.”
Michael's expression cooled.
“Adrian.”
“No.”
Something broke inside Cross.
Maybe fear.
Maybe guilt.
Maybe the realization that the man he served had already decided to dispose of him.
“I went there for the laptop,” Adrian said. “Yes. I threatened you. I recorded the psychiatric statement because Michael told me we needed leverage.”
Evelyn's hands curled.
“You drugged me.”
“No.”
“You put something in my water.”
Adrian looked confused.
“I didn't.”
Vincent glanced at Samuel.
The doctor understood.
“Evelyn,” Samuel said, “did you drink anything before you collapsed?”
“Water.”
“When?”
“After Adrian arrived.”
Samuel's face tightened.
“Could have been pre-dosed.”
“By who?”
No answer.
Michael smiled on the screen.
“That is the more interesting question.”
Vincent stepped forward.
“Enough.”
Michael's eyes moved to him.
“You still don't understand.”
“Then explain.”
“I built Crosswell.”
Adrian looked at him.
“You funded it.”
“I built it.”
Michael's voice sharpened.
“Every clinic. Every grant. Every politician. Every medical board appointment.”
Evelyn felt sick.
Crosswell Health Foundation had become one of Pennsylvania's most celebrated nonprofits.
And Michael Moretti claimed it was a criminal structure.
“What for?” Evelyn asked.
Michael looked at her.
“Distribution.”
She thought of the false clinics.
The shell vendors.
The diverted medicine.
“Drugs.”
“Medicine,” Michael corrected.
“You're trafficking pharmaceuticals.”
“We move products where regulations make movement inconvenient.”
Vincent laughed once.
“That's a pretty sentence for trafficking fentanyl.”
Michael's expression did not change.
“Not fentanyl.”
Evelyn looked at Vincent.
“What?”
Michael answered.
“Something more valuable.”
Behind him, Adrian closed his eyes.
Evelyn remembered one vendor name.
Helix Therapeutics.
The company had billed Crosswell nearly eighteen million dollars.
“What is Helix?” she asked.
Adrian's eyes opened.
Michael smiled.
“There she is.”
Vincent moved closer.
“What is Helix?”
Adrian whispered.
“Clinical compounds.”
“For what?”
No answer.
Vincent's voice lowered.
“For what?”
Adrian looked at Evelyn.
“Memory suppression.”
Silence.
Evelyn stared.
“That isn't real.”
“It is experimental.”
Samuel stepped closer.
“What compound?”
Adrian shook his head.
“I don't know the formula.”
Michael said, “You knew enough.”
Adrian snapped.
“You told me it was for trauma treatment.”
“At first.”
“And later?”
Michael didn't answer.
Evelyn understood.
“You used people.”
Adrian's face crumpled.
“Not me.”
Michael laughed.
“Coward.”
“You told me the trials were voluntary.”
“They became more efficient.”
Lucas whispered, “Evie.”
She turned.
“What?”
“I saw a room.”
Samuel kept his hands steady on the tubing.
Lucas swallowed.
“People in beds.”
“How many?”
“I don't know. Twenty. Thirty.”
“Where?”
“I couldn't see outside.”
Michael heard.
“Lucas has always been observant.”
Vincent raised his voice.
“If you touch him again—”
“You'll do what?”
Michael leaned forward.
“Kill me?”
Vincent said nothing.
Michael's smile disappeared.
“You already tried.”
That explained the dead man.
Ten years earlier, Michael had betrayed Vincent's father.
Vincent had believed Michael died in a warehouse fire before trial.
Now Michael had spent a decade hidden behind Crosswell.
Building networks.
Buying officials.
Using Vincent's own charity as a shield.
Michael looked at Evelyn.
“You were never supposed to discover the ledgers.”
“Then you should've hired better accountants.”
Vincent almost looked at her.
Michael laughed softly.
“I understand why he likes you.”
Evelyn's face hardened.
“He doesn't know me.”
“Neither did the man who drugged your water.”
Her breath stopped.
“Who?”
Michael looked toward someone off-camera.
“Tell her.”
A second person entered the frame.
Evelyn stared.
“No.”
Lucas whispered.
“Oh God.”
The man wore a gray raincoat.
Dark hair.
Thirty-five.
