Chapter 5 - The Last Prescription
At 1:30 AM, the storm outside reached a crescendo, thunder shaking the very foundations of the Duca estate.
Dr. Victor Hale stepped through the front entrance, carrying his black leather medical case. He was wet from the rain, his grey hair slightly disheveled, but he wore his usual expression of grave, professional concern.
"Where is he, Luca?" Victor asked, wiping his wet shoes on the entry mat. "Your text said he was in severe pain. Did he take a fall?"
"He’s in the study, Doctor," Luca said softly, his voice devoid of any emotion. "Waiting for you."
Victor nodded, picking up his case, and walked up the grand staircase to the second floor. He walked down the quiet hallway, opened the heavy mahogany door to my private study, and stepped inside.
The room was softly lit by the flickering orange flames of the fireplace.
I sat in my heavy leather chair behind the desk. My hands were folded neatly in front of me.
Victor smiled warmly, walking toward the desk with his usual gentle, authoritative bedside manner.
"Julius, my boy," Victor said, his lips moving smoothly as he set his leather case on the desk. "Luca said you were having pain in the left ear. Let me take a look. It might be an infection related to the peptide drops."
He reached into his case, pulled out his otoscope and the familiar amber bottle of liquid, and stepped around the side of the desk.
"Sit still for me," Victor said, leaning down with the small light.
I didn't move.
I looked up at his face—the face of the man who had been my father’s friend, the man who had sat by my bedside when I was twenty-two, the man who had poured poison into my ears every Friday morning for three long years.
"How much did he pay you, Victor?" I asked.
The words were spoken softly, clearly, and directly into his face.
Victor froze.
The otoscope in his right hand stopped an inch from my ear. His mouth opened slightly, his eyes widening in a look of absolute, paralyzing terror that transcended anything I had ever seen on a human face.
He backed away slowly, dropping the otoscope onto the rug.
"You..." Victor breathed, his voice barely a squeak. "You... you can hear me?"
"I hear everything, Victor," I said, standing up slowly. "I hear the rain outside. I hear the crackle of the fire. I hear the frantic, terrified beating of your lying heart."
Victor backed away until his spine hit the locked door of the study. His face was ash-white, his hands trembling so violently he couldn't keep them still.
"Julius... please..." Victor begged, his professional dignity vanishing instantly. "They made me do it! Marco Moretti... he threatened my daughter! He said he would kill her if I didn't keep you incapacitated!"
"You took fifty thousand dollars a month, Victor," I said, walking slowly around the desk toward him. "I read your ledger. You bought a yacht in Miami six months ago. Was that for your daughter's protection?"
Victor slid down the wall, sinking to his knees on the floor, weeping hysterically.
"I saved your life after the explosion!" Victor sobbed, clutching at his chest. "I stopped the bleeding! I saved you!"
"You didn't save me," I growled, stopping two feet from him. "You kept me in a cage. You let my brother’s killers rule my father’s city while I sat in the dark."
I reached down, grabbed the black leather medical case from the desk, and popped the brass latches open.
Inside, resting in a velvet-lined slot, were four unused amber bottles of Ototoxin-B.
I picked up one of the bottles, unsealed the dropper cap, and held it out toward Victor.
"Drink it," I said.
Victor stared at the bottle, his eyes rolling back in terror. "No! No! Please, Julius! It’s a concentrated neurotoxin! If I swallow it, it will paralyze my respiratory system! It will kill me!"
"You have ten seconds to drink it, Victor," I said, my voice dead of all mercy. "Or I hand you over to Joseph and Paulie in the basement. And I assure you... they won't use drops."
Victor looked at my face. He looked into my cold, grey eyes and saw that there was no mercy left in me—only three years of unadulterated, score-settling justice.
With shaking, weeping hands, Victor took the amber bottle from my fingers.
He raised it to his lips, closed his eyes, and swallowed the clear liquid in one long, desperate gulp.
Five seconds later, his body slumped sideways onto the floor, his breathing slowing into a heavy, mechanical struggle as the toxin locked his nerves into silent paralysis.
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I stood over him for a long moment, watching his chest rise and fall, before walking to the door, opening it, and looking at Luca standing in the hallway.
"Clean up the room," I commanded. "And tell the captains to gear up. We ride for Marco Moretti's estate in Brooklyn at dawn."
