Chapter 2 - NINE MINUTES
Three minutes passed.
My fingertips became cold.
At first, I thought it was the air-conditioning.
Il Cielo kept the dining room several degrees too cool because rich people complained less about expensive wine when they were slightly uncomfortable. I rubbed my thumb against my forefinger beneath the table, trying to warm them.
Then the chandelier above us doubled.
The bronze arms split into two, then four, each candlelight reflection trembling in the polished marble floor.
“Alessandro,” I said.
My voice sounded far away.
He looked up immediately.
Not surprised.
Not frightened.
But ready.
That was the detail that haunted me later.
He had been waiting.
My spoon slipped from my hand and struck the porcelain plate with a sound so delicate that no one at the nearby tables turned to look.
“I can’t…” I began.
The room tilted.
The pianist’s music slowed into something deep and underwater. My heart gave one violent, irregular beat, then another. A numbness began in my lips and spread down my throat.
Across the table, Alessandro rose.
“Marco,” he said.
It was the first time that night his voice changed.
Only one word.
But every person assigned to our table moved at once.
Marco Rossi appeared beside me before I could fall from the chair. Alessandro caught my shoulders from behind as my body went limp.
“Lucia,” he said close to my ear. “Look at me.”
I tried.
I saw his face as though through rain-streaked glass.
“You switched them,” I whispered.
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
The word frightened me more than the numbness.
Because it meant Emma had been right.
And I had eaten the dessert meant for him.
The dining room erupted around us.
Chairs scraped back. Someone screamed. The pianist stopped playing in the middle of a note. A woman near the bar covered her mouth as Alessandro lowered me carefully to the black marble floor.
I could smell truffles.
Beeswax.
The sharp citrus polish beneath my cheek.
Then I smelled something else.
Burned almonds.
Or maybe it was only my imagination.
“Call Dr. Salvi,” Alessandro ordered. “No ambulance until he confirms whether transport is safe.”
Marco crouched beside me, checking my pulse.
“It’s dropping.”
“Keep her breathing.”
“I’m trying.”
Alessandro’s hand pressed against my face. His thumb brushed the corner of my mouth, where a thin line of red had appeared.
“Lucia,” he said again. “Stay with me.”
I wanted to tell him not to look at me like that.
Alessandro Moretti had watched buildings burn without blinking. He had negotiated with men who entered rooms armed and left them grateful to be alive. He had buried enemies, friends, and one brother whose death had made him hard in ways I still did not fully understand.
But when he looked at me on that restaurant floor, he looked almost human.
That terrified me.
My chest tightened.
I tried to draw breath.
Nothing happened.
Then everything went black.
---
I woke to the sound of machines.
A monitor pulsed somewhere beside me.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
My mouth was dry. My throat felt scraped raw. There was something taped to the back of my hand, and when I tried to move, pain flashed through my chest.
The ceiling above me was white.
Not the ceiling of Il Cielo.
Not the ceiling of our apartment.
A hospital.
I turned my head.
Alessandro sat in a chair beside the bed, still wearing his black dinner jacket. His tie was gone. His shirt sleeves were rolled to his elbows, and there was dried blood on one cuff.
My blood.
He was holding my hand.
Not loosely.
Not gently.
As if he thought I might vanish if he let go.
“How long?” I whispered.
His eyes opened immediately.
“Thirty-six hours.”
I stared at him.
“That’s impossible.”
“You stopped breathing for ninety-two seconds,” he said.
His voice was quiet.
Too quiet.
“The doctors stabilized you. Then your heart went into arrhythmia twice. They induced a coma to keep your body from fighting the medication.”
I swallowed painfully.
“Emma?”
“Alive. Safe.”
“Who did it?”
For the first time, Alessandro looked away.
That was when I knew the answer would hurt.
“We don’t know yet.”
I studied his face.
“You do know something.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“The poison was not in the soufflé.”
I frowned.
“But I ate the cake.”
“You ate the sauce.”
The room seemed to shrink.
Alessandro continued.
“The desserts were identical except for the raspberry garnish. The toxin was injected into the sauce on one plate.”
“And you switched them.”
“Yes.”
“You switched the wrong part.”
“No.” His eyes met mine. “I switched the plates exactly as they were.”
My heart monitor accelerated.
Beep-beep-beep.
“Then why was I poisoned?”
Alessandro said nothing.
Marco entered before he could answer. He looked exhausted, his gray suit replaced by a dark sweater, his expression sharper than usual.
“The police are outside,” Marco said. “They want another statement.”
“Not today,” Alessandro replied.
“They have a warrant for the restaurant footage.”
“Then give them the footage.”
Marco hesitated.
“And the private cameras?”
Alessandro’s face became unreadable.
“Not yet.”
Marco nodded and left.
I stared at Alessandro.
“Private cameras?”
“The cameras in the corridor near the powder room.”
My stomach turned cold.
“You said the girl pointed toward the corridor I used.”
“Yes.”
“Are you saying someone dressed like me?”
“I’m saying someone wanted Emma to believe she saw you.”
“Why?”
Alessandro’s eyes darkened.
“Because if I thought you had tried to poison me, you would not have survived the night.”
The truth landed between us like a knife.
I knew Alessandro.
I knew his rules.
Betrayal was the one thing he did not forgive.
His enemies feared him.
But the people closest to him feared something worse: disappointing him.
Someone had designed the plan carefully.
A little girl identifies me.
A poison attempt appears aimed at Alessandro.
The evidence points toward the woman sitting across from him.
And if the attack failed, Alessandro would turn against me.
If it succeeded, he would be dead.
Either way, someone would win.
I looked at the man who had nearly watched me die.
“Who hates us enough to do that?”
Alessandro’s expression did not change.
But his hand tightened around mine.
“That,” he said, “is what we are about to learn.”
Outside the room, thunder rolled over Manhattan.
May you like
And somewhere in the city, the person who had planned my funeral still believed I was dead.
---