Evelyn knew his face better than her own.
Her brother.
Except Lucas was standing beside her.
For one impossible second, she thought the sedative had affected her.
Then she understood.
The man on-screen was not Lucas.
It was Ethan Mercer.
Their half brother.
The brother Evelyn had not seen in fourteen years.
Ethan smiled at the camera.
“Hello, Evie.”
Her mouth went dry.
“You're alive.”
“Obviously.”
Their father had told them Ethan disappeared after stealing money.
At twenty-one, he had left Philadelphia and never contacted them again.
Evelyn had believed he wanted nothing to do with the family.
“You drugged me?”
Ethan's smile faded.
“I was trying to keep you asleep until we could move you.”
“Move me where?”
No answer.
“To the trial facility?”
Ethan looked away.
Evelyn's knees weakened.
Vincent caught her elbow.
She pulled free.
“You were going to use me.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“By drugging me?”
“You found the accounts.”
“You could've warned me.”
“I couldn't.”
“Fourteen years, Ethan.”
“I couldn't.”
Michael interrupted.
“Family reunions later.”
Vincent looked at him.
“What do you want?”
At last, the question Michael had been waiting for.
He leaned back.
“Something your father hid.”
Vincent's face revealed nothing.
Michael continued.
“A ledger.”
“What ledger?”
“Don't insult me.”
“You think I have it?”
“I know you do.”
“I don't.”
“Then Evelyn dies.”
Vincent's expression darkened.
Michael nodded toward Ethan.
Ethan looked uncomfortable.
Evelyn understood.
The drug in her apartment had not been intended to kill.
Michael's people planned to collect her.
Vincent's accidental arrival disrupted it.
Michael looked toward Lucas.
“And her brother.”
Vincent said, “You need them alive.”
“Perhaps.”
“Then you're bluffing.”
Michael smiled.
“Ask Adrian whether I bluff.”
Vincent looked at Cross.
Adrian's face answered.
Michael continued.
“Your father kept a private ledger covering thirty years of political payments, judges, unions, police, contractors.”
Vincent said nothing.
“It disappeared the night he died.”
“You killed him.”
Michael smiled faintly.
“Your father killed himself with pride.”
Vincent's eyes became black.
Evelyn reached for his sleeve.
Not to stop him.
To remind him Michael wanted anger.
Vincent glanced at her hand.
Then back at the screen.
“What makes you think the ledger survived?”
“Because your father told me.”
“When?”
“The night before he died.”
Vincent's face changed.
Only slightly.
Michael saw it.
“There. You didn't know.”
“What did he say?”
Michael smiled.
“He said if anything happened to him, the truth would go to Elena.”
Vincent went still.
His dead sister.
Evelyn looked at him.
Michael continued.
“I spent years believing Elena died before receiving it.”
Vincent's voice became almost inaudible.
“She did.”
“Did she?”
That silence was different.
Michael knew something.
Vincent stepped toward the monitor.
“What are you saying?”
Michael ignored him.
He looked at Evelyn.
“Your numbers led you to Vincent's clinic because Elena's name is not merely decoration.”
Evelyn frowned.
“What?”
“The foundation was built over something.”
Vincent's head snapped up.
Michael smiled.
“You never checked below the clinic, did you?”
Marco's voice came through Vincent's earpiece.
“Boss.”
Vincent pressed it.
“What?”
“We found a sublevel.”
Vincent stared at Michael.
“There is no sublevel.”
“There is.”
“How?”
“Old municipal plans. Sealed access behind the boiler room.”
Michael laughed.
Vincent turned away from the monitor.
“Open it.”
Marco hesitated.
“There's a biometric lock.”
“Whose?”
Pause.
“Registered user ID says Elena Moretti.”
Vincent stopped breathing.
Evelyn saw it happen.
The dead sister's name.
Ten years after her death.
Still active.
The monitor flickered.
Michael's image disappeared.
Then every screen went black.
Except one.
A security feed from Elena Moretti Community Clinic.
Marco stood in a basement corridor beside a steel door.
A green light appeared.
The biometric lock clicked.
Marco stepped back.
“Boss...”
May you like
The steel door slowly opened by itself.
And from somewhere inside the darkness, a woman's voice said Vincent's name.
