Chapter 10 - THE VOTE AT MIDNIGHT
The Bellandi council met in a building with no sign.
That seemed appropriate.
It stood behind an old private restaurant on the edge of River North, three stories of brown brick squeezed between a parking garage and a church. From the street, it looked like a place accountants might rent for retirement dinners.
At midnight, there were fourteen black cars outside and enough armed men inside to start a small war.
Wren hated everything about it.
She sat beside Enzo in the rear of the medical van while Luca’s team cleared the entrance.
Enzo wore a charcoal suit.
Not hospital clothes.
Not the loose shirts he had lived in for months.
A suit.
Wren had helped him dress.
That had been unexpectedly intimate.
Not because she had never dressed a patient before.
She had.
Hundreds of times.
But Enzo had watched her hands as she buttoned his shirt, and she had become absurdly aware that he was not merely a body requiring care.
He was a man.
An infuriating, dangerous, complicated man who looked unfairly good in dark wool.
“You’re staring,” he said.
Wren checked the blood-pressure monitor.
“I’m clinically observing.”
“My tie?”
“Your ego.”
“It’s elevated?”
“Critical.”
His mouth curved.
The monitor read higher than she liked.
She showed him.
He looked away.
“Stress.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going in.”
“Yes.”
He looked back at her.
No argument.
That surprised him.
Wren tightened the strap on his wheelchair cushion.
“You don’t need to stand.”
“I know.”
“You don’t need to prove you’re not weak.”
“I know.”
“You don’t need to perform your injury for people who have already decided what it means.”
His eyes held hers.
“I know.”
She stopped.
He had learned.
So had she.
“Good.”
He touched her hand.
“Are you afraid?”
“Yes.”
“For Noah?”
“Yes.”
“For yourself?”
“Yes.”
“For me?”
She looked at him.
“Unfortunately.”
His thumb moved across her knuckles.
The legal dissolution of his marriage had been entered at 4:17 that afternoon.
Valentina had texted Wren a screenshot with three champagne-glass emojis.
Wren had not replied.
Mostly because she did not know what to say.
Nothing had happened between her and Enzo.
Not yet.
But the word yet had become a living thing.
Luca opened the van door.
“Clear.”
The council room occupied the second floor.
There were no thrones.
No dramatic marble table.
Just a long walnut conference table surrounded by men and women in expensive clothes who looked irritated at being awake after midnight.
Wren preferred it that way.
Real power was often disappointingly fluorescent.
Matteo sat at the far end.
He looked rested.
That made Wren hate him.
Beside him sat Vincent Russo.
Russo was heavier than she expected, with silver hair and the soft hands of a man who had not personally lifted anything dangerous in years.
Elaine Voss sat three chairs away.
Seeing her hit Wren harder than expected.
Same blond bob.
Same thin mouth.
Same immaculate posture.
For one sick second, Wren was back in the administrative office at St. Agnes, listening to Elaine explain that patient safety required accountability.
Wren’s hands went cold.
Enzo noticed.
“You can leave,” he murmured.
“No.”
“That was not a test.”
“I know.”
She stepped closer to his chair.
Matteo stood.
“Enzo.”
His voice carried warmth.
It was astonishing.
“You should be resting.”
Enzo rolled to the head of the table.
“And you should have waited until Friday.”
A few people shifted.
Matteo spread his hands.
“Circumstances changed.”
“Because your plan failed?”
Silence.
Russo smiled faintly.
Matteo’s expression did not move.
“This is exactly why we’re here. You are ill, angry, and allowing strangers to manipulate you.”
His eyes moved to Wren.
“The nurse has a documented history of insubordination and unsafe practice.”
Wren almost admired the efficiency.
Enzo didn’t look at her.
“She also has a documented history of keeping people alive.”
Elaine spoke.
“Not according to St. Agnes.”
Wren looked at her.
Elaine smiled.
“Hello, Wren.”
“Elaine.”
“I wish our reunion were under better circumstances.”
“No, you don’t.”
A few people glanced between them.
Good.
Wren wanted them looking.
Matteo pressed a remote.
A screen behind him lit up.
The edited video played.
Wren with a syringe.
Enzo asleep.
Wren over the medication tray.
Text displayed her termination history.
Then bank records appeared.
Her overdue rent.
Credit card debt.
Gabe’s gambling debt.
Every humiliating number.
Matteo let the silence work.
“This woman had motive to accept payment. She had access. She has already been dismissed from one hospital for violating medical orders.”
Enzo’s face became stone.
Wren leaned toward him.
“Let him finish.”
