Chapter 3 - The Audio Tape
"What is that?" Luca demanded, his gaze shifting to my phone.
"Three days ago," I said, projecting my voice so every patron, waiter, and high-society investor in the room could hear, "Vanessa came into the home gym while Sofía was resting in the solarium. She didn't know I had set my phone on the desk to record Sofía's balance form on video. The camera was pointed at the wall, but the microphone was running."
"Luca, stop her! This is an invasion of privacy! It's illegal!" Vanessa lunged toward me, her manicured hands extended like talons.
Before she could take two steps, Luca caught her by the wrist. He didn't squeeze hard enough to bruise, but the sudden, immovable barrier of his arm sent a violent shockwave through her composure.
"Play it, Emily," Luca commanded.
I tapped the screen and connected the phone to the banquet hall’s Bluetooth speaker system, which was still paired to the cocktail party’s playlist. A low, scratching hiss filled the high-ceilinged room, followed by the distinctive clicking of designer stilettos on Italian marble.
Then, Vanessa’s voice boomed through the Bose overhead speakers, crystalline and venomous.
*"...I don't care what the latest MRI shows, Doctor. Luca signs whatever documents I put in front of him when he's exhausted from the acquisition meetings. Sofía goes to the Alpine Sanatorium in St. Moritz on the seventeenth. Not after the wedding. Before."*
A man's voice—husky, hesitant—crackled through the speakers. *"Miss Sterling, if her father discovers she has motor function, he will never sign the conservatorship papers. The law requires—"*
*"The law requires a signature from her designated legal guardian,"* Vanessa’s recorded voice interrupted, sharp as broken glass. *"Once Luca signs the pre-nuptial health proxy designating me as Sofía’s medical trustee, it’s done. That crippled little brat is a reminder of his dead wife, and I will not have her wheeled down the aisle at my wedding looking like a tragic charity case. Do your job, Doctor. Falsify the degenerative report, or I’ll ensure your private practice loses the Moretti Foundation grant."*
The audio cut out. The silence that followed was suffocating.
A woman in the back row dropped her champagne glass. The crystal shattered on the parquet floor with a loud, violent pop.
Vanessa stood frozen in the middle of the room, her arm still trapped in Luca’s iron grip. All the color had drained from her skin, leaving her looking hollowed out and gray beneath her heavy makeup.
"Luca," she stammered, her voice shaking violently. "Luca, listen to me... that’s AI. It's deepfake software! Emily is obsessed with you—she’s been trying to sabotage our relationship from the very day you hired her! You know how dangerous these digital tools are now!"
Luca didn't yell. He didn't curse. He slowly released her wrist, pulled a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket, and wiped his fingers as if he had just touched something rancid.
"My daughter," Luca said in a whisper that made the entire banquet room shudder, "spent seven months believing her own body had betrayed her. She spent seven months crying in her pillow every night, wondering why her father was planning to ship her five thousand miles across the ocean."
"Dad..." Sofía whimpered, tears spilling over her eyelashes and running down her pale cheeks.
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Luca sank to both knees on the polished floor. He ignored the hundreds of thousands of dollars of tailored fabric crumpling beneath him. He wrapped his arms around Sofía’s waist, buried his face into her lap, and let out a broken, shuddering sob that rattled his massive shoulders.
"Forgive me," Luca wept into his daughter's skirt. "My sweet girl, forgive me. I was so blind. I was so stupid."
