Chapter 2 - Shadows in the Marble Halls
The silence that followed Dominic's command was heavier than the mahogany doors locking us inside the master suite.
Raphael holstered his weapon, his face carved from stone. He stepped closer to the bed, casting a sharp, analytical glance between Dr. Ferraro and me.
“Are you certain, Doctor?” Raphael asked, his voice dropping an octave.
Dr. Ferraro adjusted his glasses, his hands visibly shaking as he took the glass from my fingers. He pulled a small testing kit from his leather case, dipped a chemical strip into the water, and watched as the paper instantly turned a toxic, fluorescent purple.
“Aconite,” the doctor whispered, horror plain in his eyes. “Wolfsbane. Highly concentrated. It attacks the nervous system, mimics severe trauma shock, and eventually paralyzes the respiratory muscles. If he had finished that pitcher, Mr. Moretti would have been dead within the hour.”
Dominic didn't flinch. He didn't curse or shout. He simply leaned his head back against the pillows, his dark gaze fixed on the ornate plaster ceiling. But the muscle ticking in his jaw told a different story. Betrayal is a bitter pill for a king, especially when it's handed to him by someone he trusted enough to let close.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I was just a maid—an ordinary girl from the south side of the city who took this job because the pay was triple what any hotel offered, enough to keep my younger brother's college tuition paid. I wasn't supposed to be standing in the middle of a mafia assassination plot.
“Lucy,” Dominic said softly, his eyes snapping back to mine.
I swallowed hard, forcing my voice to remain steady. “Yes, Mr. Moretti?”
“Who brought the tray up this morning?”
“I did,” I answered immediately, desperate to cower. “At seven sharp. But I left it on the outer landing table because you were asleep and Raphael told me not to disturb you until eight.”
Raphael nodded grimly. “I remember. I was downstairs talking to the security detail about the perimeter breach from Tuesday.”
“So the tray sat unattended on the landing for an hour,” Dominic concluded, his voice chillingly smooth. “An hour in a house where every corridor is supposedly monitored by twenty-four-hour surveillance.”
“The east wing blind spot,” Raphael cursed under his breath, slamming his fist against the doorframe. “The camera feed stutters near the old portrait gallery. Someone knew.”
Dominic turned his gaze back to me, studying me with an intensity that felt like a physical weight. For seventeen days, I had brought him his morning coffee, changed his linens, and cleaned up after his chaotic, violent life without ever asking questions. Most employees treated him like a ticking bomb. I treated him like an employer who happened to have a bad attitude.
“You noticed the residue,” Dominic noted, his dark eyes boring into mine. “Why didn't you dump it out? Why look closer?”
“Because I clean crystal for a living, Mr. Moretti,” I snap back, a flash of stubborn pride overriding my terror. “I know what clear water looks like. That looked like chalk dust dissolved in vinegar. And unlike everyone else in this mausoleum, I actually care whether the man whose sheets I'm washing wakes up tomorrow morning.”
Silence stretched across the room again. Dr. Ferraro looked like he was about to faint. Raphael stared at me as if I had just spoken a foreign language—nobody talked back to Dominic Moretti, let alone lectured him about living.
A slow, grim curve touched the corner of Dominic's mouth. It wasn't a warm smile, but it was real.
“Brave words for a girl whose hands are shaking harder than mine,” he murmured.
“My hands are shaking because I'm standing in a room with a poisoned mob boss and a killer loose in the halls,” I shot back, though I tucked my trembling fingers behind my back.
Dominic shifted against the pillows, wincing slightly as his shoulders protested the movement. He looked at Raphael. “Lock down the estate. Nobody leaves. No cars out the gates, no deliveries, no staff movement. Check every single camera log for the last twelve hours. Find out who walked down that east wing corridor.”
“On it,” Raphael said, turning sharply toward the door.
“And Raphael?” Dominic added, his voice dropping into a lethal register. “Do it quietly. I want to know which rat is chewing through my walls before I skin them.”
Raphael disappeared into the hallway, pulling the heavy oak door shut behind him with a dull thud.
Dr. Ferraro quickly administered an emergency antidote injection into Dominic's arm to counteract the poison already in his system, packing his bags in record time before escaping the room like a man fleeing a sinking ship.
Suddenly, it was just the two of us again.
The sprawling master bedroom feels suffocatingly quiet. Outside, the rain lashed harder against the massive glass windows, turning the sprawling Moretti estate into a fortress cut off from the rest of Chicago.
Dominic closed his eyes for a moment, his breathing slow and heavy. The adrenaline was wearing off, leaving behind the stark reality of blood loss and chemical poisoning.
“You should go downstairs, Lucy,” he said quietly without opening his eyes. “It's not safe here.”
“And go where?” I asked, standing my ground beside the bed. “Every door is locked, and the killer is still under this roof. Besides, you look like you're about to pass out again, and I'd rather not come back tomorrow to find out my boss died because he was too stubborn to ask for a glass of clean water.”
Dominic slowly opened one dark eye, looking at me with a mixture of exasperation and profound intrigue.
“You really have a death wish, don't you?”
“No,” I said, stepping closer and reaching for the contaminated water pitcher to remove it from the room. “I just have a habit of finishing what I started. And seventeen days ago, I was hired to keep this suite clean. That includes taking out the trash.”
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As my fingers brushed against him on the bedside table, a spark of something undeniable crackled in the air between us—dangerous, electric, and completely impossible to ignore.
The war for the Moretti empire had just come to our doorstep, and neither of us had any idea how deep the treason went.