He glanced at her.
She nodded.
Matteo continued.
“Since her arrival, Enzo has become increasingly paranoid. He has confined family members, accused physicians, and disrupted alliances that kept this organization stable for decades.”
A woman near the center of the table spoke.
“Is the video authentic?”
“No,” Wren said.
Matteo looked annoyed.
The woman turned to Wren.
“Who are you?”
“Wren Hart.”
“We know your name.”
“Then you know more about me than I know about most of you.”
One corner of the woman’s mouth lifted.
“I’m Teresa Bellandi.”
Valentina’s aunt.
Wren understood the resemblance.
Teresa gestured.
“Explain the video.”
“It’s edited.”
“Proof?”
“Original footage.”
Luca placed a drive on the table.
Matteo’s jaw tightened.
A technician connected it.
The full security recording played.
Wren had taken a syringe from her bag.
But the missing segment showed what happened next.
She used it to flush Enzo’s IV access port after checking patency.
No medication administered.
Routine care.
The room changed slightly.
Not enough.
Elaine spoke.
“That proves only that one clip was edited.”
“Correct,” Wren said.
Elaine blinked.
She had expected denial.
Wren continued.
“So let’s discuss records that weren’t.”
She nodded to Luca.
Medication orders appeared.
Original.
Changed.
Time stamps.
Hale’s approvals.
Payments to consulting companies.
Russo’s businesses.
Matteo’s authorization.
Elaine’s internal messages.
Matteo’s face finally changed.
Only a fraction.
But Wren saw.
So did Enzo.
Teresa Bellandi leaned forward.
“Is this verified?”
Valentina entered from the rear door.
“Yes.”
Every head turned.
Matteo stood.
“Valentina.”
She ignored him and placed a folder before her aunt.
“Independent forensic review. Three firms. Separate teams.”
Russo’s smile disappeared.
Teresa read.
Matteo looked at Enzo.
“You bring your former wife into this?”
“Ex-wife,” Valentina said.
A few eyebrows rose.
“This afternoon.”
Wren looked down to hide a smile.
Even now.
Especially now.
Matteo’s voice hardened.
“You don’t understand what you’re doing.”
Valentina looked at him.
“I understand exactly. My father’s stroke was not natural.”
The room froze.
Russo shifted.
Teresa’s face became lethal.
“What?”
Valentina turned to the screen.
“Medical records. Toxicology was altered. The original sample was preserved by a lab technician Maria Santos paid to keep it.”
Elaine went pale.
That was new information.
Wren looked at Maria’s empty chair in her mind.
Smart girl.
Always another copy.
Valentina continued.
“The sample shows a drug capable of inducing severe hypotension and neurological injury. Elaine Voss authorized access to the medication cabinet three hours before my father collapsed.”
Teresa stood.
Russo raised a hand.
“This is absurd.”
“No,” Enzo said. “This is accounting.”
He pressed the remote.
Payments appeared.
Dates.
Transfers.
Shell companies.
Amounts.
“You always taught me money tells the truth after men stop,” Enzo said to Matteo.
Matteo’s face tightened.
“I taught you many things.”
“Yes.”
“I raised you.”
“Yes.”
“And this is how you repay me?”
Enzo stared at him.
“You kept me drugged.”
“I kept you alive.”
The room went silent.
There.
Matteo heard himself too late.
Wren saw Enzo’s face change.
Not victory.
Pain.
“Say that again,” Enzo said.
Matteo looked around.
He could still step back.
He didn’t.
“Russo wanted you dead.”
Russo swore.
Matteo pointed at him.
“He ordered the shooting. I had no idea until after.”
“You expect us to believe that?” Teresa asked.
“I expect Enzo to remember who stayed at the hospital.”
Enzo’s voice was cold.
“You stayed to make sure Hale controlled the chart.”
“I stayed because you were dying.”
“And then?”
Matteo’s composure cracked.
“And then you lived!”
His voice hit the walls.
Everyone froze.
Matteo breathed hard.
“You lived, but you could not stand. You could not move. Half the city smelled weakness before you woke from sedation.”
Enzo said nothing.
“I held everything together,” Matteo continued. “Every crew. Every contract. Every alliance. Men were circling your bed before the stitches closed.”
“So you drugged me.”
“I managed you.”
Wren felt Enzo’s hand tighten on the wheel.
Matteo stepped closer.
“You think leadership is sentimental? I needed time.”
“Eight months?”
“I needed authority.”
“So you stole mine.”
“I preserved it.”
“For yourself.”
“For the family!”
The old excuse.
Family.
