Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN WHO STAYED BESIDE HIS BED
"How long have you been lying to me?"
Dante placed the photograph in front of Isabella.
They were back in the mansion's library.
Anna stood near the bookshelves, while Teresa DeLuca sat beside the fireplace with her husband's watch in her lap.
Isabella stared at the picture.
Her carefully composed expression slowly collapsed.
"Where did you get this?"
"That doesn't matter."
"Dante—"
"Six days before the explosion. Victor, Bell, Marco, and you."
He pointed toward the medical clinic behind them.
"You told me Victor introduced you to Dr. Bell during my recovery."
Isabella closed her eyes.
"I should have told you."
"Then start now."
She pulled out a chair.
Before speaking, she looked toward Teresa.
"I'm sorry about your husband."
Teresa's voice remained steady.
"Then help us understand what happened to him."
Isabella nodded.
"The Moretti Community Health Initiative began almost a year before the explosion. It was supposed to provide treatment for injured waterfront workers."
Dante frowned.
"Using money from the family charitable trust."
"Yes."
"Why were you involved?"
"Victor asked me to help organize fundraising events. I had connections through the hospital foundation."
Isabella looked down at her hands.
"I believed we were helping people."
Teresa touched the watch.
"Marco started asking questions because men he knew were receiving strange treatments. They came home with headaches, confusion, and bills that didn't make sense."
Anna felt a chill.
"Like Mr. Moretti?"
"Some of the symptoms sounded similar," Teresa replied. "Marco thought the clinic was charging the trust for treatments people hadn't fully agreed to."
Dante turned toward Isabella.
"Did you know?"
"Not then."
"And later?"
She hesitated.
"After your accident, Victor convinced me that Dr. Bell had developed a treatment that could help you."
Dante's jaw tightened.
"You agreed to have it put inside me."
"I agreed to the original procedure through your healthcare proxy. You were in terrible pain. Bell explained the risks, but I wasn't a doctor. I trusted him."
"That part I might understand."
Isabella began crying.
"But eight months ago, they changed the system."
Dante went still.
"Why?"
"Victor said the old equipment had become unreliable. He said the new receiver would stabilize your symptoms."
"And you believed him?"
"I wanted to."
The admission hung between them.
Dante looked at the woman he had once intended to marry.
"What aren't you telling me?"
Isabella wiped her cheeks.
"Before the revision, you were starting to remember things. Not everything. But pieces."
"What pieces?"
"The waterfront. Marco. Arguments with Victor."
Dante's heart began pounding.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because when those memories came back, you became furious. You threatened to destroy everything Victor had built."
"Maybe I had a reason."
"I know that now."
She covered her face.
"But at the time, I was terrified you would return to the man you were before the explosion."
Dante stared at her.
"What does that mean?"
"You were powerful, Dante. You could also be ruthless. Your father built an empire that hurt people as well as helped them."
Her voice broke.
"After the accident, you were vulnerable. Sometimes gentle. I hated seeing you suffer, but I also thought that if Victor kept the business stable, maybe you wouldn't have to return to that life."
Anna watched Dante absorb the words.
Isabella wasn't describing a simple plot to steal money.
She was admitting something uglier.
She had allowed other people to control him because part of her found that control convenient.
"You thought keeping me confused would keep me harmless," he said.
"No. I didn't understand what they were doing."
"Then why did you stop asking questions?"
Isabella had no answer.
Dante looked away.
For three years, she had held his hand through sleepless nights.
He had believed that meant he was safe.
Now he understood that loving someone and protecting their right to make choices were not always the same thing.
Teresa broke the silence.
"My husband wasn't perfect either."
Everyone turned toward her.
"He worked for your family twenty years. He knew things. Some of them weren't good."
She looked directly at Dante.
"But when he saw retirement money disappearing and older people being pushed out of their homes, he decided silence wasn't loyalty anymore."
Dante stared at the broken watch.
He remembered Marco's laugh.
The way he always arrived fifteen minutes early.
How he kept peppermints in the glove compartment.
Then another memory appeared.
Marco standing in the garage.
Holding a red folder.
Saying something about Pier Fourteen.
Dante pressed his fingers against his forehead.
Anna stepped closer.
"Don't force it."
He lowered his hand.
"You're right."
It was the first time he had allowed himself not to chase a missing memory.
That afternoon, Dante returned to Dr. Cho's hospital clinic.
Isabella came with him.
So did Anna.
Victor wasn't invited.
Dr. Cho had arranged for an independent clinical engineer to review the device programming using equipment compatible with the implanted system.
The examination took nearly two hours.
Dante lay awake while they checked the settings and historical records.
Some of the programming appeared consistent with pain treatment.
Other settings concerned the medical team.
Finally, Dr. Cho asked everyone to sit down.
"We found repeated manual changes outside the normal treatment schedule," she explained.
Dante leaned forward.
"What kind of changes?"
"Brief increases in stimulation intensity."
"Could those cause my headaches?"
"They could trigger or worsen pain. We can't assign every symptom to the device, but the timing deserves investigation."
The engineer displayed a graph.
Several abrupt increases coincided with days Dante remembered suffering particularly severe episodes.
One occurred during a financial meeting when he had refused Victor's request to approve a property transfer.
Another happened the evening he told Isabella he wanted to visit Marco's widow.
A third matched the morning he demanded access to his medical files.
Dante stared at the screen.
"Every time I started asking questions."
Dr. Cho nodded cautiously.
"The pattern is troubling. We still need to establish who initiated each adjustment."
Anna thought of the silver controller.
"Can you see who used it?"
"The system records account credentials, although credentials alone don't prove who held the controller."
The engineer opened another window.
A column of names appeared beside the adjustments.
Most routine treatment sessions carried the clinic's identification.
But the manual overrides came from a separate authorized account.
Dante read the name.
Then he looked toward Isabella.
Her face had gone white.
"No," she whispered.
Dr. Cho scrolled to the most recent record.
The last manual activation had occurred at 2:14 the previous afternoon.
Forty seconds after Sophie first described the metal legs behind Dante's neck.
And the account recorded beside that activation was unmistakable.
AUTHORIZED OPERATOR: ISABELLA ROMANO.
May you like
Dante slowly turned toward the woman who had spent three years promising to protect him.
"Isabella," he said, "tell me why your name is on the button that hurt me."
