Chapter 3 - The Scent of Cyanide
Dante stepped into the dim stairwell of the hospital, letting the heavy steel door click shut behind him. The smell of cold concrete and industrial cleaner enveloped him, giving him three seconds of isolation. He retrieved the glass ampoule from his pocket, holding it up against the dim amber emergency lighting. Beneath the standard hospital label, peeling slightly at the corner, was an almost imperceptible hairline trace of purple wax—a seal marker used by the Valenti family to verify untraceable offshore compounds.
""Salvatore,"" Dante muttered, his jaw grinding.
He tapped the screen of his phone, dialing a private frequency. The line connected on the second ring without a tone. ""Marcus,"" Dante said, keeping his voice beneath a whisper.
""Boss,"" came the raspy voice of his chief of security. ""You’re off the grid. The board meeting at the harbor terminal starts in twenty minutes. The German buyers are already in the boardroom.""
""Burn the meeting,"" Dante ordered flatly. ""Pull every available man from the warehouse. I want the perimeter of St. Jude's Children's Hospital locked down within ten minutes. Plainclothes only. Nobody enters the fourth-floor pediatric ward without facial recognition clearance.""
There was a split-second hesitation on the line. ""Understood. Are we expecting an attack?""
""It’s already begun,"" Dante said, looking down at his sleeve where a stray drop of infant formula had dried against the cuff. ""They hit my daughter.""
Marcus went dead silent for a heartbeat. ""Your... daughter? Dante, you don't have—""
""I do now,"" Dante cut in, his voice cold as winter ice. ""Find where Salvatore is housing his clean-skin operatives in this district. Track the shift log for the nursing staff on floor four over the last twelve hours. Someone took thirty thousand dollars to swap a saline vial for a synthetic neurotoxin. Find that nurse before she leaves the city limits.""
""On it.""
Dante hung up and shoved the phone back into his coat. He took a single, deep breath to steady the rage hammering in his chest, then pushed open the heavy door and returned to the hallway. Elena was sitting on a plastic chair outside the room, her head between her knees. The doctor was gone, leaving only an armed hospital security guard stationed at the threshold.
May you like
Dante walked over and stopped in front of her. Elena looked up, her eyes rimmed with red, searching his unreadable expression. ""What did you do, Dante?"" she asked, her voice trembling. ""Who followed me here?""
""Nobody followed you,"" Dante said, offering his hand to pull her up. ""They were waiting for you to come to me.""