A word powerful men used when they meant obedience.
Enzo looked at him.
“You could have asked me to step aside.”
Matteo laughed.
“You? At thirty-eight? You would have burned the city before admitting you were finished.”
The sentence struck.
Wren watched it hit every old wound Enzo carried.
Finished.
Weak.
Chair.
Burden.
She moved close enough that her hand brushed his shoulder.
He did not look at her.
He did not need to.
Enzo breathed once.
Then said, “Maybe.”
Matteo frowned.
“Maybe I would have been exactly that man eight months ago.”
The room quieted.
“I thought control was the same as strength. I thought being feared meant being safe. I thought asking for help meant someone had found the place to put the knife.”
His eyes moved briefly to Wren.
“Then I lost enough to discover how much of that was stupidity.”
Wren’s throat tightened.
Enzo turned back to Matteo.
“You didn’t preserve me. You preserved the version of me that made you useful.”
No one spoke.
Matteo looked suddenly old.
Russo stood.
“This is emotional theater. We came for a vote.”
Teresa Bellandi looked at him.
“You may sit down.”
He didn’t.
Two Bellandi guards stepped closer.
He sat.
Teresa addressed the room.
“The question was whether Enzo Marchetti is medically and mentally capable of retaining authority.”
She looked at Enzo.
“Do you still request the vote?”
Enzo paused.
Everyone expected yes.
Wren did too.
“No.”
Murmurs moved around the table.
Matteo’s eyebrows lifted.
Enzo continued.
“If my authority depends on people deciding whether my legs make me a man, I don’t want it.”
Luca stared at him.
Wren’s breath caught.
Enzo looked around the table.
“I will not audition for my own life.”
Silence.
“If the council believes Matteo should lead, vote for him. If you believe Russo should control your business, choose him. But do not pretend this chair is the question.”
Teresa studied him for a long moment.
Then she closed the folder.
“There will be no incapacity vote.”
Matteo stood.
“What?”
“There will be a misconduct vote.”
His face drained.
Against Matteo and Russo.
One by one, hands rose.
Bellandi.
Marchetti allies.
Two independents.
Then three more.
The room shifted.
Power moved without gunfire.
No shouting.
Just hands.
Matteo lost.
Russo lost with him.
Elaine stood suddenly.
“I need the restroom.”
Wren looked at her.
Elaine looked back.
Too calm.
Wren’s instincts screamed.
“Luca.”
He moved.
Elaine threw a glass.
It shattered.
The lights went out.
Someone shouted.
A chair crashed.
Wren reached for Enzo.
A hand grabbed her from behind.
Cloth covered her mouth.
Chemical smell.
She twisted.
Bit.
Kicked.
The grip tightened.
She heard Enzo shout her name.
Then a side door opened.
Cold air hit her face.
Wren drove her elbow backward and connected with ribs.
The person holding her grunted.
Elaine’s voice hissed near her ear.
“You should have taken the money.”
Wren stomped backward.
For one second she broke free.
Then another man caught her.
She saw Enzo across the dark room.
Luca blocking him from rushing forward.
Enzo trying to move around the fallen chairs.
His face.
Not anger.
Terror.
“Wren!”
She tried to answer.
Something struck the side of her head.
The room folded.
The last thing she heard was Enzo shouting her name again.
When Wren woke, her wrists were tied.
Concrete beneath her.
A fluorescent light overhead.
Elaine sat across from her.
Vincent Russo stood near the door.
Wren blinked through pain.
“Where’s Matteo?”
Russo smiled without humor.
“Matteo lost.”
“And you?”
“I dislike losing.”
Elaine leaned forward.
“You are going to help us fix that.”
Wren tested the ties.
“Unlikely.”
Elaine smiled.
“No, Wren. You misunderstand.”
She placed a syringe on the table.
Clear liquid.
No label.
Then she set down a phone.
On the screen was a live video feed.
Enzo.
Back at the council building.
Wild-eyed.
Ordering men into the streets.
Elaine touched the syringe.
“You’re going to call him.”
Wren looked at her.
“And say what?”
Elaine’s smile widened.
“That you were working with us from the beginning.”
Wren laughed.
Even tied to a chair.
Even with a headache splitting her skull.
She laughed.
Russo’s face hardened.
Elaine frowned.
“What is funny?”
Wren looked at the camera feed.
At Enzo.
At the man who once believed control could protect him from everything.
Then back at Elaine.
“You still think this is about making him doubt me.”
Elaine said nothing.
May you like
Wren leaned forward as far as the restraints allowed.
“You’re about four days too late.”
