bedside before the bodyguard could grab him.
‘Sophia,’ he cried, taking her hand. ‘It is me. It is Leo. You said friends do not give up. Remember? You promised you would teach me to swim.’
Ricardo looked at him then.
For the first time since Leo had entered the room, the millionaire truly saw him. The muddy shoes. The shaking hands. The grief that looked exactly like his own.
The doctor reached for the switch again.
Beep.
The sound was faint, but it cut through the room like glass breaking.
No one breathed.
The monitor line rose, fell, and returned.
Then came another beep.
The doctor froze.
‘Check the leads,’ he ordered.
The nurse rushed forward. Her fingers moved over the wires attached to Sophia’s chest. ‘Leads are connected.’
‘Pulse?’
The nurse pressed two fingers against Sophia’s neck. Her eyes widened. ‘Weak. But present.’
Ricardo stood so suddenly the chair scraped across the floor.
‘You said she was gone.’
The doctor stared at the screen. ‘She should not be producing spontaneous cardiac response like this. Not after the readings we saw.’
‘Then your readings were wrong.’
‘I do not know yet.’
Leo held Sophia’s hand tighter. That was when he noticed the dark stain beneath the tape near her IV. It was small, barely larger than a coin, but the skin around it looked irritated.
He frowned.
‘Mr. Ricardo,’ he whispered.
Ricardo turned.
Leo pointed. ‘Was that blood there before?’
The nurse leaned over the bed. Her face changed instantly.
‘Doctor.’
The doctor followed her gaze. He removed the tape carefully, and beneath it was not one puncture mark, but two.
The second mark was fresh.
The doctor’s voice dropped. ‘Who accessed this IV line?’
The nurse shook her head. ‘Only authorized staff. I changed the bag an hour ago. That second puncture was not there.’
Victor took one step backward.
It was almost nothing.
But Leo saw it.
So did Ricardo.
The doctor turned to the medication tray. His eyes moved over the labeled vials, then stopped.
‘Where is the midazolam ampoule?’ he asked.
The nurse checked the tray, then the drawer beneath it. ‘It was here.’
‘How much?’ Ricardo demanded.
The doctor looked at him with visible reluctance. ‘A high dose could deeply suppress neurological signs. In a child, if combined with her existing condition, it could make her appear far worse than she was.’
Ricardo’s face went white.
‘Are you telling me someone drugged my daughter?’
No one answered quickly enough.
Victor raised his hands. ‘This is absurd. You are all emotional. The child is dying, and now you are inventing crimes because a gardener’s son saw a line flicker on a screen.’
Leo turned sharply toward him.
Then he remembered.
He had arrived at the hospital with his father just before the doctor entered the suite. His father had been stopped at reception because staff relatives were not allowed upstairs. Leo had slipped away through the stairwell, small and fast and unnoticed.
Outside Sophia’s room, he had seen Victor standing beside a supply cart.
Victor had looked down the hallway, taken something small from the top tray, and slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket.
At the time, Leo had thought it was a pen.
Now he knew it was not.
‘I saw you,’
