Chapter 2 - The Silent Alliance
I ran to the attached master bathroom, my mind racing. As a housemaid, I had spent the last two years blending into the background of this mansion, cleaning up the messes of dangerous men. But before I came to work for the Romano family, I had completed three years of nursing school before my father's debts forced me to drop out. I knew what a fever overdose looked like, and I knew how to fight a hyperpyrexia crisis without drugs.
I grabbed every towel I could find and soaked them in ice-cold water from the bath tap. I brought them out, stripping Alexander's silk shirt away, and began wrapping his burning torso and forehead in the freezing cloths. He groaned, a violent shiver wracking his massive, tattooed frame, but I didn't stop.
"I'm sorry," I sobbed quietly, pressing a fresh ice towel to his neck. "I'm so sorry, Alexander, but you have to fight."
For two hours, I worked in complete silence, changing the towels every ten minutes as his body heat literally warmed the ice water. By 4:30 AM, his skin felt cooler. I placed the thermometer against his ear. 101.2.
He was stabilizing. The immediate danger had passed, but the real threat was just beginning.
A soft knock on the terrace window made me jump. I spun around, my hand flying to a heavy brass lamp on the nightstand. Outside the glass, standing in the pouring rain on the second-story balcony, was a figure in a dark hoodie.
I cautiously unlocked the latch, pushing the glass door open. The figure stepped inside, pulling back the hood. It was Leo Romano, Alexander’s twenty-two-year-old younger brother. He was hot-headed, reckless, and next in line to inherit the empire if Alexander died.
"Leo?" I whispered, shocked. "What are you doing out there? Marcus said you were in New York handling the docks."
Leo didn't look at me; he rushed straight to Alexander's side, checking his pulse. He let out a long, ragged breath, sliding his back down the wall until he sat on the floor, burying his face in his hands.
"Marcus lied," Leo whispered, his voice cracking with emotion. "He sent me to New York to set up an ambush. He told me Alexander wanted me to oversee a shipment personally, but when I got there, two hitmen were waiting for me. I barely made it out alive, Nina."
My blood ran cold. "Marcus? Marcus is behind this?"
"He's moving to take over the family," Leo said, looking up at me with terror in his eyes. "The board of commission supports him because they think Alexander is too soft now. Marcus has been poisoning him slowly for weeks, and Dr. Bennett is fabricating the medical reports. If Alexander dies tonight, Marcus steps in as regent because I'm 'missing' or dead. Nina, we have to get him out of here."
"He can't travel, Leo. If we move him now, his heart will fail," I argued, glancing back at Alexander's pale face.
Suddenly, the bedroom door unlocked.
Leo scrambled up, drawing a silenced pistol from his waistband, slipping behind the heavy velvet curtains just as the door swung open.
Marcus Hale walked into the room, followed by Dr. Bennett. Marcus looked at the ice towels scattered on the floor, then at the thermometer in my hand. His eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.
"You haven't given him the medication, Nina," Dr. Bennett said, his voice dropping its polite demeanor completely. "His fever should be gone, or he should be... at peace. Why are these towels here?"
"I... I thought it would help lower his temperature faster," I stammered, backing up until my spine hit the edge of Alexander's bed.
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Marcus stepped closer, his presence looming over me like a shadow of death. He reached out, his gloved hand gripping my jaw, forcing me to look up into his cold, lifeless eyes.
"You're a very sweet girl, Nina," Marcus whispered, his thumb pressing painfully into my cheekbone. "But sweet girls who ask too many questions end up buried in the concrete beneath the Atlantic docks. Where is the bottle?"
