Chapter 2

The locks engaged behind me, their clicks swallowing the anniversary music. Cold light grayed my dress; through glass, Vittorio vanished beneath tubes as Moreau connected an IV bag and turned its label toward the wall.

“He needs a hospital and toxicology,” I insisted, watching Moreau silence an alarm without checking him. “If you are wrong, he dies here.”

“My father is not leaving this house.” Dante held my handbag and the poison while Valentina stood inside his jacket. “He has survived worse.”

“Then why is Moreau hiding the IV label?” I watched Dante's eyes move toward him and stop.

Blue paper showed beneath the bottle's label. “Give it to me. That label has been replaced.”

“You're staying here until my father is stable.” Dante placed my bag beyond reach, and the steel bit my palms as I tried to understand how I had come here to save Vittorio and somehow become the person being held.

He lined up my phone, keys and pistol on the counter, each metallic strike removing another way to leave. My body leaned toward them before I caught myself.

I caught his sleeve because my body remembered trusting him before my mind could stop it. “Look at me. You know I didn't poison him.”

His eyes held mine and hope rose with humiliating ease, then Valentina called. He peeled my fingers from his cuff one by one. “I know you're frightened. Do not make this worse.”

I almost obeyed because his gentle voice still reached the part of me trained to keep peace. Then pressure sharpened around my wrists. Was I supposed to thank him for frightening me quietly while he took every way I had to leave?

Valentina entered with a folded paper held away from the stain on her dress, claiming she had found it in Vittorio's coat.

Dominic opened it on the counter. Vittorio's handwriting crossed the page: CONTINUITY ORDER—RENEWED EACH QUARTER. If I cannot speak, Mara keeps the family keys and transport records until I can. Valentina placed the pill case beside it.

For one heartbeat, Vittorio's handwriting felt like rescue because he trusted me. Then every gaze moved from the order to the pill case, and the hope collapsed into something colder. Of course the keys did not protect me now; they gave Dominic a reason to say I needed Vittorio silent.

Moreau emerged with the poison bottle inside a clear sleeve. Blue paper showed beneath its new label. I drove the instrument cart into a guard and lunged, but another man locked my arms against my ribs.

“Dante, make him show you the original label.” I fought for enough breath against the guard's grip to keep my voice clear. “If you let him take that bottle, you are letting him decide what happened here.”

Moreau twisted the specimen sleeve until the false label faced outward. “She tore it when she grabbed me. I sealed it before she could contaminate the rest.”

The blue edge remained visible through the plastic. “Then turn it over and let everyone see what is underneath.”

Moreau laid the sleeve blue-side down. The lie was visible, yet I was still the one begging Dante to reach for it.

Dante forced me back until the chair struck my spine. Vittorio's monitor broke into an uneven alarm, but Moreau opened a drawer beside me.

Moreau lifted another unmarked syringe. “She's panicking. She attacked me and tried to steal evidence. Hold her arm before she hurts herself.”

“Don't touch me.” The words scraped through my tightening throat as Dante shifted his grip to my wrists and turned my palms upward against the steel.

I found my husband's face beyond the needle. “If you let him put that in me, I will never forgive you.” Would he call this a misunderstanding later, after the needle was gone and I had no mark he could not explain?

Cold light ran along the needle as I searched Dante's face. Look at the label. Look at me. His hands tightened around my wrists. I stopped asking him to believe me and measured the distance to Moreau's knee.