Chapter 4 - The Ledger of Blood
Julian’s breath hitched in his throat, his eyes bulging behind his gold-rimmed spectacles as Dominic’s grip tightened around his necktie, choking off his airway. The paper documents slipped from Julian's fingers, fluttering uselessly onto the silk sheets, while the expensive gold pen clattered to the hardwood floor.
"D-Dominic..." Julian choked out, his hands clawing uselessly at Dominic’s knuckles. "What... what are you doing?"
"I’m asking myself a question, cousin," Dominic said, his voice chillingly smooth as he pulled Julian lower until their foreheads were almost touching. "I’m asking myself how a man who spent ten years keeping ledgers suddenly found the courage to buy synthetic aconite."
Julian’s face went pale—a stark, ghostly white that rivaled Dominic’s blood-loss pallor. "I... I don't know what you're talking about!"
Raphael stepped forward, the heavy suppressor on his SIG Sauer pressing directly against the base of Julian’s skull. The metallic clack of the hammer being cocked echoed through the quiet room like a thunderclap.
"Don't lie to him, Julian," Raphael advised coldly. "It makes the death take much longer."
Behind the curtain, Lucy pressed her hands over her mouth, her heart pounding violently against her ribs. She was watching a execution setup in real-time, terrified that any slight rustle of the heavy fabric would draw their lethal focus toward her.
"Dr. Ferraro found the residue in my water," Dominic whispered, his grip flexing just enough to allow Julian a tiny gasp of air. "The water you had access to when you stopped by my pantry at eight-thirty this morning under the pretext of leaving shipping manifests."
"It wasn't me!" Julian gasped, tear ducts welling up from the suffocating pressure on his windpipe. "I swear to God, Dominic! I didn't put anything in the water!"
"You were the only one who entered the third-floor corridor without a guard escort," Raphael countered sternly. "Security logs don't lie."
"I went to the study!" Julian wept, his pathetic facade completely crumbling under the threat of imminent death. "I went straight to the desk! I never went into the pantry!"
"Then who did?" Dominic demanded, his dark eyes narrowing into razor-sharp slits. "Who paid you to bring those transfer papers here tonight? You knew I was supposed to be dead by midnight. Who gave you the timeline, Julian?"
Julian's lip trembled, spit flying from his mouth as he fought for breath. "Falcone! Don Falcone offered me thirty percent of the eastern port revenues if I ensured the transition happened smoothly tonight! He said... he said the job was already being taken care of inside the house! He just needed me to bring the documents so we could secure the legal fronts before Raphael could lock down the assets!"
Dominic's eyes flickered toward Raphael. The underboss returned the look, his expression darkening with realization.
"Falcone didn't use Julian to poison you," Raphael murmured, leaning in. "Julian was just the clean-up crew. The poisoner is someone else. Someone who lives in this house."
Dominic released his grip on Julian's tie. The cousin collapsed onto the edge of the bed, coughing violently and clutching his bruised throat, gasping for air like a drowning man.
"Who else knew about the aconite?" Dominic asked Ferraro without looking back.
"No one," Ferraro stammered, pulling at his collar. "It's an extremely rare compound. It has to be refined in a high-end chemical laboratory. It’s expensive, untraceable without specific mass spectrometry, and almost impossible to acquire on the black market without high-level clearance."
"High-level clearance," Dominic repeated softly. He turned his head slowly toward the balcony curtain. "Lucy. Step out."
Lucy froze behind the drape. For a second, she considered staying completely still, hoping he had misspoken.
"Lucy," Dominic repeated, louder this time. "I know you're back there. Come here."
Swallowing down her terror, Lucy pushed aside the heavy velvet curtain and stepped out into the light. Her knees felt like jelly, but she forced herself to walk across the polished floorboards until she stood near the edge of the bed, carefully avoiding the gasping form of Julian on the floor.
Julian gasped, looking up through his smudged spectacles at the young maid in her crisp black-and-white uniform. "Who... who is she?"
"She’s the reason I’m still breathing," Dominic said coldly. He kept his eyes on Lucy. "Lucy, think back to this morning. You said you took the tray from the hallway pantry. Was anyone else in that corridor when you arrived?"
Lucy racked her brain, searching through her memories of the early morning routine. "I... I came up the service stairs at eight-fifteen," she began, her voice quivering slightly before stabilizing. "The pantry door was unlocked, which was strange because it's usually code-locked by the head of domestic staff."
"Mrs. Gable," Raphael muttered.
"No, wait," Lucy said quickly, shaking her head. "Mrs. Gable was downstairs in the main kitchen arguing with the butcher. I saw her when I picked up the fresh linen basket at eight o'clock. But when I went past the pantry, I saw someone coming out of the linen closet right next to it."
"Who?" Dominic demanded, leaning forward, his dark eyes burning into hers.
"It was Paulie," Lucy said softly. "The guard at the door."
A dead silence fell over the bedroom.
Raphael’s face transformed into an mask of absolute fury. Paulie had been with the Moretti security detail for six years. He knew the shifts, he knew the entry codes, and he had direct access to the third floor.
"Paulie," Raphael growled, raising his suppressed pistol. "He's standing right outside that door right now."
"Wait," Dominic commanded, holding up a pale hand. "If Paulie is working for Falcone, he’s waiting for a signal from Julian. If Raphael goes out there with a gun drawn, Paulie will trigger an alarm or shoot his way out. He knows the house layout as well as we do."
"Then what do we do?" Raphael asked, his knuckles white on his grip. "We can't leave a traitor standing outside your bedroom door."
Dominic looked at Lucy. His dark, intense eyes held a terrifying calculation, but behind it, Lucy saw something else—a silent, unspoken desperate plea for her help.
"Lucy," Dominic said softly. "Are you brave?"
Lucy swallowed hard, looking from the lethal gun in Raphael's hand, to the weeping traitor Julian on the bed, and finally to Dominic Moretti—the wounded monster who was depending on a seventeen-day maid to survive the night.
"I'm terrified," Lucy admitted honestly. "Does that count?"
A faint, genuine shadow of a smile touched Dominic's lips. "Close enough. Here's what you're going to do."
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Dominic motioned her closer, whispering a plan so insane, so breathtakingly dangerous, that Lucy felt her breath catch in her chest.
Outside the heavy oak doors, the man who had traded his boss's life for Falcone's gold was waiting for the sign that Dominic Moretti was dead. And Lucy was about to hand him the trap.
