Chapter 2 - The Blue Stripe

Gabriel kept his eyes on Sadi for several seconds after the guard left.

“Who else knows you found that cap?” he asked.

Sadi folded her arms, partly because she was cold and partly because she did not want anyone in the room to see her hands shake.

“The manager might. Lucia saw me sorting the trash tray. I don’t know if she noticed what I picked up.”

Enzo ended his call and slipped the phone into his jacket.

“The tray is gone.”

Sadi turned toward him. “Gone where?”

“Belladonna’s back hallway was cleared after the shooting. Someone removed three bags before my people sealed the building.”

“Who?”

“That is the problem.”

Gabriel’s face had become gray beneath the warm bedside light. He looked toward the surgeon waiting outside the door.

“Bring in one doctor,” he said. “Not all of them. The oldest one.”

Enzo opened the door and called Dr. Elias Vale back into the room.

Vale was in his late fifties, with tired eyes and the expression of a man who had spent too many years telling powerful people that human bodies did not care about power.

Gabriel pointed toward Sadi.

“She found a medical cap under my chair at the restaurant. Clear plastic. Blue stripe.”

Vale’s gaze sharpened. “How large?”

Sadi held her fingers a little apart. “About this long. Maybe from a syringe or an injection connector.”

“Did you touch it?”

“With gloves.”

“Where is it now?”

“Missing.”

Vale cursed under his breath.

Gabriel noticed. “That reaction sounds expensive.”

“It sounds relevant,” Vale said. “Your bleeding is wrong.”

Sadi looked at him. “Wrong how?”

“The bullet did damage. Serious damage. But the amount of diffuse bleeding around the tissue is more than I would expect.”

“Poison?” Enzo asked.

“I said relevant. Not proven.”

Gabriel’s jaw tightened. “What would prove it?”

“Blood work from a lab I trust. Not one attached to this house. And a sample from whatever you ate or drank tonight.”

Sadi remembered the shattered bottle on the floor.

“He drank wine.”

Gabriel shook his head. “One sip.”

“One sip may be enough depending on what was used.”

Enzo was already moving toward the door.

Sadi stopped him. “The bottle shattered.”

“Then we test the broken glass.”

“The floor was cleaned.”

Enzo looked at her.

She hated the answer before she gave it.

“By me.”

For the first time, Gabriel laughed.

It was quiet and painful, but real.

“You may be the most inconvenient witness I have ever met.”

Sadi stared at him. “You asked me to remember.”

“I did.”

“And I remember there was another glass.”

Enzo turned back.

“Where?”

“On the service cart near the kitchen. Gabriel’s place setting had two glasses because the first one had lipstick on it. I switched it before dinner.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “Lipstick?”

“Someone sat in your chair before you arrived.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. I only noticed the mark.”

Enzo looked toward the hall. “I want the entire service cart recovered. Nobody touches anything without gloves.”

Vale stepped closer to the bed.

“If there is any chance an anticoagulant or vascular toxin was involved, the amputation recommendation changes.”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “Changes to what?”

“To wait long enough to identify what is happening.”

“And if you are wrong?”

“You could lose the arm. Or your life.”

Gabriel glanced at Sadi.

She understood what he was doing. He wanted a stranger’s answer because everyone else in the room belonged to him in some way.

“Don’t look at me,” she said.

“You were willing to argue with a gun ten minutes after meeting me.”

“I was arguing about pressure on a wound.”

“Argue about this.”

Sadi stepped closer to the bed.

“If twenty surgeons all told you the same thing, they’re probably not stupid.”

“Comforting.”

“But if someone planned to shoot you and also tampered with something you drank, then they wanted the doctors to see exactly what they’re seeing.”

Vale nodded once.

Sadi continued. “If you cut off your arm before you know whether the damage was manipulated, you might be doing part of the attacker’s job for him.”

Gabriel’s mouth flattened.

“And if I wait and die?”

“Then at least you die after making the decision with the whole truth.”

