Chapter 6 - The Poison in the Well
The private room on the fourth floor of Mercy Hospital looked more like a luxury hotel suite than a medical ward. The windows looked out over the city skyline, where the distant fireworks were celebrating the arrival of the new year. It was 12:30 a.m.
I lay beneath three layers of heated blankets, a clear plastic oxygen mask over my nose and mouth. The warmth had finally reached my toes, but my mind was still spinning with the realization of what had happened in that alley.
The door opened quietly, and Dominic walked in. He had changed into a clean dark suit brought by one of his drivers, but he still looked like a man who hadn't slept in a week. He sat down on the leather chair beside my bed, his long legs crossed, his eyes fixed on my face.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Like I was run over by a snowplow, sir,” I said, trying to lift my hand to adjust the mask.
He reached out, his fingers gently catching my wrist and lowering my hand back to the sheet. “Leave it on. The doctors say your oxygen levels are still low.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes, the only sound the steady hum of the oxygen machine. I had never been alone with him like this—without a desk between us, without a phone ringing, without a stack of letters waiting for his signature.
“Mr. Moretti,” I said softly, using his formal name despite the circumstances. “Why were you downstairs? Marco said you were with the governor.”
Dominic looked out the window at the distant fireworks. “Marco told me you were still working. I went down to tell you to go home. I found your gloves on the shelf, Emma. You never leave your things behind. You’re too meticulous.”
He looked back at me, his eyes dark and unreadable. “When I looked at the security footage, I saw the door click shut behind you. But I also saw something else. Ten minutes before you walked out, a man in a maintenance uniform changed the code on the digital lock from the inside. He set it to a lockout mode. Once you stepped into the alley, that door was never going to open again.”
A cold shiver went down my spine that had nothing to do with the winter weather. “Someone... someone locked me out on purpose?”
“Yes,” Dominic said, his hand tightening around the armrest of the chair until the leather groaned. “They knew the delivery trucks would block the north exit of the alley. They knew the wind would prevent you from shouting for help. They wanted you to sit in that snow until the cold did what a bullet couldn't do without leaving a trace.”
“But why?” I asked, my voice trembling. “I’m just your secretary, sir. I don't have any money. I don't have any power.”
“You have my schedule, Emma,” Dominic said, leaning forward, his face close enough that I could see the small silver flecks in his dark eyes. “You know every man who enters my office through the private elevator. You know the plate numbers of the trucks that arrive at the docks at three in the morning. You know where the foundations of the new hotels are laid, and which city inspectors were paid to overlook the concrete thickness.”
He reached out, his thumb lightly brushing a stray strand of hair away from my forehead. The gesture was surprisingly gentle, almost tender, but his words were pure iron.
“They weren't trying to kill a secretary, Emma. They were trying to blind the king.”
The door opened suddenly, and Marco DeLuca stepped inside, his face pale and sweating despite the cool air of the room. He looked at Dominic, then at me, his eyes wide with a frantic, desperate energy.
“Dominic,” Marco whispered, his voice cracking. “We found the maintenance man. The one who changed the lock code.”
Dominic stood up slowly, his entire frame radiating a sudden, terrifying menace. “Where is he, Marco?”
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“He’s in the basement of the tower, boss,” Marco said, swallowing hard. “But you need to come right now. He didn't do it for the North Side crews. He didn't do it for the Colombians.”
Marco looked at me, his lips trembling. “He did it because someone inside the family told him that if the secretary died, the boss would lose his mind and make a mistake. And that person... that person is someone who sat at your table tonight, Dominic.”
