Chapter 3 - The Doctor’s Last Appointment
By midnight, the storm had moved east toward the Alps, leaving the streets of Milan slick, dark, and glistening under the yellow sodium streetlights.
St. Helena Private Hospital stood in an upscale district, its modern glass-and-steel façade illuminated by discreet floodlights. To the wealthy elite of Europe, it was a sanctuary of world-class medicine and absolute discretion. To me, it was a criminal slaughterhouse disguised as a sanctuary.
A black, armored SUV pulled into the subterranean executive parking garage of the hospital, followed by two unmarked sedans.
I stepped out of the rear seat. I was wearing a black wool coat over a dark suit. In my arms, wrapped in a warm, clean cashmere blanket, was my son. I had refused to leave him behind at the estate; until the monsters were dealt with, the safest place for my child was against my heart.
Marco stepped up beside me, carrying a heavy leather briefcase. "Dr. Weber is still in his penthouse office on the fifth floor, Don Julian. He has a private surgery scheduled for 2:00 AM—an offshore patient who arrived without immigration clearance."
"Has he realized the baby was missing from the delivery van?" I asked, stepping into the private medical elevator.
"The courier he hired turned his phone off two hours ago," Marco replied, pressing the button for the fifth floor. "Weber thinks the child is already in the incinerator at the regional waste site."
The elevator rose silently.
When the doors opened on the fifth floor, the private wing was dimly lit and deserted. The floors were polished marble; the walls were adorned with modern art.
We walked down the wide corridor toward the double frosted-glass doors marked: DR. ARTHUR WEBER - CHIEF OF PEDIATRIC MEDICINE.
Marco didn't knock. He drawn a heavy, suppressed sidearm, placed his boot against the lock mechanism, and kicked the door open.
The lock shattered with a sharp CRACK.
Inside the luxurious office, Dr. Arthur Weber—a tall, slender man in his late fifties with silver hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and a crisp white lab coat—jumped up from his mahogany desk. He had been packing stack of euro notes into a leather travel bag.
"What is the meaning of this?!" Weber demanded, his voice authoritative, conditioned by decades of unquestioned status. "Security! I am calling security!"
He reached for the desk phone.
Marco crossed the room in two strides, grabbed the telephone cord, and ripped it out of the wall socket. He then delivered a short, brutal open-palm strike to Weber’s chest, sending the doctor tumbling back into his high-backed leather chair.
I stepped into the room, closing the heavy door behind me.
Weber scrambled to adjust his glasses. When his eyes landed on me, his expression transformed from indignation to mild confusion. "Don... Don Julian? What is going to the meaning of this intrusion? If this is about the tragic loss of your son, I assure you my staff did everything—"
Weber froze.
His eyes fell on the cashmere bundle in my arms.
I stepped up to the edge of his desk, reached out with one hand, and pulled back the corner of the blanket.
My son opened his bright, dark brown eyes, looking directly at the silver-haired doctor.
Weber’s face drained of every drop of blood. His jaw dropped, his mouth opening and closing like a fish pulled from water. "No... no, that's... that's impossible... The courier... he said—"
"He said he put him in the incinerator," I finished for him, my voice dropping into a register so dark it seemed to suck the warmth out of the room. "Unfortunately for you, Dr. Weber, the trash shed behind my kitchen is cold. And my housekeeper’s daughter has better ears than your assassin."
Weber backed his chair up until it pressed flat against the glass wall behind him. "Julian... listen to me... you don't understand the pressure I was under! Your brother... Matteo... he threatened to destroy my license! He knew about the Vance girl from twelve years ago!"
"I know about the Vance girl too," I said, sitting down in the chair across from his desk, holding my son comfortably on my lap. "I know my father paid you to hide Clara Vance’s pregnancy. I know you faked her child's death. I know you took my brother’s money to murder my son. And I know you've been running an illegal infant trafficking network out of this private wing for over a decade."
Weber’s hands were shaking so violently he couldn't keep them on the desk. "I... I can give you the names! I have the master files! The families who took the children in Zurich, in London, in Monaco! I kept records of every transaction! I can give you Matteo’s signed wire transfers!"
"I already have Matteo," I said smoothly. "And as for your records..."
I nodded to Marco.
Marco set the leather briefcase on Weber’s desk, opened it, and pulled out a high-capacity encrypted hard drive, along with three leather ledger books pulled directly from Weber’s wall safe—which my cyber-security team had breached twenty minutes ago.
"You see, Doctor," I continued, leaning forward, "in my world, when a man discovers a cancer in his organization, he doesn't negotiate with the tumor. He cuts it out, burns the tissue, and sterilizes the room."
Weber began to hyperventilate. "What... what are you going to do to me? You can't kill me here! This is a hospital! The police—"
"The police won't be involved in your end, Dr. Weber," I interrupted cold-heartedly. "Because officially, you are about to resign."
I pulled a single sheet of paper from my coat pocket and laid it in front of him, alongside a heavy silver pen.
"This is a full, signed confession," I explained. "It details your falsification of medical records, your illegal adoption ring, your conspiracy with Matteo Moretti and Valentina Vance-Moretti, and your admission of guilt regarding the attempted murder of my heir. You will sign it now."
"And if I sign it?" Weber begged, tears of panic streaming down his cheeks. "Do you let me leave? Do you let me go to the border?"
I looked at him with absolute, icy deadness in my eyes. "If you sign it, your death will be quick. If you refuse, I turn you over to Marco. And Marco served four years in a military interrogation unit in North Africa. He has... creative methods for securing signatures."
Weber looked at Marco. Marco smiled—a terrifying, empty expression that promised unspeakable agony.
Weber grabbed the pen with trembling fingers. He didn't even read the pages. He signed his name at the bottom of all three copies, his hand shaking so violently the signature was barely legible.
"It's done!" Weber sobbed, shoving the paper toward me. "It's signed! Now please... mercy..."
I picked up the signed confession, folded it neatly, and placed it inside my jacket pocket.
"Thank you, Doctor," I said, standing up with my son. "Marco."
"Sir?"
"Make it look like a tragic, stress-induced cardiac arrest," I ordered as I turned toward the door. "Use the same compound he used on Clara Vance."
"NO! NO! JULIAN! YOU PROMISED!" Weber shrieked, scrambling across the desk, but Marco moved like a striking viper, grabbing the doctor by his hair, shoving a heavy linen towel into his mouth, and driving a pre-filled syringe directly into the carotid artery in his neck.
Weber’s eyes bulged. His limbs thrashing frantically against the mahogany desk, knocking pens, paperweights, and medical awards onto the floor.
Within forty seconds, his movements slowed. His eyes rolled back into his head, and his body went completely limp, falling face-down onto his pristine leather desk.
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I didn't look back.
I stepped into the elevator, holding my sleeping son close against my chest, as the doors closed silently, sealing the vault of St. Helena’s darkest secrets forever.
