Chapter 3 – THE TICKING CLOCK

The wine glass shattered on the floor.

Adrian choked, clutching his throat as the dark red liquid stained his white collar. He stumbled backward, knocking his chair to the ground, and collapsed onto the Persian rug.

“Adrian!” Allison screamed.

Seventeen years of betrayal didn’t stop her from throwing herself onto the floor beside him. She grabbed his face, her elegant evening gown soaking up the spilled wine. “Adrian, look at me! Call an ambulance!”

The guests erupted in panic. People were shouting, pulling out phones, backing away in horror.

Vanessa stood perfectly still at the other end of the table. She wasn’t smiling anymore, but she wasn’t panicking either. She smoothly picked up her clutch purse.

Luca vaulted over the table. He didn’t check on Adrian—he knew what poison looked like. He went straight for Vanessa, grabbing her by the throat and slamming her against the mahogany wall.

“What was it?” Luca roared. The calm, composed mafia boss was gone. “What did you give him?!”

Vanessa gasped for air, her hands clawing at his wrists. “He… he was going to ruin it… he panicked…”

“The antidote!” Luca demanded, tightening his grip. “Give it to me!”

“There isn’t one,” she wheezed, her eyes wide with terror as she realized Luca wasn’t going to show mercy. “It’s… it acts in ten minutes. It stops the heart. He was weak, Luca. He was going to confess everything before the wedding.”

I dropped to my knees beside Allison. Adrian’s lips were already turning blue. He was convulsing, his eyes rolling back.

“Emily,” Allison sobbed, gripping my hands with terrifying strength. “Help him, please. My son can’t lose his father. Not like this.”

I had no medical training. I was a housemaid. But I remembered something my mother’s nurse had told me about accidental poisonings.

“Sir!” I yelled, looking at Luca’s head bodyguard, who had just rushed into the room. “The kitchen! Get the activated charcoal we use for the water filters! And salt water! Now!”

The bodyguard sprinted out.

Luca threw Vanessa to the floor in disgust. “Bind her hands. Nobody leaves this house.”

He rushed to Adrian’s side, tearing his oldest friend’s shirt open to check his erratic heartbeat. “Adrian. Stay with me. You don’t get to die a coward. You hear me?”

Adrian’s eyes flickered open. He looked at Allison, tears mixing with the sweat on his pale face.

“Allie…” he choked out. “I’m… sorry…”

“Save it,” Allison cried fiercely. “You’re going to live and explain this to Leo yourself.”

The bodyguard returned, sliding across the floor with a bowl of dark, gritty liquid.

“Hold his head,” I told Luca.

Together, we forced the charcoal mixture down Adrian’s throat. It was brutal, messy, and desperate. For two agonizing minutes, nothing happened. Adrian’s breathing grew shallower. The grand dining room, filled with the wealthiest elites of Chicago, was reduced to the raw, ugly reality of a man dying on the floor.

Then, Adrian violently wretched.

He rolled over and vomited the toxic mixture, gasping for air as his lungs expanded. His color slowly, agonizingly, began to return.

Allison collapsed against Luca’s shoulder, weeping uncontrollably. Luca held her, his hand resting on the back of his dying friend’s head.

I sat back on my heels, exhausted, covered in spilled wine and charcoal.

Suddenly, a slow, mocking clap echoed through the room.

Everyone turned.

Vanessa was sitting on the floor, her wrists bound by a bodyguard with zip-ties. She was staring directly at Allison.

“How sweet,” Vanessa sneered, her red dress stained and ruined. “The loyal, pathetic wife saves the cheating husband. You think you won, Allison?”

“Shut her up,” Luca ordered.

“He wasn’t going to leave with me, Allison,” Vanessa said loudly, ignoring the guard pulling her up. “He didn’t buy those tickets to Buenos Aires.”

Allison froze. She looked at Vanessa, then at Adrian, who was still too weak to speak.

“What are you talking about?” Allison whispered.

Vanessa smiled, a cruel, vindictive twist of her lips.

“Ask him who the second ticket was actually for. Ask him whose name is printed on the boarding pass. Because it isn’t his.”

Luca reached into his pocket and pulled out the folded itinerary Adrian had handed him earlier. He hadn’t read the second name carefully in the chaos.

He opened it now. His eyes scanned the paper.

When Luca looked up, the color had completely drained from his face. He stared at Allison with a look of profound, unutterable shock.

“Whose name is it, Luca?” Allison asked, her voice trembling.

Luca turned the paper around so she could see it.

“It’s Leo’s,” Luca whispered. “She was taking your son.”

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