Chapter 2 - The Setup
“Lily!”
Elena burst through the library doors, her face streaming with tears, her hair disheveled from a struggle. When she saw her six-year-old daughter kneeling beside the fallen syndicate boss, holding out her own medical inhaler, Elena froze in horror.
“Mother!” Lily cried out, scrambling to her feet and running into Elena’s outstretched arms. Elena scooped her up, clutching her so tightly it knocked the wind out of the little girl.
“What are you doing? I told you to stay—” Elena sobbed, burying her face in Lily’s neck before looking up with wide, terrified eyes.
Don Dante Moretti was sitting up now, leaning his back against the mahogany desk. He was breathing heavily, his color returning, his dark eyes sharp and piercing as they swept over the mother and child.
Before Dante could speak, the library doors flew open again with a deafening crash.
A group of armed guards rushed into the room, led by none other than Marco Moretti—Dante’s ambitious nephew and second-in-command—flanked by the estate’s head housekeeper, Mrs. Gable.
Marco stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes darting from his uncle sitting alive on the floor to the empty silver inhaler rolling near the desk, and finally to Elena holding the red canister.
A flicker of genuine shock—and something much darker—crossed Marco’s face before he quickly masked it with a mask of theatrical outrage.
“Uncle Dante!” Marco shouted, rushing forward to play the dutiful heir. He dropped to one knee, looking frantically at the broken glass. “My god! What happened here? Security, secure the room!”
Two large guards stepped forward, blocking the doorway.
Dante Moretti raised a single, commanding hand. He didn't look at his nephew. His piercing gaze remained locked on Elena, whose entire body was shaking as she shielded Lily behind her skirt.
“Uncle, look at the floor,” Marco pressed urgently, standing up and pointing an accusing finger directly at Elena. “That’s her cleaning cart outside. That’s her daughter. They found him dying, and look—she’s holding a foreign device! She poisoned him!”
“I didn't poison anyone!” Elena cried out, her voice cracking with despair. “I was down in the laundry room, someone locked the door from the outside! I came up the second I heard the crash!”
“Liar!” Mrs. Gable shrieked, stepping forward with a triumphant sneer. “I saw her acting suspicious all morning! She asked too many questions about the master’s evening routine. And look at the silver inhaler—that’s his prescription medication! She tampered with it!”
Marco stepped in, playing the role of the righteous protector. “Uncle, you see how these bottom-feeders repay our generosity? She wanted you dead so she could rob the safe while the estate was in mourning. We need to call the enforcers. Take them down to the basement holding cells right now.”
The guards took a threatening step forward, their hands dropping toward the holsters at their belts.
Elena pulled Lily closer, tears streaming down her face. She knew how the Moretti family operated. In their world, justice was a bullet in the dark, and a poor cleaning woman from the slums had zero rights against the word of the family heir.
“Wait,” a deep, gravelly voice echoed through the silent library.
Everyone froze.
Don Dante Moretti slowly pushed himself up from the floor, refusing his nephew’s offered hand. He stood tall, towering over Marco, his dark eyes cold and unyielding. He looked down at the silver inhaler on the floor, then at the bitter residue around its nozzle, and finally down at six-year-old Lily, who was staring back at him with big, brave eyes.
Dante remembered the burn of the poison in his throat. He remembered the feeling of his windpipe closing up. And he remembered the small, warm hand that had pressed a red plastic rescue inhaler to his lips, saving his life when everyone else in the room seemed eager to watch him die.
“Help me to my chair, Marco,” Dante said smoothly, his voice carrying an icy authority that made his nephew swallow hard.
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“Uncle, shouldn't we interrogate the maid first?” Marco asked, panic flickering behind his eyes.
“I said,” Dante repeated, his voice dropping an octave into a lethal whisper, “help me to my chair.”
