Chapter 3 - Poison in the Blood
The next ten minutes were unbearable. The silence in the room was broken only by the rhythmic clicking of Marco’s testing equipment and Serena’s heavy, erratic breathing.
Marco applied a chemical reagent to a drop of the wine taken from my glass. The clear liquid inside the test tube instantly turned a dark, murky violet—almost black.
"Lead acetate and thallium, Boss," Marco whispered, his face darkening with rage as he looked up at Serena. "Heavy metal poisoning. Odorless, tasteless. It damages the auditory nerves first, causing gradual hearing loss, dizziness, and memory fog before shutting down the nervous system entirely."
My breath hitched. The four months of ringing in my ears. The missed alarms. The muffled voices.
It wasn't stress. It wasn't early aging.
My fiancée had been systematically poisoning me in my own home.
"You..." I stepped toward Serena, my voice a dangerous growl.
Serena backed away until her spine hit the mahogany bookshelf. The sweet, loving woman I had courted for three years was gone. In her place was a trapped predator, her eyes wild with desperate fury.
"Why?" I asked, my fists clenching so hard my knuckles cracked. "Why, Serena? Our families were merging! You were going to have everything!"
"Everything?!" Serena suddenly shrieked, letting out a bitter, psychotic laugh. "I was going to be your trophy! Your quiet little mafia wife sitting in this mausoleum while you ran the city! My father is dying, Lorenzo! The Romano family is broke! You were going to absorb our territory and leave my brothers with nothing!"
She straightened her shoulders, a cold, venomous sneer cutting across her face. "If you died of an 'unfortunate medical condition' after our marriage, I would have inherited the Duca estate and the entire shipping network. I wasn't going to let you destroy my family."
"You poisoned my mind," I whispered. "You kissed me every night while feeding me death."
May you like
Before I could reach her, the double doors of the study were kicked open.
Three armed men in black suits—Romano soldiers who had entered under the guise of engagement guests—burst into the room, their weapons raised directly at my chest.
