Chapter 9 - The Voice of the Don
The master bedroom felt entirely different now.
The dark silk drapes had been pulled back, filling the high-ceilinged room with the pale, clear afternoon light from the lake. The medical monitors were still humming, but the heavy, suffocating atmosphere of fear that had hung over the room for weeks had completely evaporated.
Don Antonio Marquetti sat propped up against four white pillows. His hair was freshly combed, his linen shirt changed, and his thin, liver-spotted hands rested peacefully on the duvet.
When Gideon and I entered, the old man’s dark eyes fixed on us instantly.
Walter set the digital eye-tracking board on a specialized rolling stand directly in front of the bed, aligning the infrared sensor with Antonio’s retinas.
A high-pitched beep sounded as the system calibrated. A synthetic, clear electronic voice emitted from the small speaker on the back of the frame.
“G-I-D-E-O-N.”
The letters appeared one by one on the screen as Antonio’s pupils moved across the virtual keyboard with practiced, terrifying speed.
Gideon stepped up to the side of the bed, taking his father’s withered right hand in his own broad palms. “I’m here, Father.”
The old man’s eyes shifted across the board again.
“V-I-C-T-O-R-I-A.”
Gideon swallowed hard, his dark eyes darkening with a deep, silent grief. “The police have her, Father. She won't be coming back to the estate.”
Antonio closed his eyes for three long seconds. A single, deep breath passed through his chest. Then he opened his eyes again and turned his gaze directly toward me.
The infrared sensor tracked his pupils across the matrix:
“N-U-R-S-E.”
“Her name is Adeline, Father,” Gideon said softly.
The synthetic voice paused for a moment, then began spelling out words with incredible, deliberate precision:
“A-D-E-L-I-N-E... T-H-A-N-K... Y-O-U... F-O-R... T-H-E... S-C-R-E-A-M.”
I let out a soft, involuntary laugh that turned into a sniffle, wincing slightly as the movement tugged at my cracked ribs. “It wasn't a very graceful scream, Don Antonio.”
The old man’s right lip twitched upward—the tiny, barely perceptible ghost of a smile that had not touched his face in fourteen months.
His eyes moved across the board again, spelling out a final sentence that made Gideon freeze and Walter wipe a tear from his grey mustache:
“S-H-E... S-T-A-Y-S.”
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Gideon looked up from his father’s bed, his eyes meeting mine across the white duvet. The cold, isolated mafia boss who had ruled this lakefront fortress through sheer force of will looked at me with something completely new in his eyes—something warm, open, and dangerously real.
“You heard the boss, Adeline,” Gideon said, a small, genuine smile finally breaking across his dark face. “The contract just became permanent.”
