Chapter 3 - The Ghost of the West Wing
I stood up slowly, wiping my gloved finger with a sterile alcohol wipe from my pocket.
Vincent was still kneeling beside Lucas, soothing the boy back to sleep with a low, rumbling murmur that contrasted violently with the terrifying reputation he held on the streets of New York. When Lucas finally drifted back into a heavy, drug-assisted slumber, Vincent stood up. His face was set in lines of absolute, terrifying granite.
He walked over to me, his broad shoulders blocking out the dim light of the hallway.
“Well?” Vincent demanded, his voice dropping into a lethal whisper. “What is it?”
“It’s not a rare genetic disorder, and it’s not an autoimmune failure,” I said steadily, looking straight up into his cold grey eyes. “Your sons are being poisoned.”
The word hung in the air like a live grenade.
Vincent didn't blink. For a fraction of a second, I thought he might roar in denial or demand I retract the claim. Instead, a terrifying, dead calm settled over his features. The mafia boss—the man who controlled dockyards, smuggling rings, and syndicate enforcers—took a slow, deliberate breath.
“Poisoned,” he repeated, the word tasting like ash. “In my house? With twenty armed guards on the perimeter and biometric locks on every door?”
“A poison doesn't need to break through the front gates if it’s already living inside the pantry,” I replied.
I turned and walked back out into the hallway. Mrs. Harper was gone. The space where she had been standing was empty, save for the white towels she had finally managed to pick up.
“Where did she go?” I asked.
Vincent’s jaw tightened. He pulled a heavy titanium-cased smartphone from his tailored trousers and tapped the screen twice.
“Marcus!” Vincent barked into the speaker.
A heavy set of footsteps echoed up the grand staircase a second later as Marcus, Vincent’s hulking head of security, appeared at the landing, his hand instinctively resting beneath his jacket near a hidden firearm.
“Boss?” Marcus asked, his eyes darting between Vincent and me.
“Find Mrs. Harper,” Vincent ordered, his tone leaving zero room for argument. “Lock down every exit on the estate. Nobody leaves the grounds—staff, gardeners, kitchen crew—nobody. If she’s stepped foot off this property, I want her brought back before she reaches the main highway.”
Marcus didn't ask questions. He gave a sharp nod and vanished down the stairs at a dead sprint.
“Come with me,” Vincent said to me, gesturing toward his private study at the far end of the third-floor corridor.
We walked back into the book-lined office where I had first met him hours ago. The medical files were still scattered across the mahogany desk—thousands of pages of useless diagnoses paid for with millions of dollars in untraceable cash.
Vincent walked behind his desk, pulled open a hidden panel in the woodwork, and revealed a heavy digital safe. He punched in a six-digit code, spun the dial, and pulled out a thick, black leather folder bearing a gold embossed crest that didn't look like medical records.
“You said you notice things other people ignore,” Vincent said, laying the folder open on the desk. “Let’s test that theory.”
I stepped closer and looked down at the papers inside.
They weren't doctor’s notes. They were property deeds, employment contracts, and background dossiers dating back five years.
“After Isabella died,” Vincent began, his voice thick with a pain he usually kept locked behind a wall of ice, “I trusted very few people. I vetted every single person who crossed the threshold of this house through my own private intelligence network in Europe and the States. Mrs. Harper was recommended by my mother’s family in Sicily. She’s been with us for a decade.”
“Loyalty bought in the past doesn't survive pressure in the present,” I said, scanning the employment history in the file. “Who else has access to the third-floor utility access panels?”
“Only maintenance and…” Vincent paused. His eyes flicked up to meet mine. “…Dr. Harrison Blake.”
The arrogant physician who had laughed at me in this very room less than an hour ago.
“Dr. Blake isn't just a pediatrician,” I noted, my eyes catching a line in a separate financial ledger tucked into the back of the folder. “According to these records, Blake’s private research clinic in Boston received a massive anonymous capital injection three years ago—right around the time Isabella’s health started declining before she died.”
Vincent went completely still. The air in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees.
“Say that again,” Vincent whispered.
“Dr. Blake’s clinic received funding from an offshore shell corporation,” I said, tracing the paper trail with my finger. “The same shell corporation that currently holds liens on three commercial shipping warehouses in Brooklyn currently controlled by the Moretti syndicate’s primary rivals—the Rossi family.”
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The puzzle pieces snapped together with the sickening precision of a guillotine blade.
It wasn't a random poisoning. It was a hostile takeover of the Moretti bloodline. If Lucas and Leo died, Vincent would have no heirs, no legacy, and no successor. In the brutal calculus of the underworld, a syndicate without an heir was a dying empire waiting to be carved up by the wolves.
