Chapter 5: The Poisoned Treaty
Chapter 5: The Poisoned Treaty
Serena woke up in a private hospital wing inside the estate, the steady beep of a cardiac monitor tracking her stabilized heart rhythm. A thin oxygen cannula rested beneath her nose, and an intravenous line was delivering medication to regulate her blood pressure.
She turned her head slowly, finding Vincent sitting in a chair beside her bed. He hadn't changed his clothes. He looked ruined, his head resting in his hands, his broad shoulders hunched forward as if he were waiting for a sentence from a judge.
"You have an atrial septal defect," Vincent said quietly, his voice hollow as he sensed her movement. "The doctors say the tissue around the valve is degrading. You need a highly specialized corrective surgery. It costs half a million dollars, and the waiting list in the public health system is three years long."
"I don't want your money, Vincent," Serena said, her voice weak but laced with an unyielding steel. "I want to leave. As soon as I can walk, I am taking my things and leaving this place."
"If you leave, you will die within a year, Serena," Vincent said, turning to look at her, his dark eyes filled with a desperate, possessive intensity. "I’ve already contacted the chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Johns Hopkins. He is flying into Chicago tomorrow morning on my private jet. The surgery is scheduled for Thursday. You are going to take my money, you are going to take my doctors, and you are going to live. Because I will not let the world take you from me too."
"Why do you care?" she spat out, tears of frustration spilling over her temples. "To clear your conscience? To pay off the debt for my brother’s life?"
"No," Vincent said, rising from his chair and leaning over the bed, his face just inches from hers. "Because I love you, Serena. I loved you the moment you stood in that hospital room and told a room full of monsters that you weren't afraid of death. You are the only clean thing in my life. You are the only reason my son has a future. If I have to spend every dollar I own, if I have to burn this entire city to the ground to keep your heart beating, I will do it."
Before Serena could answer, the mansion’s alarm system began to wail—a shrill, pulsating electronic scream that signaled a perimeter breach.
The lights in the medical wing suddenly flickered and died, replaced by the dim, red glow of the emergency backup generators. A heavy explosion rattled the foundation of the house, followed by the distant, frantic crackle of automatic gunfire from the courtyard below.
Marco burst into the room, his face covered in soot, a bleeding gash tracking down his temple. "Vincent! It’s Valenti! He bought off the guards at the eastern gate. They’re inside the house! They’re heading for the nursery!"
Vincent didn't hesitate. He pulled a heavy silver semi-automatic pistol from his waistband, his expression transforming instantly back into the lethal predator. He reached down, unhooked Serena’s IV line, and lifted her out of the bed, carrying her against his chest as he ran down the hidden service corridor toward the nursery.
When they burst through the nursery doors, the nanny was already dead on the floor, and a masked Valenti soldier was standing over Lucas’s crib, his weapon raised to eliminate the Corsetti heir.
Vincent fired three times before the man could turn around. The soldier dropped to the floor with a heavy thud.
Serena lunged forward, her weak legs barely supporting her as she snatched Lucas out of the crib, shielding his tiny body with her own scrubs as bullets began to tear through the drywall of the nursery. Vincent stepped between them and the doorway, his weapon roaring in the dark as he held off an entire squad of assassins alone in the corridor.
"Go to the safe room, Serena!" Vincent shouted over the din of gunfire, his shoulder taking a hit from a ricochet, blood blooming across his white shirt. "Behind the bookshelf in the library! Lock the door and don't open it for anyone except me!"
Serena looked at the blood spreading across Vincent’s shoulder. She looked at the infant crying against her neck. Despite the history, despite the crest on his wrist, she knew that if Vincent died tonight, the child in her arms would die next.
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"Don't die, Vincent," she whispered, her voice carrying over the sound of the battle.
Vincent flashed her one final, brilliant smile through the smoke. "I have a family to protect, Serena. I’m not going anywhere."
