Chapter 4 - Poison in the Shadows
For the next two weeks, the atmosphere inside the Pellegrini estate shifted drastically.
Sophia was improving at a rate that baffled her medical team. The dark circles under her eyes began to fade. She was eating full meals, laughing at cartoons, and though she still spoke sparingly, she talked to me every single day.
More importantly, Lorenzo began to change.
The cold, terrifying Don who used to rule his household through fear began spending every evening in Sophia’s room. He sat on the small pink armchair, listening silently as I read stories to Sophia, his intense dark eyes constantly tracking my every move. There was a quiet, simmered tension between us—a electric awareness that grew stronger with every shared glance across Sophia's bed.
"Look, Daddy!" Sophia giggled one afternoon, holding up a watercolor painting of a giant golden butterfly. "Emma helped me mix the paints!"
Lorenzo took the paper, a genuine, rare smile breaking across his handsome face. "It's beautiful, principessa. The prettiest butterfly in New York."
He looked up at me, his eyes lingering on my lips for a second too long before he cleared his throat. "Emma, a word outside."
I followed him out into the quiet hallway.
"You've done more for her in three weeks than twenty doctors did in two years," Lorenzo said, leaning against the wooden wainscoting, his hands shoved into his pant pockets.
"She’s a fighter, Lorenzo," I replied, feeling a faint blush heat my cheeks under his intense gaze. "She just needed to feel safe."
"I haven't felt safe in this house since Juliana died," Lorenzo admitted softly, stepping half an inch closer to me. "Until you walked through that door."
Before I could answer, a loud voice sounded from the end of the grand corridor.
"Lorenzo! We have a problem down at the yard!"
It was Marco Pellegrini—Lorenzo’s younger cousin and the underboss of the family syndicate. Marco was a sleazy, ambitious man with slicked-back hair and eyes that were always calculating the cost of everything. He hated the fact that Lorenzo was spending so much time at home instead of running street operations.
"Not now, Marco," Lorenzo snapped, stepping back from me, his demeanor instantly hardening.
"It can't wait," Marco insisted, shooting me a disgust-filled look as he passed. "The Moretti family is moving on our shipping docks in Jersey. And you're up here playing house with a fake nurse."
My pulse spiked. Marco had been digging into me ever since I arrived.
"Watch your tone, Marco," Lorenzo warned, his voice dangerously low. "Emma is under my personal protection."
"She's a security risk!" Marco barked. "You don't know who she really works for! What if the Morettis put her here?"
"I said that's enough!" Lorenzo’s voice echoed through the hallway like thunder.
Marco sneered, holding up his hands in mock surrender, but as he turned to leave, his eyes locked onto mine with a cold, promise of violence that sent a chill straight down my spine.
That night at midnight, I returned to Sophia’s room to administer her scheduled 12:00 a.m. IV medication—a specialized white vial designed to boost her white blood cell count after chemotherapy.
I drew the clear liquid into the syringe, but as I brought the glass vial under the lamp light, my medical instincts screamed.
The liquid had a faint, oily discoloration at the rim.
I held it up to my nose. A tiny, almost imperceptible smell of bitter almonds hit my nostrils.
May you like
Potassium cyanide.
My hands began to shake violently. Someone hadn't just tampered with her medication—someone was trying to murder Lorenzo’s six-year-old daughter tonight, and frame me for her death.
