Chapter 1 - The Invisible Poison
Dr. Bianchi pulled Alessandro further down the narrow hallway, his expression grave.
"Alessandro," Dr. Bianchi whispered, his voice dropping to a barely audible murmur. "The symptoms she's displaying—extreme fatigue, high fever, localized organ stress—aren't consistent with a standard bacterial infection or flu. I've seen this twice before in my forty years of practice."
Alessandro’s eyes narrowed into dark ice. "Speak clearly, Nathan."
"It resembles low-dose thallium poisoning," Dr. Bianchi revealed. "It’s an odorless, tasteless chemical agent. Administered in small, daily amounts, it mimics a slow, natural decline. If she had continued receiving it for another forty-eight hours, her heart would have stopped, and any coroner without a specialized toxicology screen would have ruled it acute heart failure."
The air in the narrow hallway felt suddenly freezing.
Someone inside the Moretti estate was systematically murdering a quiet, harmless housekeeper.
"Who feeds her?" Alessandro asked, his voice a low, lethal growl.
"She eats from the main staff kitchen," Dr. Bianchi replied. "If the food were poisoned, others would be sick. Whatever she is consuming is being delivered directly to her."
Alessandro turned and walked back into Sophia's small room. Emma was still sound asleep on the foot of the bed. Sophia looked up at him, her eyes glassy with fever.
"Sophia," Alessandro said gently, kneeling beside her bed. "What have you been drinking or eating over the last three days that didn't come from the kitchen?"
Sophia swallowed hard, her voice raspy. "Nothing... except... the herbal tea Mr. Cassian sends every morning."
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Alessandro froze.
Cassian Vane was his right-hand man, his chief financial advisor, and the person he had trusted with his life for fifteen years.
