Chapter 2 - The Portrait of a Slow Death
Forty minutes later, Eleanor entered her son’s private office without knocking.
Dominic sat behind an enormous mahogany desk carved with the Moretti family crest, overlooking the snow-covered expanse of the Westchester estate. At thirty-eight years old, he should have looked like a man in his absolute prime, commanding the most powerful maritime syndicate on the Eastern Seaboard.
Instead, his expensive white dress shirt hung loosely around his hollow shoulders, the fabric swallowing collarbones that had grown sharp over the past eighteen months.
He had lost nearly thirty pounds. His skin had taken on a pale, translucent gray tint. Deep, dark shadows bruised the skin beneath his eyes, and his hands rested flat on the wood, trembling with a fine, uncontrollable tremor.
When Eleanor entered, he slowly closed a leather-bound financial folder, his movements sluggish and heavy.
“You hired her,” Dominic said, his voice raspy, lacking the deep, commanding baritone that once made harbor commissioners and rival capos lower their voices.
“Yes,” Eleanor replied, closing the heavy study door behind her.
“You put that woman in my household without asking me.”
“Yes.”
“She threatened me in the entrance hall.”
Dominic looked up, meeting his mother’s furious gaze with an expression of profound, weary resignation.
“That sounds like Avery.”
Eleanor’s nostrils flared, her composure cracking for a fraction of a second. “this is not amusing, Dominic.”
“I’m not laughing, Mother.”
She approached the desk, planting her manicured hands on the polished wood, leaning forward.
“For twelve years, ever since your father drew his last breath in this very room, I have kept this family together,” Eleanor hissed, her voice vibrating with righteous intensity. “After he died, I kept the docks running. I kept our capos loyal. I kept federal investigators and rival families outside these gates.”
“I know,” Dominic whispered, pressing his eyes shut for a moment.
“And now you bring an insolent stranger into my home—a woman who dares to put her hands on me and whisper treasonous accusations.”
Dominic pushed his chair back and stood up. For one second, his palm pressed hard against the heavy desk for support, his knees visibly buckling under his own weight before he managed to lock them.
Eleanor saw it. She had been seeing things like that for months, though she refused to speak its name aloud.
“For twelve years,” Dominic said, his voice dropping into a painful whisper, “you have poured my morning tea, Mother. Exactly at six-fifteen. Every single day.”
Eleanor’s breath caught. “What are you implying?”
“I’m not implying anything,” Dominic said, walking slowly toward the tall window, staring out at the white snow. “I’m simply stating a fact. My father sat in this exact chair twelve years ago. He lost thirty pounds in six months. His hands shook. His kidneys failed one by one, and the toxicology reports during his final week came back completely clean. The doctors called it a rare neurological degeneration.”
He turned back to face her, his gray eyes shining with unshed tears.
“And now, I am experiencing the exact same degeneration. The same weakness. The same phantom poison burning through my veins. And Avery Quinn is the only toxicologist in the country who figured out why.”
Eleanor’s face went bone-white. She stepped back, her black dress rustling against the Persian rug.
May you like
“That girl is a lunatic,” Eleanor said, though her voice lacked its earlier iron certainty. “She is manipulating you.”
“We shall see,” Dominic said, turning back to the window. “Because starting today, Avery is testing everything that enters this room.”
