Chapter 9 - The Missing Minutes
At 9:14 p.m., the security camera inside Khloe’s private suite recorded Isabella entering.
At 9:19 p.m., it recorded the first shove.
At 9:22 p.m., Marcus opened the door.
But at 9:07 p.m., seven minutes before Isabella entered, the camera feed had flickered.
Only for four seconds.
Four seconds of static.
Most people would have ignored it.
Gabriel Ward did not ignore four seconds.
By morning, he had the hospital’s cybersecurity contractor, two internal IT leads, and a police digital forensics specialist inside the security room.
Marcus stood in the back, silent and furious.
Gabriel played the feed again.
Static.
Then normal.
“Could be interference,” one IT lead said.
Gabriel did not look at him.
“Could be a unicorn.”
The man shut up.
The contractor leaned closer.
“That wasn’t hardware. Someone pinged the local camera node.”
“From inside or outside?”
“Need more time, but initial logs suggest inside credentials.”
Marcus’s eyes sharpened.
“Hospital staff?”
“Or someone using hospital staff credentials.”
Gabriel turned to him.
“Your mother’s access card got Isabella through the door. But someone else may have tried to compromise the footage.”
Marcus felt the case widening around him.
This was no longer one jealous woman losing control.
It was a system.
People with access. People with money. People who assumed cleanup was part of the crime.
Naomi Cross arrived carrying coffee no one drank.
“I found something,” she said.
Everyone turned.
She placed a folder on the console.
“Three months ago, Rossi Capital requested a morality and conduct clause amendment in the European rollout agreement. It would allow them to trigger leadership review if a Thorne executive became involved in a public scandal damaging investor confidence.”
Marcus stared at the document.
“My team rejected this.”
“Your team did,” Naomi said. “Your mother’s private office reopened discussion informally.”
The room went very quiet.
Marcus took the folder.
His mother’s initials appeared on a memo.
H.T.
Gabriel read over his shoulder.
“Would the clause apply if Khloe were painted as unstable?”
Naomi nodded grimly.
“If the public believed Marcus covered up violence, manipulated evidence, or used the hospital to frame Isabella, Rossi Capital could argue governance failure.”
Marcus looked at the frozen image of Khloe in the suite before Isabella entered.
His wife had not been attacked only because Isabella hated her.
Khloe had become the easiest door into Marcus’s empire.
And their unborn child had become collateral.
Marcus’s phone rang.
This time, he answered.
“Carlo.”
Carlo Rossi’s voice came through smooth as polished stone.
“Marcus. We should meet privately.”
“No.”
A pause.
“You sound emotional.”
“I sound recorded.”
Another pause.
Gabriel’s eyebrows lifted.
Marcus continued, “Everything you say from this point forward goes through counsel or law enforcement.”
Carlo chuckled softly.
“You were raised better than that.”
“I was raised worse. I’m correcting it.”
Carlo’s voice hardened.
“My daughter is ill. Your wife is using a tragic misunderstanding to destroy her.”
“My wife is lying in a hospital bed because your daughter assaulted her.”
“That is one version.”
“There’s footage.”
“And footage can be interpreted.”
Marcus smiled coldly.
“Not this footage.”
Carlo was silent.
Then he said, “You should ask your mother what your father promised mine.”
The line went dead.
Marcus lowered the phone.
Naomi whispered, “What promise?”
Marcus did not answer.
He was already walking out.
Gabriel followed.
They found Helena in the private family lounge, seated perfectly upright with tea untouched before her.
She looked up as Marcus entered.
“No.”
He stopped.
Helena’s face was pale beneath her makeup.
“Whatever Carlo told you, no.”
Marcus closed the door behind him.
“What did Father promise Rossi?”
Helena’s hands tightened around her cup.
“Your father made many promises. Most of them were lies.”
“This one.”
She looked toward Gabriel.
“This is family business.”
Gabriel folded his arms.
“Khloe is my family.”
Marcus remained still.
Helena exhaled.
“Your father borrowed money from Carlo Rossi during the worst year of Thorne Medical. Quietly. Off-books in every way that mattered. Carlo protected him from a takeover.”
“At what price?”
Helena looked at her son with something almost like pity.
“A future union.”
Marcus’s stomach turned.
“Me and Isabella.”
“She was fourteen. You were twenty. It was not immediate. It was… understood.”
Marcus stepped back.
“No.”
“You asked.”
“And when I married Khloe?”
“Carlo considered it an insult.”
Marcus thought of every smile Carlo had given him since. Every handshake. Every toast. Every public display of support.
All of it hiding rot.
Helena whispered, “I thought it would fade.”
“You thought Isabella would accept being discarded?”
“I thought Carlo would be practical.”
“And Khloe?”
Helena looked away.
Marcus’s voice broke with rage.
“Was my wife ever safe in this family?”
Helena said nothing.
That was the answer.
Gabriel’s phone buzzed.
He glanced down, then his face went sharp.
“The lab found residue on the vial cap.”
Marcus turned.
“Whose?”
Gabriel looked at Helena.
“Not Isabella’s.”
Helena’s face drained.
Gabriel continued.
“They found a partial fingerprint. Female. Older. The police are requesting comparison prints.”
Marcus stared at his mother.
Helena whispered, “Marcus—”
May you like
He stepped back from her as if she were poison.
“What did you touch?”
