“SignorCa?—”
“Please, call me Giovanni.”
He hesitates, then bobs his head. “Giovanni… We ran an urgent blood workup to check the function of Valentina’s kidneys and found something concerning in her bloodwork.”
My recently cooling temper peaks, but I leave the floor to him, realizing sometimes muscle isn’t needed in cases like this. Strength is.
The doctor’s expression hardens. “She had a high dose of strychnine in her system. In the past, strychnine was administered to treat human illnesses, but today, it’s mainly used as a pesticide to kill rats. Symptoms of strychnine poisoning usually overcome a patient within fifteen to sixty minutes. If you hadn’t gotten her here as fast as you did…”—he exhales slowly like his following words are as hard for him to deliver as they are for me to hear—“she wouldn’t have made it.” He glances toward Valentina’s room as a professional mask slips over his face. “I need to order additional tests. As you saw, strychnine poisoning causes extreme negative health effects, so I need to make sure we didn’t miss anything.”
“Wait.” My commanding tone freezes him halfway into the room. “How was it administered?”
I’ve heard of strychnine before, but only when running a street dealer out of Palermo for mixing it with LSD, heroin, and cocaine to make the hit faster for his customers.
Fasteranddeadlier.
Palermo had a record number of drug-related deaths that year.
The doctor flips through Valentina’s chart before scanning her notes. “It was ingested.”
Ingested?He must be mistaken. “That’s not possible. I ate the same things Valentina did. We shared the same plate, for fuck’s sake, and I feel fine. Am I angry? Yes. Furious? Fucking oath I am. But do I look like a man who was recently poisoned?”
My pulse pounds in my ears as I replay the night in my head. There were some incidents where the itch to kill trekked through my veins, but they were more jealously based than foiling an attempted murder. A handful of the serving staff were too admiring of Valentina’s curves. I took care of the main culprit, and Dante handled the rest.
Suddenly, my jealousy lifts enough for clarity to seep between the cracks. “The cake. She didn’t want to share her cake.” I whip around and lock eyes with Concetta. “Who gave her the cake?”
Her brow furrows. “What?”
“The cake, Concetta!” My roar startles the nurses behind the nurses’ desk, but I don’t have time to apologize. I’m barely holding on by a thread. “Who handed it to her?”
The crowd pressing in closer, curious to see if Concetta’s knife would touch the bottom of the cake plate, obscured my view. I remember that moment with clear precision because the guests cheered when Concetta’s knife scraped the steel, and then she tilted her head so my father could kiss her cheek. It was an innocent, playful gesture. Except it wasn’t because some fucking prick used the distraction to poison my future wife and the mother of my children.
Concetta’s lips tremble when she admits, “It was the woman I asked about earlier. Valeria.”
The name shunts me back three places, and then a memory surfaces in the ripple of my balk. There was a flash of color behind Valentina when I scanned the crowd. I wasn’t staring in admiration. It was in recognition. Valeria’s dress was the exact shade as Valentina’s. It appeared to have been made from the same roll of silk.
Fury roars through me, hot and merciless. Valeria did this. She tried to kill Valentina, and she may have succeeded with our unborn child.
Every negative thought I’ve suppressed over the past three weeks rolls through my head until there’s only one left:
Valeria tried to take Valentina from me, and now she will loseeverything.
I’m already devising the worst death imaginable when Concetta ups the stakes. “My sister… she ate some of Valentina’s cake. That’s why she isn’t here. She said she wasn’t feeling well and that she needed to lie down. Your father offered her the guest room on the main floor.”
“I’ll send someone to check on her.” My promise doesn’t weaken her worry in the slightest. She’s torn, unsure if my family’s quest for revenge ranks higher than her sister’s life. It doesn’t, becauseanything that hurts Valentina hurts me, and my family refuses to make the mistakes of our ancestors.
I feel as conflicted as Concetta when my call to the compound’s landline goes unanswered. I try again, but each attempt achieves the same result.
That’s wrong.
That’s dangerous.
The compound never goes silent… except when we’re at war.
My heart rate spikes until the rapid incline of my pulse pounds in my ears. Bad shit is going down, and I’m miles from the action.
That would have been inconceivable only months ago.
As turmoil rages through my veins, I glance through the small window in the door of Valentina’s room. She’s swamped by a hospital bed and beeping machines because Valeria forced her into a fight she didn’t choose. Leaving her while she looks so vulnerable would feel like ripping my heart out with my bare hands. I can’t do it. I refuse.