I stared at the numbers.
“Is he… waking up?”
Rosalind slowly reached for another sheet of paper.
“Nell, there’s something else.”
My stomach tightened.
She pointed to a second reading.
“This happened several minutes after Poppy left.”
I looked at the chart.
Then at Rosalind’s suddenly frightened expression.
“What happened?”
She leaned closer and whispered:
“My son tried to say something.”
PART 2
I sat on the edge of the plush sofa inside West Suite 4, holding three-year-old Poppy in my lap.
Poppy wore her clean yellow cotton pajamas with small daisy prints. Her soft brown curls fell over her shoulders, and her big hazel eyes were wide with innocent wonder as she hugged her gray stuffed rabbit, Biscuit.
“Mommy,” Poppy piped up in her sweet, high voice, swinging her small legs. “Are we going to see the sleepy mister again?”
I gently stroked her hair, kissing her forehead, my heart swelling with a mixture of overwhelming maternal love and deep, terrifying anxiety.
“Yes, sweetie,” I murmured softly. “We’re going to visit him. But remember what Mommy told you: we don’t touch his wires, and we don’t shout.”
“I know!” Poppy nodded solemnly, hugging Biscuit tighter. “I’m going to sing Sunshine so he doesn’t feel lonely in the dark.”
Knock. Knock.
The heavy mahogany door clicked open.
Standing in the doorway was Vittorio Sartori, Matteo’s thirty-four-year-old younger brother.
Vittorio was impeccably dressed in a dark bespoke suit, his dark hair slicked back, his sharp face holding a handsome, arrogant polish. But unlike his mother’s solemn, dignified aura, Vittorio’s dark eyes carried a cold, calculating edge that made my stomach tighten instantly.
Behind him stood two broad-shouldered guards in dark suits.
“So,” Vittorio drawled, his baritone smooth and dry as he stepped into our suite, looking around at the plush furnishings, “this is the maid and her little miracle worker.”
I stood up, holding Poppy against my hip, my posture automatically defensive. “Mr. Sartori.”
Vittorio walked around the room, picking up a silver photo frame from the mantelpiece before setting it down with a sharp clack.
“My mother is a desperate woman, Nell,” Vittorio said, his tone dripping with subtle, condescending amusement. “She’s willing to believe in fairy tales because she can’t accept that Matteo’s brain was crushed under two tons of metal seven weeks ago.”
“The monitor records proved his heart rate changed, sir,” I replied, keeping my voice steady.
Vittorio laughed, a low, humorless sound that didn’t reach his eyes. “An involuntary muscular spasm. An autonomic nervous system reflex triggered by a sudden high-pitched sound. The doctors call it a coincidence.”
He stepped closer, leaning down slightly so his face was level with mine.
“Matteo’s accident left him with a seventy-percent probability of permanent brain death,” Vittorio whispered, his eyes narrowing into razor-sharp slits. “As Vice Chairman of Sartori Global, I am finalizing the transfer of executive voting authority this Friday. The last thing this family needs is a maid and a toddler giving my mother false hope.”
Poppy shrank against my shoulder, hiding her face in my neck.
“We are only doing what Mrs. Sartori asked us to do, Mr. Sartori,” I said flatly, looking straight into his eyes without flinching.
Vittorio stared at me for five long seconds. Then a cold, unreadable smile touched his lips. “Of course,” Vittorio murmured softly. “Just make sure your little girl doesn’t pull out an IV line, Nell. It would be… tragic… if something happened to slow down his recovery.”
He turned on his heel, his dark coat sweeping behind him as he exited the suite with his guards, leaving the heavy oak door swinging quietly in his wake.
PART 3
Rosalind didn’t say anything for a long moment after Vittorio left. She had come to stand in the doorway of West Suite 4 without a sound, still wearing the gray cashmere cardigan she’d had on that morning.
“How much did you hear?” I asked.
“Enough.” Her jaw was tight. “Nell, I need you to bring Poppy upstairs tonight. Quietly. Gwen will meet you at the service stairs.”
“Mrs. Sartori, your son said…”
“My son says a great many things.” She looked at Poppy, who was feeding Biscuit an imaginary cracker. “He’s also the reason I changed the lock on that room last week. Only three people have keys now. Gwen, Dr. Okafor, and me.”
A chill went through me. “You think he’d hurt Matteo?”
Rosalind didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
PART 4
At nine o’clock that night, Poppy climbed back onto the same chair beside Matteo’s bed.
The room was dim, lit only by the blue glow of the monitors. Gwen stood by the window with a tablet, and Dr. Samuel Okafor, a tall, gray-haired neurologist, sat in the corner with a notepad. Rosalind stood at the foot of the bed, holding her own elbows as though she were cold.
“Same as last time, sweetheart,” I whispered. “Just sing.”
Poppy took Matteo’s hand.
“Hi, mister. I told you I’d sing better.”
She sang “You Are My Sunshine,” slower this time, with a little wobble on the high notes. Halfway through the second verse, Matteo’s heart rate began to climb. Gwen’s tablet beeped softly.
“Keep going,” Dr. Okafor said, barely above a breath.
Poppy didn’t need to be told. When she reached the last line, Matteo’s fingers moved against hers.
Just once. A slight curl.
Rosalind made a sound I will never forget, something between a gasp and a sob, and pressed her hand over her mouth.
“Did you see?” Poppy said brightly. “He squeezed me!”
Dr. Okafor looked up from his notepad with wet eyes. “Yes, little one. He did.”
PART 5
On the sixth night, Matteo opened his eyes.
It wasn’t dramatic. There was no gasp, no sudden sitting up. Poppy was halfway through her song when his eyelids fluttered and then parted, slow and heavy, like doors that hadn’t been opened in years. His gaze drifted around the ceiling, then to the small girl on the chair with a stuffed rabbit under her arm.
His lips cracked open.
“Sun… shine,” he rasped.
