Chapter 18 - The Last Bad SongLeo screamed before anyone else understood.
The sound tore through applause, music, camera clicks, and polite society’s polished cruelty.
Camryn ran.
Matteo grabbed Leo from the stage as security surged toward the balcony, but Dr. Varela had already vanished into the service corridor.
“Lock down the building,” Matteo snapped.
Rocco moved fast.
Mara was faster.
Camryn reached Leo as Matteo carried him backstage.
The boy clawed at his collar, gasping.
“Bad song! Bad song!”
There was no music box.
No lullaby.
Only the gala orchestra, confused and still playing something soft in the ballroom.
Camryn listened.
The melody.
Her blood chilled.
It was the same tune from Isabella’s music box.
Someone had requested it.
Not by accident.
“Stop the music!” Camryn shouted.
A stage manager stared at her.
“Stop it now!”
The orchestra fell silent.
Leo sobbed into Matteo’s neck.
“No sleepy. No boom.”
Matteo looked at Camryn.
“Varela was here.”
“I saw her.”
His face turned deadly.
Camryn grabbed his sleeve. “Think.”
“I am thinking.”
“No. You’re hunting. Think.”
The words cut through him.
He forced himself still.
Rocco returned. “She left through catering. We found a discarded staff badge.”
Mara entered behind him. “And this.”
She held up a small speaker.
It had been placed beneath the children’s art table.
Programmed to play the music box tune.
No bomb.
No weapon.
Just a sound.
Camryn stared at it.
“She wanted to break him in public,” she whispered.
Matteo’s voice shook with rage. “Why?”
Mara looked grim. “Because Vincent’s defense depends on Leo being unreliable.”
Camryn understood.
The gala had shown Leo speaking clearly. Calmly. Publicly.
So Varela tried to trigger him in front of cameras.
Make him scream.
Make him look unstable.
Make every future word questionable.
It was cruel in a way Camryn could barely process.
She knelt in front of Leo.
“Sweetheart, listen to me.”
Leo shook his head, sobbing.
“Bad song.”
“Yes. It was the bad song. But no boom came.”
Leo’s breathing hitched.
Camryn pointed around the room. “Look. Papa. Rocco. Mara. Cam. No smoke. No fire. No boom.”
Leo’s eyes flickered.
“No boom,” he whispered.
“No boom,” Matteo said.
Leo looked at his father.
“Bad lady lie?”
Matteo’s face twisted.
“Yes.”
Leo pressed his forehead to Matteo’s.
“Papa mad.”
“Yes,” Matteo said.
“Papa no boom.”
The words held command and plea.
Matteo closed his eyes.
“Papa no boom.”
The room exhaled.
That was when Grace Holloway entered.
The child welfare evaluator had attended the gala quietly as part of ongoing observation. She had seen everything.
Her face was pale with anger.
“She intentionally induced a trauma response in a minor,” Grace said. “In public.”
Rocco looked at Matteo. “We can find her.”
Grace’s voice sharpened. “Law enforcement can find her.”
Rocco paused.
Matteo nodded.
“Call them.”
Camryn saw the effort it took.
Every time Matteo chose the lawful road, it cost him something old.
But each time, the cost seemed less like weakness and more like freedom.
Dr. Varela was arrested two hours later at a private airport.
She had a passport, cash, and sealed psychiatric notes about Leo that no doctor should have removed.
By midnight, her statement began leaking through legal channels.
She claimed Vincent had threatened her.
Then paid her.
Then promised her protection.
She claimed Leo’s early treatment had been designed to “manage memory contamination.”
A clean phrase for something monstrous.
She had sedated him after episodes. Redirected his words. Warned staff that his speech was meaningless. Encouraged Matteo to view him as violent, unreachable, broken.
Camryn read the report in Matteo’s office with tears running down her face.
“He was trying to tell everyone.”
Matteo stood by the desk, both hands pressed flat against the wood.
“I punished him for screaming.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have.”
Camryn wanted to comfort him.
Isabella’s letter stopped her.
Do not let his grief make him holy.
So she told the truth.
“Yes,” she said. “You should have.”
Matteo looked at her.
The room held its breath.
Then he nodded.
“I know.”
That mattered more than any apology.
The next morning, Leo walked into the blue room by himself.
Camryn, Matteo, Serafina, Mara, and Grace waited in the hallway.
He opened the music box.
The lullaby began.
His small body shook.
But he did not scream.
Matteo knelt beside him.
Leo looked at the music box.
Then at his father.
“Just song,” he whispered.
Matteo’s eyes filled.
“Yes. Just a song.”
Leo closed the lid.
Then he picked up the music box and handed it to Camryn.
“No more bad.”
Camryn held it carefully.
“What should we do with it?”
Leo thought hard.
Then said, “Mama garden.”
Serafina inhaled sharply.
Isabella had wanted a rooftop garden before she died.
Matteo had never built it.
By sunset, workers began clearing the penthouse terrace.
Not for a memorial of marble.
For soil.
Flowers.
May you like
A small tree.
And a place where bad songs could become wind.
