Part 2: A cruel stepmother tried to force a paralyzed girl back into her wheelchair in front of a crowded room, completely unaware that I had recorded her plot to banish the child to a Swiss facility.

Julian spat blood onto the white tiles, his face twisted in a mocking grin despite the agonizing grip Luca held on his shoulder.

"You're too late, Luca," Julian wheezed, his eyes wild. "The Swiss papers are already filed with the Geneva court. If Vanessa isn't in your penthouse by sunrise, the automated proxy triggers. You can't stop it."

"Shut up," Luca snarled, grinding Julian's face harder into the floor until the police arrived.

Within minutes, sirens wailed outside the high-rise tower. Detective Miller of the NYPD Major Case Squad marched into the rehabilitation room with four uniformed officers. They cuffed Julian Sterling and bagged the three amber pharmaceutical bottles as primary evidence.

"What do we have here, Mr. Moretti?" Detective Miller asked, bagging Julian's blowtorch and phone.

"Attempted murder, corporate espionage, and child abuse," Luca said coldly, wiping a smear of blood from his forehead. "Test those bottles. You'll find compounded botulinum derivatives and high-dose muscle relaxants meant for my twelve-year-old daughter."

Detective Miller looked at Julian, then at the bottles, his face hardening. "We picked up Miss Vanessa Sterling forty minutes ago at Teterboro Airport. She was boarding a chartered Gulfstream bound for Zurich. She’s currently sitting in an interrogation cell at the 19th Precinct."

Luca let out a long, ragged exhale, the tension finally leaving his massive frame. "Does she have bail?"

"Not a chance," Detective Miller replied with a grim smile. "We found four fake passports, fifty thousand euros in cash, and an unsigned death certificate for Sofía Moretti in her carry-on luggage."

The room went dead silent.

I felt the room spin. Luca grabbed the edge of the physical therapy table to keep from collapsing. "A death certificate?"

"Pre-dated for six months from now," Miller confirmed somberly. "Stating the cause of death as accidental drowning during hydrotherapy in a Swiss sanitarium. She wasn't just planning to milk the trust fund, Luca. Once the conservatorship was signed and the assets were diverted into her shell corporation, Sofía was never going to come home."

Luca didn't speak. He turned around, walked out of the room, and leaned against the panoramic glass window overlooking the sleeping city. He pressed his forehead against the cold glass, his broad shoulders shaking violently as he wept for the horror his innocent child had so narrowly escaped.