The Dying Mafia Boss Called Me a Florist—Then I Found the Poison in His Whiskey...

We sprinted down the upper hallway as the mansion erupted into full-scale war.

Automatic gunfire hammered through the lower floor, pulverized plaster raining down from the ceiling like white snow. The heavy crystal chandelier in the foyer shook violently, its glass droplets chiming a terrifying melody against the roar of weapons.

Two men in tactical gear burst through the stairwell doors at the end of the hall, carrying short-barreled carbines. They weren't wearing the house security uniforms; these were outside mercenaries—Matteo’s hired guns from the city.

“Down!” Leo roared, grabbing my collar and pulling me behind a heavy marble statue of a Roman warrior.

Leo leaned around the marble base and fired three quick shots. One mercenary dropped instantly; the second ducked into a doorway, returning fire with a high-capacity burst that tore through the antique wallpaper above our heads.

I pressed myself against the floor, plaster dust stinging my eyes. “How many men did Matteo bring?”

“At least twenty!” Leo yelled over the deafening noise. “He’s cleaning house! He wants every loyal capo dead before the police even realize the security alarms were cut!”

I looked down the hall toward Dante’s suite. The heavy mahogany doors were closed, but I could see light flickering beneath them.

“I need to get into that room!” I shouted to Leo. “Dante’s body is still loaded with heavy metal toxins! If his heart rate spikes too high from panic, he’ll go into cardiac arrest before anyone shoots him!”

“I’ll cover you!” Leo pulled a flashbang grenade from his coat pocket—a little piece of insurance he hadn't mentioned earlier. “When this goes off, run for the doors and don't look back!”

Leo pulled the pin with his teeth and pitched the canister down the hallway.

A second later, a blinding white flash and a bone-rattling concussion hit the corridor. The mercenary in the doorway screamed, disoriented and blinded.

“GO!” Leo barked.

I jumped to my feet and sprinted down the ruined hallway, my shoes crunching over spent shell casings and shattered glass. I threw my body against Dante’s bedroom door, hitting the brass latch with my shoulder.

The door burst open, and I fell onto the Persian rug inside, scrambling to kick the door shut behind me.

Dante was standing near the foot of the bed.

He wasn't lying down. He wasn't shaking.

He was wearing his black silk shirt, slacks, and a leather shoulder holster. In his hands, he held a heavy, customized drum-fed shotgun—an intimidating weapon that looked completely absurd in the hands of a man who had been at death’s door six hours earlier.

He aimed the barrel directly at my face as I hit the floor.

“It’s me!” I yelled, raising my chalk-covered hands. “It’s Camilla!”

Dante lowered the weapon slightly, his breath coming in heavy, wheezing gasps, but his eyes were blazing with pure, adrenaline-fueled fury. “Where is Leo?”

“Covering the hallway!” I scrambled to my feet, grabbing my medical bag from the bench. “Matteo’s mercenaries are inside the house! They’re killing your men!”

“I know,” Dante rasped, his face pale under the strain of holding the heavy firearm. “I heard the breach. The idiot brought the Chicago outfit to my front porch.”

I rushed up to him, grabbing his arm. His skin was soaked in cold sweat, his pulse hammering at a dangerous one-hundred-and-forty beats per minute.

“Listen to me!” I demanded, forcing him to look at me. “Your heart can’t take this! The arsenic has severely weakened your heart muscle. If you force yourself into a gunfight right now, your coronary arteries will spasm!”

“Then I die fighting, Ms. Rossi,” Dante growled, trying to pull away from me. “I didn't spend forty years building this empire to get put in the ground by my coward brother.”

“You don't have to die at all if you listen to me!” I snapped, digging into my bag and pulling out a small glass ampoule of atropine and a pre-filled syringe of atropine sulfate—a powerful cardiac stimulant that could counteract the vagal nerve depression caused by the poison. “This will stabilize your heart rate and prevent cardiac shock, but it’s going to feel like fire in your veins. Stand still!”

Before he could argue, I jammed the needle straight through his silk shirt into his shoulder muscle and depressed the plunger.

Dante gasped, his eyes widening as the drug hit his bloodstream. His chest expanded violently, his posture straightening as his blood pressure surged back to normal levels. The gray tint in his skin receded, replaced by a flushed, fierce red.

“Jesus,” he breathed, shaking his head as his vision cleared. “What was that?”

“Adrenaline and atropine,” I said, tossing the empty syringe aside. “You have about twenty minutes before the crash hits you. Make them count.”