Chapter 1 - The Weight of the Third Floor
The heavy iron door clicked shut behind Dr. Vance, echoing through the vaulted corridor like a falling gavel. Lorenzo didn’t look up from his desk. He already knew the verdict before the man spoke. He knew it by the way Vance’s loafers dragged against the imported Persian rug, and by the tight, sterile smell of hand sanitizer the physician carried with him like a shroud.
"The organs are failing to metabolize the compounds, Mr. Duca," Vance said, his voice dropping into that infuriatingly professional register men used when they were terrified of dying. "We’ve pushed the dosage to the absolute threshold of renal safety. If we increase it, the heart stops. If we decrease it, the septic shock returns within six hours. We are... we are out of runway."
Lorenzo slowly raised his head. His eyes were the color of wet slate—hard, flat, and completely devoid of hope. "You told me last month that the German specialist at Charité had a synthetic binder. You told me it was moving to phase three trials."
"It failed, sir. The trial was quietly shelved yesterday morning in Berlin. The toxicity profiles in pediatric subjects showed catastrophic liver necrosis." Vance swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing sharply against his starched collar. "I’m sorry. We’ve brought the best minds in the northern hemisphere to this house. Nobody else can crack this."
"Get out," Lorenzo whispered.
The word wasn't loud. It didn't roar. It simply fell into the room with the crushing weight of an anchor hitting the ocean floor. Dr. Vance didn't argue. He turned on his heel and fled, his briefcase banging against his knee as he hurried down the stairs.
Lorenzo stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the courtyard. Down below, Maria, the head housekeeper, was walking across the cobblestones with her two-year-old grandson, Leo, clutching the hem of her apron. Maria’s daughter had died six months ago, leaving the toddler in her care. Lorenzo had allowed them to stay in the tiny brick cottage near the east stables out of some long-forgotten sentimentality. Now, watching the little boy chase a stray autumn leaf, a dark, bitter spike of fury twisted in Lorenzo's chest.
Why him? Why does a peasant child run and laugh in the dirt while my son wastes away in a room that smells like death?
He turned his back on the window and pulled a heavy Colt from his shoulder holster, laying it on the mahogany desk. His phone vibrated against the wood—a single encrypted text from his second-in-command, Sal: The port in Baltimore is compromised. The Calabrians are moving in.
Lorenzo stared at the screen. The empire was bleeding. The streets were on the verge of a full-scale turf war. And yet, none of it mattered. If Lucas died tonight, Lorenzo would burn every neighborhood from New York to Miami to ash, starting with his own name.
May you like
He walked out of the study, locking the heavy oak door behind him, and climbed the stairs back toward the third floor. But as he passed the service landing near the kitchens, he heard a sound that made his hand drop instantly to his empty holster.
It wasn't the steady, mechanical pip, pip, pip of Lucas's monitor. It was a soft, high-pitched giggle.
