Chapter 3 - The Point of No Return
Gaspar’s hands gripped the edge of the walnut table until his knuckles cracked with audible tension. To the six bosses sitting around him, it looked like an aggressive gesture—a terrifying patriarch preparing to lunge across the timber and tear out Moretti's throat.
Only Agatha, watching from above, saw the truth.
Gaspar's fingers weren't gripping the table in rage. They were locking up in spasm as his central nervous system went haywire. His pulse was plunging through the floor. His brain, suddenly deprived of arterial pressure by the mechanical crushing of the carotid baroreceptors, was shutting down.
""Gaspar?"" Moretti’s eyes narrowed, sensing the sudden stillness. ""What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?""
Vincent Donovan leaned forward, his cold eyes gleaming. ""He’s fading. Look at him.""
Gaspar’s eyelids fluttered. He tried to draw a breath, but his diaphragm refused to obey. His head began a slow, heavy tilt toward the mahogany surface. In three seconds, the undisputed ruler of the city would collapse face-first in front of the six men who were waiting for an excuse to wage total war on his family.
Agatha didn't calculate the odds. She didn't think about Remo's guards, the drawn pistols, or the fact that she was an unarmed woman entering a room filled with certified killers.
She turned, kicked open the small access door leading from the service gallery, and ran down the spiral servant staircase into the Grand Council Hall.
The double doors at the back of the room burst open with a resounding bang that echoed off the vaulted ceiling.
Six mob bosses reached under their jackets in absolute synchronization. Ten armed bodyguards drew semi-automatic handguns, aiming them straight at the doorway.
""Nobody move!"" Remo Calder roared, his weapon leveled at Agatha’s chest. ""Who let her in here?! Grab her!""
Agatha didn't stop. She didn't slow down. She held her grandfather’s long, heavy tailoring shears high in her right hand so every man in the room could see the cold steel blade flashing under the chandelier.
""Get your hands off him!"" Agatha screamed, her voice cutting through the panic like thunder. ""He's not dying of an illness! He's being murdered right now!""
""Shoot her!"" Moretti barked, knocking his chair back as he scrambled to his feet. ""It's an assassination attempt!""
Remo took a step toward Agatha, his finger tightening on the trigger of his Glock. But before he could fire, Agatha darted around the perimeter of the table with the frantic agility of someone whose life depended on every millimeter of speed.
She didn't run toward Moretti. She didn't run toward the bodyguards. She threw herself directly behind Gaspar Valdora’s high-backed leather chair.
Gaspar’s head was already lolling to his chest. His breathing was a wet, shallow rasp. His skin was the color of wet sidewalk cement.
""Back away from the boss!"" Remo screamed, closing the distance, reaching out with a massive hand to tear Agatha away.
""Look at his neck, you idiot!"" Agatha shrieked.
With one violent, decisive motion, Agatha bypassed Remo’s outstretched arm, grabbed the high, starched collar of Gaspar’s white Egyptian cotton shirt with her left hand, and shoved the sharp, pointed blade of her heavy tailoring shears directly between the fabric and the flesh of Gaspar Valdora’s throat.
Every man in the room froze in absolute terror.
To the six bosses and every guard present, it looked as though a manic laundress was about to slit the throat of the most powerful mafia don in the state.
""Don't move or you'll cut his jugular!"" Dr. Lindell cried out from the doorway, horrified.
Agatha didn't hesitate for a microsecond. She twisted the shears with the practiced leverage of a master craftswoman, angled the blades downward away from the carotid pulse, and clamped the heavy steel handles shut.
SNIP.
The sound of the high-tensile thread and thick Egyptian cotton tearing open was like the snap of a small whip in the dead-silent hall.
The starched collar exploded outward under the sudden release of tension.
Agatha thrust two fingers into the shredded opening, grabbed the rigid object hidden inside the inner lining, and ripped it violently free from the seam.
With a metallic flick of her wrist, Agatha hurled the object onto the center of the walnut table.
CLANG.
The heavy, curved piece of blackened surgical steel bounced across the polished wood, spinning until it came to rest directly in front of Sal Moretti’s untouched water glass.
At that exact moment, Gaspar Valdora’s lungs expanded with an explosive, ragged gasp of air.
His eyes snapped wide open. Color rushed back into his hollow cheeks like a surging tide. His hands slammed down onto the table, shaking the crystal glasses, as he dragged in oxygen with the violent fury of a drowning man breaking through the surface of frozen ice.
He spun his head around, staring up in wild shock at the woman standing behind him with shears in her hand and fire in her eyes.
""What... did you do?"" Gaspar rasped, his voice raw.
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Agatha, still breathing hard, pointed the bloody tip of her shears directly at the piece of curved steel resting on the table.
""I just took the noose off your neck, Mr. Valdora,"" she said, her voice ringing clear and steady through the paralyzed room. ""You never had a heart condition. Someone in this house was choking your carotid artery to death every time you turned your head.""
