Chapter 4 - Blood on the Marble
The scalpel slashed through the air with terrifying speed.
Elena instinctively threw her hands up, ducking to the side as the blade sliced through the fabric of her sleeve, grazing the skin of her forearm. A hot spike of pain flared up her arm, but adrenaline surged through her veins, overriding her fear.
She grabbed a heavy brass inkwell from the desk and hurled it directly at Dr. Vance’s face.
The doctor grunted, dodging the missile by a fraction of an inch, but it bought her precious seconds. Elena spun around and bolted for the door.
“Stop her!” Dr. Vance shouted into the hallway.
Panic fueled her legs as she burst out of the office and sprinted down the grand staircase toward the second-floor landing. Footsteps pounded behind her—heavy, determined, closing the distance with every second. She rounded the mahogany banister, her shoes sliding on the polished wood, nearly losing her balance.
As she reached the grand foyer on the ground floor, the front doors swung open. Julian Vance stepped into the hall, blocking her exit, a heavy silver-headed cane gripped in his right hand like a club.
“Going somewhere, little bird?” Julian sneered, stepping forward to cut off her path to the service wing.
Elena trapped between two brothers, her back facing the darkened entrance of the master study. Her breath came in ragged, hyperventilating sobs. Her arm was bleeding, soaking through the sleeve of her uniform.
“You’re making a mistake,” Elena panted, holding up her hands. “Gideon knows. He’s already testing the whiskey. He knows about the toxicity reports.”
Dr. Vance descended the stairs behind her, wiping a drop of sweat from his forehead, looking remarkably calm despite the chase. “Gideon is blind, my dear. He’s been drinking poisoned scotch every morning for five months. By the time he realizes the bottle in his desk is a decoy, his organs will already be shutting down.”
Julian chuckled darkly, raising his cane. “End of the line, Elena. Let’s make it quick.”
He swung the heavy cane in a vicious arc aimed directly at her ribs.
Elena braced for impact, closing her eyes—
Clang!
A deafening explosion ripped through the foyer.
Julian screamed, dropping his cane as the silver handle was blasted clean off by a heavy-caliber round. Glass from the entryway transom shattered inward.
Through the haze of gunsmoke at the front doors stepped Gideon Vitale.
He wasn't wearing his tinted glasses. His milky amber eyes stared straight ahead, but in his right hand, he held a customized Sig Sauer P226 with a silencer, still smoking at the barrel. Flanking him on either side were six armed guards, their weapons locked squarely on the Vance brothers.
“Drop the scalpel, Harrison,” Gideon’s voice dropped into a terrifying, lethal register that echoed off the high marble ceiling.
Dr. Vance froze, the scalpel slipping from his numb fingers to clatter against the marble floor. “Gideon... you—you shouldn't even be out of bed. Your optic nerves—”
“My optic nerves are remarkably resilient when I stop ingesting your specialized neurological cocktails,” Gideon interrupted, taking a slow, steady step forward. His gait was unassisted by a cane, perfectly balanced, predatory.
Julian clutched his bleeding hand, panic setting in. “Boss, listen to us! It’s a misunderstanding—Harrison was just trying to protect the family from an intruder—”
“Silence, Julian,” Gideon commanded, the single word silencing the room instantly.
Gideon stopped two feet from the terrified brothers. He didn't look at them—he couldn't, not fully—but he turned his face toward Elena, listening to the hitch in her breathing, smelling the copper tang of blood on her torn sleeve.
“Are you hurt?” Gideon asked quietly.
“I’m... I’m okay,” Elena whispered, tears finally breaking free down her cheeks. “Mr. Vitale... your eyes—”
“A synthetic chelating agent administered by my personal physician over five months caused temporary calcium-channel blockage in my retinas,” Gideon explained coldly, never breaking eye contact with the space where Elena stood. “Dr. Vance was clever enough to ensure it looked like permanent atrophy. But when Marcus sent the whiskey sample to New York, the independent tox screen came back with a fascinating additive: ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid reversal agents combined with low-dose belladonna. The moment I stopped drinking the poisoned batch three days ago and switched to intravenous saline flushes, my sight began to return.”
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Harrison Vance went as white as a ghost. “You... you knew?”
“I knew when Elena knocked the glass out of my hand and smelled what four elite doctors were paid millions to ignore,” Gideon said. He raised his pistol, leveling the barrel squarely at Harrison’s chest. “You tried to blind me. You tried to steal my house. And worst of all, you spilled blood on my marble.”
