Chapter 5 - The Warning at the Tea Table
"Mommy!" Mia cried, bursting through the double glass doors of the conservatory, her pink sneakers skidding across the Persian rug.
I immediately knelt, catching her in my arms. "Mia, sweetheart, what happened? What did you see?"
Alessandro stepped forward from the fireplace, his towering frame casting a protective shadow over both of us. "Tell us, Mia. What did you see in the garden?"
Mia pointed her small finger toward the hallway leading to the private kitchens.
"The man with the gold watch gave Miss Bianca a little brown bottle," Mia whispered, her voice shaking with innocent terror. "He said it was poison for Mr. Alessandro’s coffee. He said if you don't sign the paper tonight, the medicine will make your heart stop."
The air in the conservatory dropped below zero.
Rosa Moretti rose to her feet, her weathered face hardening into an expression of unyielding, imperial fury.
"Arthur," Alessandro commanded, his voice a low, subterranean vibration that rattled the crystal pendants on the chandelier.
"I am here, Alessandro," Arthur Ross answered, stepping forward with his encrypted tablet.
"Pull the internal surveillance feed from the south kitchen pantry recorded five minutes ago," Alessandro ordered.
Arthur tapped his stylus.
The wall-mounted monitor illuminated with high-definition 4K footage:
Bianca Moretti stood inside the private butler’s pantry, trembling violently, holding the amber dropper vial over a porcelain espresso cup resting on a silver tray prepared for Alessandro’s study.
She squeezed two drops of the clear, viscous liquid into the dark coffee, set the vial into her leather handbag, and wiped her eyes with a linen napkin before walking toward the master library.
"The compound is Synthetic Digoxin-4," Arthur Ross reported, his voice devoid of all warmth. "An odorless, tasteless cardiac glycoside engineered to trigger sudden, fatal ventricular fibrillation within eight minutes of ingestion. It mimics acute myocardial infarction in high-stress executives."
Alessandro reached into his jacket, checking the chamber of his customized Kimber .45 with a sharp, mechanical clack.
"Arthur," Alessandro said softly.
May you like
"Yes, Don Alessandro?"
"Assemble our tactical assault teams in the master library. Call Detective Marcus Thorne of the State Police Major Crimes Division and Lead Special Agent Sarah Lin of the FBI. And tell Bianca her brother is waiting for his coffee."
