Chapter 3 - Shadows In The Blood
I caught her before her knees touched the hardwood floor. In one fluid motion, I scooped her into my arms, lifting her against my chest. She was shockingly light, like a bundle of silk and fragile bones. Her head fell back against my shoulder, her eyelids fluttering violently as a silent convulsion rippled through her slender torso.
“Alina!” I roared, dropping all pretenses of mafia composure.
I kicked the study door open and shouted down the grand hall: “Marco! Get Dr. Bennett on the secure line right now! If he isn't in this house in ten minutes, tell him I’ll execute his entire medical board!”
Footsteps thundered across the marble below as my chief of security scrambled to obey. I carried Alina up the stairs, my heart pounding with a terror I had never experienced in twenty years of gang warfare. Ambushed by rival cartels? I had shot my way out without blinking. Stared down federal indictments? I had burned the courthouse down. But watching Alina’s lips turn a faint, terrifying shade of lavender made the air vanish from my lungs.
I laid her gently onto the king-sized bed. Eleanor, who had rushed out of the guest wing at the sound of my shout, froze at the doorway, her face pale as a ghost.
“You... you know,” Eleanor whispered, seeing the raw fury and despair burning in my eyes.
“Get inside and shut the door,” I growled, not taking my eyes off Alina. I leaned over the bed, peeling the cardigan from her shoulders. On the inner crook of her left arm, partially hidden beneath cosmetic concealer, were faint, dark track marks from intravenous vitamin drips—clandestine attempts to keep her failing liver functioning.
I grabbed her icy hand, pressing it against my cheek. “Alina. Open your eyes. That’s an order, sweetheart. Open your eyes.”
Her breathing rattled. After thirty seconds that felt like thirty lifetimes, the seizure subsided. Her eyelids fluttered open, her green irises clouded with pain and disorientation. When she saw my face hovering inches from hers, tears immediately spilled over her eyelashes.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice barely a thread. “I’m so sorry, Dante... I didn't want you to see this.”
“Shut up,” I commanded, my voice breaking in a way no living person had ever heard. I pressed a hard, desperate kiss to her forehead. “Stop apologizing to me. Don’t you ever apologize to me again.”
Dr. Bennett burst through the bedroom doors, breathless, carrying two heavy medical bags. Two armed guards stood watch outside, sealing the corridor. Bennett had been the Moretti family doctor for four decades; he had pulled bullets out of my father and stitched my own flesh back together dozens of times.
“Step back, Dante,” Bennett ordered, setting his equipment on the bedside table. He pulled out a penlight and checked Alina’s pupils, his expression grim and tight. He pulled back her sleeve, looked at the faint discoloration beneath her veins, and let out a heavy sigh that told me everything.
“You knew,” I said. The temperature in the room dropped below freezing. My voice was a low, vibrating rumble that made Bennett freeze. “You’ve known about this.”
Bennett didn't flinch, though a drop of sweat rolled down his temple. “Professional confidentiality, Dante. She made me take a blood oath. If I told you, she swore she would stop taking the suppressants altogether.”
“What is it, Bennett?” I demanded, stepping closer until my towering shadow engulfed the old doctor. “Tell me the exact medical diagnosis, or I will paint these walls with your brains before sunrise.”
“It’s an experimental neurotoxin developed in an old Soviet laboratory,” Bennett said bluntly, checking Alina’s thumping pulse with a stethoscope. “Viktor Volkov’s signature compound. It binds irreversibly to hepatic tissue and slowly calcifies the renal pathways. It mimics progressive organ failure. It doesn't kill quickly, Dante. It’s designed to torment the victim over three to four years. And Alina has been surviving on high-dose immunosuppressants just to stay upright for the past six months.”
My stomach heaved. Viktor hadn't just tried to assassinate me on my wedding night. He had wanted me to watch my bride rot in front of my eyes, or worse, he had wanted me dead while my family suffered a lingering agonizing death. And Alina had intercepted that hell for me.
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“What is the cure?” I asked, my voice deadly quiet.
Bennett looked up, his eyes filled with profound pity. “There is no synthetic pharmaceutical cure on the Western market, Dante. There never was. The only known neutralizing agent was kept by Viktor Volkov himself. And you put three hollow-point rounds through Viktor’s heart three years ago.”
