Chapter 5 - Poison and Proof
Three weeks passed in a blur of mounting tension.
Under Mara’s strict medical regime, Vittorio’s physical strength recovered at an astonishing rate. His wound healed cleanly, his heart rhythm normalized as the digitalis washed out of his system, and the color returned to his handsome, hard-edged face.
But as Vittorio grew stronger, the shadows around the Bellandi empire grew darker.
Dr. Edmund Crane had vanished completely from the city. The Valenti crime syndicate was launching coordinated attacks on Bellandi shipping docks. Someone inside the high council was leaking intelligence—route maps, armory locations, and security codes.
Late one evening, rain hammered against the floor-to-ceiling windows of the estate library.
Mara sat at a heavy mahogany desk, reviewing medical literature on long-term digitalis toxicity recovery. Baron lay sprawled across her feet, his heavy head resting comfortably on her slippers.
The soft click of a door lock made her look up.
Vittorio walked into the library. He was dressed in a tailored black suit shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled up to reveal dark, intricate tattoos that stretched from his wrists to his shoulders. He carried two crystal glasses and a bottle of vintage bourbon.
“You should be resting,” Mara said, setting her pen down. “Your 21-day liver panel is tomorrow.”
“My liver is fine, Mara,” Vittorio said, stepping over to the desk and placing a glass of neat bourbon in front of her. “And you’ve been working twenty-hour shifts for a month. Drink.”
Mara smiled slightly, taking a small sip of the amber liquid. The warmth bloomed in her chest. “You’re a terrible patient, you know that?”
“And you’re a terrible nurse,” Vittorio countered softly, leaning against the edge of her desk, his massive frame towering over her in the soft amber light of the lamp. “Nurses aren't supposed to risk their lives for men like me.”
“Men like you?” Mara looked up into his dark eyes. “What kind of man are you, Vittorio?”
Vittorio reached out, his long fingers gently catching a stray strand of dark hair that had fallen near her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. His touch was feather-light, completely at odds with the violent world he commanded.
“I am a man who was raised in war,” Vittorio murmured, his voice dropping into a deep, intimate register that made Mara’s pulse race. “I was taught that everyone can be bought, everyone can be broken, and loyalty is just a currency people use until the price gets high enough.”
He tilted her jaw up with the tip of his finger.
“And then a nurse walked into a room full of guns and blood, took off her watch, and calmed my war dog with her bare hands.”
Mara felt her breath catch in her throat. The library fell completely silent except for the rain tapping against the glass and the roaring fire in the hearth.
“I didn't do it to be a hero, Vittorio,” Mara whispered, her hazel eyes searching his. “I saw a man who was dying because everyone around him was too scared or too corrupt to see the truth.”
Vittorio leaned down, his face inches from hers. The scent of dark wood, tobacco, and clean rain surrounded her. “And what do you see now, Mara?”
Before she could answer, the glass wall of the library suddenly erupted into a rain of shattered bulletproof crystal!
CRASH!
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Heavy automatic fire tore through the room, splintering the mahogany bookcases and shattering the marble lamps!
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Vittorio didn't hesitate for a single microsecond. He grabbed Mara by the waist, flipping her whole body beneath him as he tackled her behind the massive, solid-oak desk just as a heavy line of bullets stitched across the leather chair where she had been sitting a moment before!
Baron let out a furious, deafening roar, throwing his heavy body in front of Mara and Vittorio, his hackles raised as muzzle flashes illuminated the dark courtyard outside!
