Chapter 1 - The Bloodstained Note
The air inside the private east wing smelled of metallic copper, lavender polish, and blinding panic. Dr. Lena Morales tore open Vincent Castellano’s Italian silk shirt, her gloved fingers trembling against the catastrophic wound below his left ribcage. It was a single, precise, surgical puncture designed to collapse a lung without making a loud commotion. Beside the heavy mahogany desk, little Adeline sat with her knees pulled tightly to her chest, her fingers clutching a ragged plush alligator named Barnaby.
I scooped the child into my arms, feeling her tiny heart fluttering against my ribs like a trapped sparrow. ""It's okay, Addie,"" I murmured, my voice thick with an adrenaline I hadn't tasted since the dock wars eight years ago. ""Uncle Vin is going to be alright.""
""Man smelled like mint candy,"" she whispered, her chin trembling as she stared at the floor. ""He pushed Uncle Vin down. Then Uncle Vin dropped his pencil.""
My blood turned to pure frost. A mint candy smell. There was only one man in the entire inner council who chewed peppermint lozenges to mask the scent of heavy Cuban tobacco.
Before I could process her innocent confession, Dr. Morales held out the scrap of paper that had fallen from Vincent’s fading grip. It wasn't written in ink. It was scribbled in Vincent’s own dark crimson blood, the jagged capital letters scratched with the blunt nib of a heavy fountain pen.
D-O-M-I-N-I-C.
Dominic Castellano. Vincent’s younger brother. His business partner. The man who had sat at the head of the Sunday dinner table less than fourteen hours ago, toasting to the family's expanding empire while Camille served warm focaccia.
""His pulse is thready, Marcus,"" Morales shouted, tearing sterile gauze from her kit to pack the wound. ""He won't make it to St. Jude’s. The public hospitals are monitored. If the city finds out he’s bleeding out, the rivals will burn the harbor down before sunset. We need the private bunker clinic right now!""
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""Move him through the laundry elevator,"" I ordered the two guards standing by the shattered oak door. ""Nobody talks. Not a whisper over the radios. If any crew member asks, Boss is resting before the evening meeting. If Dominic finds out Vincent survived this, he won't stop until every witness in this house is erased.""
I looked down at the tiny girl in my arms. Adeline’s sundress was smeared with her beloved uncle’s blood. She had no idea she held the fate of a billion-dollar empire on her tongue.