Enzo stared at her as if nobody had ever spoken to Gabriel that way inside his own house.

Gabriel did not seem offended.

“Get the blood work,” he told Vale.

The next two hours turned the Falcone estate into a laboratory.

A private courier left with sealed vials. Enzo’s men returned to Belladonna. Every employee was ordered to remain reachable. Security footage was copied from cameras that had somehow failed for exactly six minutes around the shooting.

Sadi sat in a library down the hall while Gabriel underwent another scan.

She should have left.

She told herself that several times.

Then Lucia called.

“Sadi?”

Lucia’s voice was barely audible.

“Where are you?” Sadi asked.

“At my sister’s apartment.”

“Lock the door.”

“It is locked.”

“Did anyone follow you?”

“I don’t think so.”

A pause.

“Sadi, there was a man outside Belladonna before dinner.”

Sadi stood.

“What man?”

“The one you threw.”

“You saw him before he came inside?”

“Yes. He was talking to someone in a black car.”

“Who?”

“I couldn’t see the driver. But I heard him say something.”

“What?”

Lucia took a breath.

“He said, ‘If the first plan fails, the doctors finish it.’”

Sadi felt the room tilt.

“Lucia, listen to me. Do not open the door for anyone.”

“I won’t.”

“Send me your address.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m sending someone.”

A soft knock sounded in the background of Lucia’s call.

Lucia stopped breathing.

Sadi’s grip tightened around the phone.

“Lucia?”

Another knock.

Then a man’s voice.

“Delivery.”

Lucia whispered, “I didn’t order anything.”

“Go into the bathroom,” Sadi said. “Now.”

The call ended.

Sadi ran into the hallway and nearly collided with Enzo.

“Lucia’s in danger.”

He did not ask for an explanation. He took the address from Sadi’s screen and called two men immediately.

Gabriel’s bedroom door opened behind them.

Dr. Vale stepped out holding a printed lab report.

His face answered the question before he spoke.

“What?” Gabriel called from inside.

Vale looked at Enzo.

“Someone drugged him.”

Sadi went still.

Vale entered the room. Sadi and Enzo followed.

“The preliminary panel found an anticoagulant compound and a second agent causing severe vascular constriction,” Vale said. “In combination with a gunshot wound, the effect would look catastrophic.”

Gabriel stared at him.

“Can you reverse it?”

“We can treat it. I cannot promise recovery.”

“Can you save the arm?”

“Possibly.”

Gabriel closed his eyes for one second.

When he opened them, the weakness was gone.

“Then no amputation.”

Vale nodded and began issuing instructions.

Enzo’s phone rang.

He answered.

His expression hardened immediately.

“What happened?” Sadi asked.

Enzo listened, then looked at Gabriel.

“They reached Lucia’s sister’s building. The hallway was empty.”

“Lucia?”

“Safe. Whoever knocked left a package.”

“What package?”

Enzo’s mouth tightened.

“A silver cufflink.”

Gabriel looked toward the one on his bedside table.

“Same initials?”

Enzo nodded.

“G.F.H.”

Gabriel turned his head toward the window.

For the first time that night, Sadi saw something close to fear in his face.

Not fear for himself.

Recognition of a past he had hoped was buried.

“What does it mean?” she asked.

Gabriel was silent.

Enzo answered instead.

“Gianna Falcone House.”

Sadi frowned. “What is that?”

Gabriel looked back at her.

“A charity my family built in my mother’s name.”

“And the cufflinks?”

“Given to twelve people at the opening gala twenty years ago.”

“Twelve people who could have one now?”

Gabriel’s gaze hardened.

“Eight are dead.”

Sadi waited.

“Two are in this house,” he said.

Enzo did not move.

“Who?”

Gabriel looked directly at him.

“Enzo is one.”

The room became quiet.

Sadi slowly turned toward Enzo.

“And the other?”

Gabriel’s answer came after a long pause.

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“My uncle Victor.”

At that exact moment, the lights went out.