Chapter 4 - The East Wing
The east wing had belonged to Luca Moretti before he died.
After Luca's death, his widow Bianca remained there for nearly a year, and even after she purchased an apartment in the city, the rooms were still treated as hers whenever she stayed at the house.
Gabriel read Dominic's message twice.
Bianca stood only a few feet away.
Her face was still pale from Dr. Harlan's discovery that the medical report had been altered.
Gabriel did not show her the phone.
He had learned long ago that information was most useful before people knew you possessed it.
Dr. Harlan placed the suspicious report back into his case.
“I want Lily retested at my clinic personally.”
“When?” Gabriel asked.
“Tomorrow morning.”
“I'll bring her.”
Bianca looked at him.
“You have meetings.”
“They can move.”
Her lips parted as if to argue.
Gabriel looked at her once.
She stopped.
Emma remained beside Lily.
The baby seemed unaware that the adults around her had suddenly entered a different kind of room.
She was focused on Ava, who had discovered that two yellow floor circles could be worn like enormous bracelets.
Children could find joy beside a storm without knowing it was there.
Gabriel envied that ability.
He dismissed Dr. Harlan and asked Emma to keep the girls in the sunroom.
Then he texted Dominic.
STUDY. NOW.
Dominic entered through the side hall five minutes later.
Gabriel closed the study door.
“Show me.”
Dominic opened his laptop.
The access event appeared at 2:13 a.m. twelve nights earlier.
The device connected to Gabriel's administrative profile for nine minutes.
During those nine minutes, Emma's meal classification changed, her bathroom access was removed, and the nursery camera retention setting was shortened.
Gabriel stared at the list.
“All in one session.”
“Yes.”
“Location?”
“East wing wireless access point.”
“That only proves the device was there.”
“Correct.”
“Do we know who used it?”
Dominic hesitated.
“Not directly.”
Gabriel waited.
“But there is a camera in the east corridor.”
“Show me.”
Dominic pulled up the footage.
At 2:09 a.m., Celeste walked down the corridor carrying a gray tablet.
She wore a robe over her nightclothes.
At 2:24 a.m., she returned without it.
Gabriel leaned closer.
“Where did she go?”
“The camera doesn't cover the final turn.”
The final turn led to Luca's old office and Bianca's guest bedroom.
Gabriel looked at Dominic.
“So Celeste had the tablet.”
“Yes.”
“And the tablet used my account.”
“Yes.”
“Then where was it after 2:09?”
“We don't know.”
Gabriel hated uncertainty.
It encouraged people to fill gaps with whatever answer they preferred.
He wanted proof, not preference.
The east wing held more history than Gabriel liked to admit.
Luca's old office remained almost untouched because Bianca had never decided what to do with it.
A leather chair still faced the window.
Several books remained on the shelves.
A framed photograph showed Luca and Gabriel as teenagers standing beside their father on a dock.
Gabriel entered the room with Dominic after Bianca left for the city.
They did not search drawers without legal guidance.
They only examined the network hardware and visible devices.
The gray administrative tablet sat on a charging stand near the desk.
Dominic photographed it in place.
“Celeste's tablet?”
“House tablet,” Gabriel said.
“That distinction is becoming important.”
Dominic checked the device identification without unlocking it.
The number matched.
Gabriel looked around the room.
“Why would Celeste bring it here at two in the morning?”
“Privacy.”
“Her room has privacy.”
“Maybe she wasn't alone.”
Gabriel looked at Dominic.
The thought pointed toward Bianca, but there were other possibilities.
Luca's office had a second door connecting to a narrow records room.
That room led to the service corridor.
Someone could enter without crossing the main east-wing camera.
Dominic examined the door sensor.
“It was opened that night.”
Gabriel's attention sharpened.
“Time?”
“2:07 a.m.”
Two minutes before Celeste appeared on camera.
“Who opened it?”
“Old mechanical key.”
“No electronic record.”
Gabriel stared at the narrow corridor.
The architecture had been designed for staff movement decades before modern security systems.
A person who knew the house could move between floors while touching very few monitored doors.
Luca had known that.
So had Celeste.
So had Marco, who spent childhood summers there.
Gabriel felt the uncomfortable truth of inherited houses.
Every generation received not only rooms and property but also hidden habits.
He had modernized the visible security and left the old pathways intact.
Dominic pointed toward a dust mark on the records shelf.
“Something was removed recently.”
The rectangle was the size of a document box.
Gabriel looked at the empty space.
“What was stored here?”
“Ask Bianca.”
They did later.
Bianca said Luca had kept old trust papers in red archival boxes.
She had not moved them.
Celeste claimed she had never seen them.
Marco did not answer Gabriel's call.
By evening, an inventory list from Luca's former assistant confirmed that one box labeled ESTATE - PRIVATE had once occupied that exact shelf.
It was missing.
Gabriel added it to the growing list of things that had vanished while everyone insisted nothing unusual was happening.
“Check every login from that tablet for six months.”
Dominic nodded.
“And don't touch the east wing yet.”
“You think they will destroy something?”
“I think if we search openly, they will know exactly what we don't have.”
Dominic closed the laptop.
Before he left, he paused.
“Gabriel.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“I ran the email metadata on the cancellation sent from Emma's account.”
“And?”
“It originated from the same tablet.”
Gabriel's anger became very quiet.
He had seen men lose control loudly.
He had done it himself when he was younger.
Age had taught him that anger was more useful when it could still think.
“Anything else?”
“The email was sent at 2:19 that same morning.”
Nine minutes.
Someone had used nine minutes in the middle of the night to make Emma look irresponsible, isolate her inside the house, reduce the camera archive, and interfere with Lily's care.
That was not a bad mood.
It was a plan.
