Chapter 4 - The Poisoned Well
Salvatore fell without a groan. The damp laboratory paper in my fingers was instantly spattered with a streak of hot, dark blood.
My throat tightened to scream, but before sound could escape my lips, another gunshot shattered the stone balustrade inches from my ear, showering my neck in sharp masonry dust.
A shadow darted across the fire escape opposite the terrace.
The double French doors behind me flew open violently.
“Isabella!”
Alessandro charged onto the terrace, his tuxedo jacket already pushed back, a customized semi-automatic pistol drawn in his right hand. He took in the scene in a fraction of a second—Salvatore’s lifeless body on the flagstones, the blood on my gown, and the sniper on the rooftop beyond.
“Down!” he roared.
He tackled me to the ground just as a third bullet gouged the marble pillar where my head had been resting.
The impact knocked the breath from my lungs. Alessandro rolled over, pinning me beneath him, using his broad shoulders as a human shield against the balustrade. I could feel the thundering beat of his heart against my chest, the heat radiating through his dress shirt, the iron scent of cordite.
“Vincent!” Alessandro barked into a small earpiece. “North rooftop, high-caliber suppressor. Cut the power to the ballroom and bring the armored car to the service dock now!”
Down below, screaming erupted through the ballroom as the grand chandeliers abruptly died, plunging the Drake Hotel into pitch blackness. Emergency sirens wailed in the near distance.
Alessandro looked down at me through the shadows, his face inches from mine. For the first time, the icy mask of control had fractured. His eyes were wide, dilated with raw, primal focus.
“Are you hit?”
“N-no,” I stammered, shivering violently against the freezing terrace floor. My knuckles were clamped around Salvatore’s crumpled papers, digging into my palms.
He dragged me to my feet in one fluid motion, keeping his body between me and the open air, and shoved me back inside through the darkened service hallway. Staff and guests were trampling over one another in hysterical flight.
Vincent emerged from the service elevator, blood splattered across his knuckles and a weapon drawn. “The shooter jumped the alley fence. Varga's men are blocking the front boulevard.”
“Service ramp,” Alessandro commanded, his hand locked tightly around my wrist as he dragged me down the metal stairs three steps at a time. “Move!”
We burst into the underground delivery dock just as a reinforced black Suburban screeched to a halt, tires smoking against grease-stained concrete. Alessandro shoved me into the back seat and dove in behind me. Vincent slammed the passenger door and yelled at the driver: “Drive! Out the back alley!”
The heavy vehicle roared forward, smashing through the loading gate into the rainy Chicago night.
I pressed my back against the reinforced car door, clutching the bloody document to my chest. My mind was reeling. Salvatore’s dying words echoed in my skull like thunder: *Marco was poisoned... Alessandro manufactured your brother’s illness.*
Alessandro sat opposite me, panting softly, holstering his weapon. He looked over, his eyes landing on the crumpled papers clenched in my fist.
“What did Salvatore give you before he died?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous.
I stared at him, horror and fury warring inside my chest. “You told me my brother had marrow failure. You told me you were helping him!”
Alessandro’s eyes narrowed. “I am paying every cent of his clinical trial.”
“He doesn't have cancer, Alessandro!” I screamed, throwing the blood-soaked lab results into his lap. “He was poisoned! With industrial thallium! At your warehouse! You poisoned my brother to turn him into a hostage!”
Vincent spun around in the front seat, his face white. “Boss—”
Alessandro snatched the report, his eyes scanning the chemical analysis and the forged toxicological intake stamps. A terrifying stillness settled over him. It wasn't the silence of guilt. It was the silence of a predator realizing he had walked into an ambush.
“This isn't my signature,” Alessandro whispered.
“You expect me to believe that?” I sobbed. “He’s twenty-three! He never hurt anyone!”
Alessandro grabbed my shoulders, forcing me to look directly into his eyes. “Isabella, listen to me. I have killed men. I have ruined families who crossed me. But I do not poison innocent boys in warehouses to recruit waitresses. Look at the date on this report.”
I choked down a sob, looking down at the crumpled page.
The date stamped on the toxicological screening was eight months ago.
“Eight months ago,” Alessandro said through clenched teeth, “I did not own that warehouse. I purchased it six weeks ago from Dante Varga.”
Before the realization could sink in, my phone buzzed frantically inside my small evening clutch.
A private number.
With trembling hands, I tapped the screen and held it to my ear.
“Hello?”
A raspy, sickeningly familiar laugh came through the speaker. Dante Varga.
May you like
“Isabella, sweetheart,” Varga purred, background noise echoing behind him. “Your brother has been such a pleasant guest. But if you want him to see tomorrow morning, you’re going to do exactly what I say.”
***
