Chapter 2 - The Secret of the Blood-Stained Veil
The name echoed in the silent hallway like a gunshot. Julian Vance.
My former right-hand man. My blood brother. The traitor I had personally dragged into the basement of our old estate three years ago, putting a bullet between his eyes after discovering he had leaked our shipment routes to the rival Outfit. At least, that is what I had believed.
I shoved the door open with a resounding crash that rattled the antique frames on the wall.
Alina and her mother jerked around, their faces draining of all color. Alina scrambled backward, her hands flying to her mouth, her tear-stained eyes wide with sheer horror as she stared up at me. The twenty-seven pages of divorce papers slipped from my paralyzed fingers, fluttering softly to the Persian rug.
“Dante…” Alina choked out, her voice a fragile whisper. “How… how much did you hear?”
“Every damn word,” I growled, stepping into the room. The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees. My voice was dangerously low, the tone that made hardened capos beg for mercy. “Start talking, Alina. Right now. What does Julian Vance have to do with our wedding night?”
Alina trembled, looking like a bird caught in a tempest. Her mother stepped protectively in front of her, but I didn't care about decorum anymore. The veil of lies I had lived under for three years was burning away.
“You think Julian died because you shot him in the basement,” Alina’s mother said, her voice shaking but resolute. “You think you purged the traitor. But you never saw what happened in the bridal suite before you went down to the basement, did you, Dante?”
My brow furrowed. “I received an anonymous tip that Julian was meeting an assassin in the courtyard. I intercepted him.”
“It wasn't an anonymous tip,” Alina whispered, pulling her knees to her chest on the sofa, looking devastatingly small. “It was Julian. He didn’t go to the courtyard to sell you out. He went there because he had poisoned your wedding goblet. He wanted you paralyzed, Dante, so he could take over the Moretti syndicate from the inside, with me as his trophy wife.”
The room spun. The memory of our wedding night rushed back—the gold-rimmed goblets, the toast we shared, the sudden dizziness I had brushed off as exhaustion from the wedding stress.
“You drank it,” I whispered, horror dawning on me as I stared at my wife.
“You were distracted by your captains,” Alina sobbed, hot tears streaming down her cheeks. “I saw Julian slip the vial into your cup. If you had drunk it, you would have been dead before midnight. So… I knocked into you. I pretended to trip, spilling your cup, and then I drank mine instead.”
My heart stopped beating. “You… you drank the poison?”
“I had a medical antidote in my clutch that my father’s apothecary had given me for emergencies,” Alina said, her voice barely audible. “It saved my life, but it nearly killed me anyway. I spent our wedding night vomiting blood in the adjoining bathroom while you thought I was just shy and overwhelmed. And when Julian realized what I did, he cornered me in the hallway, threatening to kill my father if I told you.”
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“And that’s when I found Julian,” I finished, the pieces violently clicking together in my mind. “That’s why he looked so panicked when I dragged him away. That’s why he begged me to listen to him before I pulled the trigger.”
“He wasn't begging for his life because he betrayed the family,” Alina wept. “He was trying to tell you that someone else inside your inner circle helped him—someone who is still sitting at your right hand today.”