Gabriel returned to the sunroom.
Emma sat on the rug with Lily between her knees while Ava built a crooked tower of foam blocks.
The ordinary scene made the hidden ugliness around it feel worse.
Emma looked up.
“Is everything okay?”
“No.”
He saw fear cross her face and added, “But you're not the problem.”
She relaxed only slightly.
Gabriel sat in a chair near the window.
“I need to ask you something.”
Emma waited.
“Has anyone asked you to change Lily's routine when I wasn't here?”
She glanced toward the children.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Bianca.”
Gabriel had expected the answer.
It still landed heavily.
“What did she ask?”
“To stop the walking games.”
“When?”
“About ten days ago.”
“Why didn't you?”
Emma gave him a puzzled look.
“Because Lily liked them.”
“What reason did Bianca give?”
“She said I was confusing the treatment plan.”
Gabriel leaned forward.
“Did she show you a treatment plan?”
“No.”
“What else?”
Emma thought carefully.
“She asked me to keep Lily in the nursery more.”
“Why?”
“She said guests shouldn't see her struggling.”
Gabriel felt his jaw tighten.
Emma continued before he could speak.
“I ignored that too.”
Ava looked over.
“I like Lily downstairs.”
Gabriel almost smiled.
“So do I.”
Emma watched him.
“There is something else.”
He looked back at her.
“A specialist came last week while you were away.”
Gabriel's body became still.
“What specialist?”
“I thought you knew.”
“I didn't.”
Emma's expression changed.
“He said Bianca arranged it.”
“What did he do?”
“He watched Lily for a few minutes and asked me to leave.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Gabriel almost laughed despite the situation.
Emma's mouth tightened.
“He wasn't happy about that.”
“What was his name?”
“Dr. Price.”
Gabriel knew the name.
Elliot Price was the specialist who had written the harshest assessment of Lily's prospects.
He was also the man who had called Lily manipulative when she cried during an examination.
Gabriel had removed him from the house.
“When did he come back?”
“Last Thursday.”
Gabriel looked toward the camera in the corner.
That footage would still exist only because Dominic had stopped the deletion.
He called him immediately.
“Living room, last Thursday, noon to three.”
Dominic did not ask why.
The clip arrived on Gabriel's phone six minutes later.
Emma stood beside him while he watched.
Dr. Price entered at 1:18 p.m. with Bianca.
The camera had audio.
Bianca greeted Lily brightly.
Dr. Price barely looked at the child before turning to Emma.
“You can take the other girl upstairs.”
Emma answered politely.
“I stay with Lily during appointments.”
“This isn't a request.”
Emma did not move.
Bianca stepped closer.
“Emma, do as you're told.”
On the recording, Lily began whining and reached toward Emma.
Emma crouched beside her.
“I'm staying.”
Dr. Price looked irritated.
“You are interfering with care.”
“No.”
Emma's voice remained soft.
“I'm keeping her calm.”
The clip continued.
Dr. Price attempted to test Lily's leg while she clung to Emma.
When Lily cried, Emma stopped him with one sentence.
“Please give her a minute.”
Bianca's face hardened.
Then something happened that Gabriel had not expected.
Bianca turned toward the camera.
She looked directly at it.
“Is that recording?”
Dr. Price glanced up.
Bianca walked to a side cabinet and returned with a folded cloth.
She placed it over the camera.
The screen went black.
Gabriel stared at his phone.
The black image lasted twenty-two minutes.
When it returned, Dr. Price was gone.
Lily was asleep against Emma.
Emma looked pale.
Bianca stood in front of her.
The audio resumed.
“You are an employee.”
Bianca's voice was low.
“Start acting like one.”
Emma looked down at Lily.
“I was protecting her.”
“You are making her dependent on you.”
“She is one year old.”
“That is not the point.”
Bianca stepped closer.
“If Gabriel thinks you're overstepping, you won't be here long.”
Emma's face tightened.
“I haven't overstepped.”
Bianca smiled without warmth.
“Then you have nothing to worry about.”
The clip ended.
Gabriel lowered the phone.
Emma looked mortified.
“I didn't know that part was recorded.”
“Good.”
She looked at him.
“Good?”
“It means you weren't performing for me.”
Emma gave a tired breath.
“I wasn't performing at all.”
“I know.”
Their eyes held for one quiet second longer than necessary.
Then Ava knocked over the block tower and announced that gravity was mean.
The moment broke.
Gabriel stood.
“I want you and the girls downstairs near security until I tell you otherwise.”
Emma's face changed.
“Why?”
“Because someone covered a camera before confronting you.”
“That doesn't mean—”
“It means I am done assuming.”
Emma looked as if she wanted to argue, then saw something in his expression and stopped.
That afternoon, Gabriel's attorney arrived with two forensic accountants.
They began reviewing household accounts, medical invoices, and access records.
By evening, the first irregularity appeared.
Dr. Price had been paid twice for the same visit.
One payment came from the Moretti family medical account.
The second came from a private company Gabriel did not recognize.
The company was called Bellweather Consulting.
Gabriel asked the accountant to trace ownership.
The answer came just after midnight.
Bellweather Consulting was registered through three layers of shell entities.
The final beneficial owner was not Celeste.
It was not Bianca.
It was Marco Moretti.
Gabriel stared at his cousin's name on the report.
Then Dominic entered the study holding a small black object in a plastic evidence sleeve.
“We found this behind the books in Lily's nursery.”
Gabriel looked at it.
It was a camera.
Not one of his cameras.
Dominic placed it on the desk.
“And whoever installed it wasn't watching the room.”
Gabriel frowned.
“What were they watching?”
May you like
Dominic turned the device slightly.
“The lens was aimed directly at Emma's chair.”
