Chapter 4 - The Poisoned Thread
The silence inside the Grand Council Hall was suffocating.
Sal Moretti slowly reached out and picked up the curved steel stay with two thick, hairy fingers. He weighed it in his palm, his eyebrows furrowing into a deep, suspicious knot.
""What the hell is this?"" Moretti growled, glancing between the metal bar and Gaspar’s raggedly torn collar. ""A collar stay? You're telling us Gaspar Valdora has been passing out like a schoolgirl because of a piece of shirt wire?""
Gaspar slowly pushed himself up from his chair. His knees didn't wobble. His balance was instantly solid. The gray, deathly pallor that had haunted his face for six months was gone, replaced by a dark, terrifying crimson fury.
He touched his neck. The tight band that had felt like an iron collar for months was hanging in limp tatters around his shoulders. For the first time in ninety days, he could turn his head fully to the left without the world spinning into darkness.
""Explain,"" Gaspar commanded. The single word carried enough lethal pressure to flatten a mountain. He was looking directly at Agatha.
Agatha took a step back, lowering her tailoring shears to her side. She maintained direct eye contact with the mob boss, refusing to show the tremble that was threatening to seize her calves.
""It’s called Carotid Sinus Hypersensitivity,"" Agatha explained, her voice steady and clear so all six bosses could hear every syllable. ""My father was a combat tailor in the military before he opened his shop. He used to tell me stories about trench interrogations where men were rendered unconscious using blunt pressure applied directly to the bifurcation of the carotid artery beneath the jaw. In that exact spot, there is a bundle of nerve endings called the carotid sinus.""
Dr. Lindell, who had crept into the room, pushed his glasses up his nose, his jaw dropping. ""Good God... the baroreceptors.""
""Exactly,"" Agatha continued. ""If you press on those nerves, your brain mistakenly believes your blood pressure is dangerously high. It sends an immediate reflex signal through the vagus nerve to slow the heart down and drop the blood pressure instantly to protect the brain from an aneurysm. If the pressure is sharp, focused, and persistent, your heart rate plunges to thirty beats per minute within four seconds. You faint immediately.""
Agatha pointed toward the metal bar in Moretti’s hand.
""Every single one of your new custom shirts was tailored one full inch smaller than your true neck measurement. And inside the left collar point, someone inserted an unyielding, curved piece of tempered surgical steel. When you stand straight, it sits uncomfortably. But the moment you turn your head to the left to look at a car, check a monitor, or face someone speaking at this table...""
""The steel point acts as a fulcrum,"" Gaspar finished the sentence himself, his voice dropping into an icy register that made the bodyguards shudder. ""It drove directly into my throat.""
""Precisely,"" Agatha said. ""You collapsed fourteen times because you turned your head fourteen times while wearing that specific batch of shirts. No doctor could find an illness in your blood or your heart because there was no illness. The weapon was stitched into your clothes.""
Gaspar turned his gaze toward Remo Calder. Remo looked as if he had been struck by lightning. His eyes darted to the table, then to Agatha, then to the doors.
""Who took delivery of that batch of shirts, Remo?"" Gaspar asked softly.
""Leo,"" Remo answered instantly, his voice cracking with sudden realization. ""Leo Vance handles all domestic purchases, private wardrobe orders, and personal deliveries. Nobody else touches your clothing before it reaches your dressing suite.""
Gaspar’s dark eyes narrowed into razor-thin slits. ""Find him.""
Remo didn't need to be told twice. He racked the slide of his pistol and sprinted toward the main foyer, flanked by three heavily armed guards.
Sal Moretti tossed the steel stay back onto the table. A slow, cruel laugh rumbled from his massive chest.
""Well, I'll be damned,"" Moretti said, crossing his arms and leaning back. ""Someone in your own house was setting you up to look like an invalid, Gaspar. If you had collapsed here today in front of us, the commission would have voted to strip your territory by midnight. We would have assumed you were on your deathbed.""
May you like
""Which was precisely the plan,"" Vincent Donovan added coldly from across the table. ""An invalid boss creates an immediate power vacuum. And whoever arranged that vacuum already had someone lined up to fill it.""
Before the bosses could discuss further, the crack of distant gunfire echoed from the mansion's rear courtyard.
