The wind howled against the reinforced glass of my bedroom,

The clock struck two. Twenty minutes until the systemic shutdown.

Dr. Harris and the nursing staff retreated to the adjoining observation room, leaving only Vanessa standing by the window, watching the rain lash against the glass. The storm had reached a deafening crescendo, rattling the windowpanes like a battering ram.

"You should try to sleep, Dante," Vanessa said without turning around. Her silhouette looked sharp against the lightning flashes outside. "The wedding preparations are nearly complete. Once we're married, everything you've built will be consolidated under my name, just as we planned."

Just as we planned.

The words echoed in my head, stripped of any romantic illusion. I had known Vanessa was a vulture for years. In the underworld, you learn to spot opportunists. I had chosen her because she was cold, ambitious, and utterly ruthless—qualities I thought I respected. I never thought she would turn those qualities inward, against me.

"Vanessa," I rasped, my throat feeling like sandpaper.

"Yes, darling?" She turned, stepping back into the dim glow of the bedside lamp.

"The safe behind the library portrait. Did the lawyers finish the final draft of the inheritance transfer?"

Her eyes flickered—a micro-expression of greed so fast most men would have missed it. But I had spent forty years reading the micro-expressions of men before they pulled the trigger.

"Not quite," she lied smoothly, walking over to smooth the blanket over my chest. Her hands lingered near my throat, just an inch too close to the oxygen tube. "There are a few legal technicalities to iron out. But don't you worry about business. Focus on your health."

"My health," I repeated, a humorless smile touching my lips. "Dr. Harris told me my organs are failing, Vanessa. He said I have less than a week. Odd, isn't it? For thirty years, nobody could touch me. Bullets missed. Poison was vomited out. Betrayers were buried. And now, a quiet rot takes me from the inside out."

"It's just nature, Dante," she whispered, leaning down so her face was inches from mine. Her perfume—expensive jasmine and musk—suddenly smelled sickeningly sweet, like flowers laid over a fresh grave. "Everyone's time comes."

"True," I whispered back, locking my eyes onto hers. "But some people's time comes a little faster when they ingest the wrong medicine."

Vanessa froze. Her breath hitched. For a fraction of a second, the mask slipped, revealing the terrified, cornered animal underneath.

"What... what are you talking about?" she stammered, her voice losing its expensive melody.

"The IV drip, Vanessa," I said, my voice dropping into the heavy, authoritative baritone that had once made capos weep. "It doesn't taste like saline. It tastes like nightshade. My grandfather used to use it on horses that had broken their legs. Clean. Silent. Undetectable until the autopsy."

Before she could answer, the bedroom door clicked open.

It wasn't Dr. Harris. It was Elena, holding a fresh pitcher of ice water. She stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes darting from Vanessa’s panicked face to my rigid expression.

Vanessa spun around, her composure instantly snapping back into place like a steel trap. "Get out, Elena! Who gave you permission to enter without knocking?"

"I... I brought the water you asked for, madam," Elena whispered, her hands trembling as she clutched the silver tray.