1273 The Mafia Boss Was Being Slowly Poisoned by His Own Cousin—Until the ER Nurse He Tried to Threaten Found the Hidden Scar and Risked Everything to Save Him

The extraction took twenty agonizing minutes, during which Gabriel didn't make a single sound, though the sweat pouring down his face soaked clean through the linen pillowcases.

When the metal object finally clicked into the stainless-steel kidney basin, Luca and I both stared down at it. It wasn't a microchip or a capsule. It was a custom-milled medical-grade titanium pellet, no larger than a grain of rice, but scored with an intricate, microscopic serial number along its flat edge.

"What is that?" Luca asked, leaning over the tray with his breath hitching.

"It’s an RFID-tagged time-release capsule," I said, using a sterile wipe to clean the blood off the metal. "It’s designed to slowly leach a synthetic neurotoxin into the cerebrospinal fluid. It shuts down motor function in the lower extremities first, then climbs to the respiratory system. In two more days, the official cause of death would have been recorded as post-traumatic sepsis."

Gabriel lay flat on his back, staring at the ceiling, his breathing heavier now that the immediate pressure on his spine was relieved, though the poison was still coursing through his bloodstream.

"Vincent didn't buy this on the street," Gabriel said quietly, his voice dangerously smooth. "This is military-grade tech. The kind the outfit bought through a shell company in Belarus last year."

"And who managed that acquisition?" I asked, packing the bloody instruments back into my kit.

"Vincent," Luca answered, his voice dropping an octave as the final piece of the puzzle locked into place.

Before either of them could speak further, the private elevator chime chimed softly down the hall.

Luca’s hand instantly dropped to his firearm, his body pivoting toward the double doors of the penthouse suite. "That’s not supposed to be until morning. Security check is at dawn."

"Hide the basin," Gabriel ordered, his eyes locking onto mine with fierce urgency. "Put it in your bag. If Vincent sees that we know, he’ll burn the entire operation to the ground before sunrise."

I didn't hesitate. I swept the metal pellet into a biohazard vial, dropped it into the deepest pocket of my medical case, and snapped the latches shut just as the heavy oak front door clicked open.

"Gabriel?" a smooth, polished voice called out from the foyer. "Cuz, are you awake? I brought the revised shipping manifests from the docks."

Vincent Moretti walked into the master bedroom wearing an immaculate charcoal cashmere sweater, looking every bit the sophisticated corporate executive rather than a syndicate heir. But his steps stuttered the second he saw me standing beside the bed, and his eyes flicked quickly to Luca’s rigid posture.

"Who’s this?" Vincent asked, a polite, slightly strained smile touching his lips as he adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses. "I thought we agreed no more nurses until the fever broke naturally."

Gabriel didn't move a muscle against the pillows. He simply turned his head slowly, fixing his cousin with a gaze so heavy and flat that the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

"She’s better than the last one, Vince," Gabriel said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "She actually knows how to look beneath the surface."