Chapter 5
June did not like being called brave.
I learned that quickly.
“I needed the work,” she said when Edwin praised her after Lucia and Grant were moved under guard to another room. “I still need it.”
“You were told helping me would get you fired.”
“Yes.”
“And you helped.”
She looked uncomfortable.
“You couldn’t breathe.”
That was her entire explanation.
No loyalty speech.
No fascination with the Santoro name.
Just a person in pain.
I found that more useful than reverence.
Dr. Hart stayed another hour and confirmed what I had already begun to feel after the corrected schedule resumed. My leg was still badly injured. The nerve damage was real. The wheelchair was not theater.
But the worst spasms had been made more frequent than they needed to be.
Lucia had not created my injury.
She had cultivated it.
That distinction mattered.
Edwin came back with something else.
“Sir, I checked staff departures.”
I looked at him.
“In the last month, four caretakers resigned.”
June looked surprised.
“I thought I replaced one.”
“You replaced four.”
She stared at him.
Edwin continued. “Each left within days of reporting that Mrs. Santoro restricted access to your medication.”
I felt something inside me settle.
“How?”
“One said you refused help. One said you were verbally abusive. One left without explanation.”
“And the fourth?”
Edwin hesitated.
“She told me someone was trying to make you worse.”
Silence.
“What happened to her?”
“She was dismissed the next morning.”
“By whom?”
He looked at me.
I already knew.
Lucia.
June lowered her eyes.
May you like
Grant and Lucia had not built the plan around one caretaker obeying them.
They had built it around removing every caretaker who did not.
