THE LOCKET IN THE WHEELCHAIR

“Luca!”

I scrambled across the dusty floorboards, my knees slamming into the wood.

I pressed my fingers to his neck.

His pulse was thready. Faint. Slipping away.

“Sofia, get my bag!” I shouted.

The older woman hurried over, sliding the heavy medical bag across the floor.

I opened the journal flat on the ground. I read the protocol twice, my eyes scanning the medical shorthand.

Atropine. Glucagon. Calcium Gluconate.

It was a brilliant, terrifying cocktail. Individually, they treated different cardiac issues. Combined in the exact ratios Charles Bennett had listed, they would bind to the neurotoxin and flush it from the heart muscle.

If I got the ratio wrong, the mixture would cause a massive, fatal heart attack instantly.

My hands were shaking.

“Rebecca,” Sofia whispered, kneeling beside me. “Can you do this?”

I looked at the vials in my kit. I looked at Luca’s still face.

“I have to,” I said.

I drew up the Atropine. Then the Glucagon. Finally, the Calcium.

I flicked the syringe, clearing the air bubbles.

“Hold his arm steady,” I told Sofia.

She gripped Luca’s wrist.

I found the IV line I had placed in the car. I attached the syringe.

I closed my eyes for one second, praying to whatever was listening in that dark cabin.

I pushed the plunger.

The clear liquid disappeared into the tube.

I ripped the syringe away and grabbed my stethoscope, pressing it to his chest.

Silence.

Ten seconds.

Twenty seconds.

“Come on, Luca,” I whispered, tears blurring my vision. “Don't leave me now. We just won.”

Suddenly, his chest jerked.

A loud, strong THUMP echoed through the earpieces of my stethoscope.

Then another.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The rhythm was fast, but it was strong. Steady. The erratic, poisoned fluttering was gone.

Luca gasped, his eyes flying open. He arched off the floor, pulling in a massive lungful of air, like a man breaking the surface of the water after drowning.

He fell back, panting, staring up at the wooden ceiling.

I slumped against the desk, letting out a sob of pure, overwhelming relief.

“He’s back,” Sofia cried, touching his face. “He’s back.”

Luca turned his head. His dark eyes found mine.

The gray tint was already leaving his skin. The terrifying weakness was vanishing. The antidote was working exactly as Charles Bennett had designed it.

Luca slowly pushed himself up onto his elbows.

He didn't look at Sofia. He didn't look at the guard.

He looked only at me.

“You,” he rasped, a weak but genuine smile touching his lips, “are getting a very large raise, Ms. Collins.”

I laughed through my tears, wiping my face with the back of my sleeve.

“I don't want a raise,” I said. “I want a vacation.”

“Done,” he promised.

He sat up fully, taking a deep, clean breath. For the first time in a year, he wasn't dying.

He looked at Sofia.

“We have the antidote,” Luca said. “We have the journal proving Charles’s crimes. We have the confession about Anna.”

He looked toward the open door of the cabin, out into the cold night.

“It’s time to end this. We’re going back to Chicago.”

Four hours later, the sun was fully up as my sedan pulled through the iron gates of the Ferraro mansion.

The estate looked the same, but everything had changed.

The security chief was waiting on the front steps.

“Boss,” he said, opening the car door. “It’s done.”

“Where are they?” Luca asked, stepping out of the car under his own power. He looked commanding, dangerous, and completely alive.

“In the library.”

We walked through the marble foyer. The remaining guards stood at attention, their loyalty completely cemented to Luca now.

Luca pushed the heavy oak doors of the library open.

Inside, sitting on the leather sofa, handcuffed and surrounded by armed men, was Dr. Charles Bennett.

He looked old. Defeated. The arrogance was gone.

“Charles,” Luca said, walking slowly into the room.

Bennett didn't look up.

“You survived,” the doctor muttered.

“I did,” Luca said. “And I brought someone to see you.”

Sofia stepped into the library.

Charles Bennett’s head snapped up. He stared at his daughter, the woman he had locked in a basement for thirty years.

He didn't apologize. He didn't cry.

He just stared.

“Hello, Father,” Sofia said quietly. “You look terrible.”

Bennett looked at Luca. “What do you want, Luca? You have my money. You have my freedom. Just kill me and get it over with.”

“I’m not going to kill you, Charles,” Luca said coldly.

He walked over to the desk and picked up a heavy, manila envelope.

“I’m going to do exactly what you did to my uncle Anthony. And exactly what you did to Sofia.”

Bennett’s eyes widened.

“What?”

Luca tossed the envelope onto the doctor’s lap.

“Those are medical committal papers,” Luca said. “Signed by three independent psychiatrists. Stating that Dr. Charles Bennett is suffering from severe, irreversible dementia. You are unfit to stand trial. Unfit to manage your own affairs.”

Bennett shook his head frantically. “No. No, I am perfectly sane!”

“It doesn't matter,” Luca said softly. “Because you don't exist anymore.”

He leaned in close.

“You are going to a private, heavily guarded psychiatric facility in upstate New York. A place with no windows. No visitors. No way out. You will spend the rest of your natural life in a padded room, treated like a madman until you actually become one.”

Bennett panicked, thrashing against the handcuffs. “Luca, please! Prison! Send me to prison!”

“Take him away,” Luca ordered.

The guards hauled the screaming, desperate man out of the library.

His screams echoed down the hallway until the heavy front doors slammed shut.

Silence descended on the room.

It was over.

The poison was gone. The mastermind was defeated. The family was safe.

Luca turned to me, the hard edges of his face softening completely.

But before he could speak, the library doors opened again.

The security chief stepped back in, looking confused.

“Boss,” the chief said. “There’s a woman at the front gate. She says she’s looking for Rebecca Collins.”

I frowned. “For me?”