21. Gio
GIO
Ihear the shouts, but my reaction is a split-second too late. By the time my feet are in motion, Viviana is already on the floor.
Then I’m running, barking orders to my men as the crowd scatters and I drop to the ground next to my wife. “What the fuck happened?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Francesca falls to her knees, holding Viviana’s ruined dress closed as I shift my wife onto her side.
“She was drinking champagne and rambling a lot—I didn’t know she could talk that much.
I just assumed she was drunk. But then she got dizzy, started to sway, and then… ”
“Then what?” Viviana is sweating, feverish and far too pale. “What happened next, Francesca?”
“She fell to the floor and threw up. That’s it.”
“You didn’t see anything else? What was she eating? Did she drink anything other than champagne?” I’m shouting out questions as if somehow the answers will make me feel less unhinged.
Francesca’s voice wobbles. “I haven’t been with her long. I only saw her drink one glass of champagne. I didn’t see her eat anything. She was talking, then she got sick and fell. That’s all I know, Gio, I swear.”
I press my fingers to Viviana’s neck, searching for her pulse. The guests are scattering, my men clearing the club. The music cuts out, the lights go up, and I let out a curse when I finally feel Vivi’s heartbeat kick against her skin.
It’s weak, but there.
“Oddio, passerotta mia. Hang on. I’m going to get you out of here. Don’t you fucking die on me, Viviana. Stay with me.”
“Die?” Elio’s voice cuts through the ringing in my ears. I look up to find him standing over us.
“Come here,” I order him. “Smell.”
He joins me on the ground, sniffing near her mouth. “Is that…garlic?”
I nod. “I’ve barely seen her eat. Have you?”
He’s been watching her on my orders. “No. Signora Marchetti has had five glasses of champagne, but nothing to eat.”
“So the garlic smell didn’t come from food. Fuck!”
Elio and I exchange a look. “It can’t be, can it? Arsenic?”
My heart locks for an entire beat. “The smell, the clamminess, the sudden vomiting—the symptoms fit, but the doctor will need to confirm.”
Beneath my fingers, Viviana’s pulse stutters. I curl over her, silently vowing to kill whoever did this. Whoever is trying to take her from me.
I wield the power over Viviana’s life. I’m the one who decides her fate. Not the Pazzis or anyone else. Not yet. Not while she’s still mine.
Except you aren’t all-powerful, Giovanni. You weren’t two years ago, and you aren’t now. Some things will always be out of your control.
For one blinding second, the body on the ground ceases to be Viviana. It becomes another woman entirely. My sister. And I have to give my head a violent shake in order to tear myself out of the past and deal with the present.
Vampa comes to a halt beside me. “The helo is landing. The doctor is already en route to the villa. He’ll meet you on the helipad. We have to move her. Now.”
Viviana is a dead weight as I lift her from the ground and cradle her in my arms. Her head lolls dangerously to one side. Elio looks at me, silently asking permission to touch her.
I nod; he steadies her head in his hands. Together, we run through the back of the club, through the doors my men are holding open, and into the waiting helicopter.
“Fifteen minutes,” Vampa barks before closing us in. Fifteen minutes until we’re on the island and the doctor can administer the test, confirm if she’s been poisoned.
It’s the longest fifteen minutes of my life.
Viviana cycles through vomiting, crying out in pain, and lapsing back into unconsciousness. I rub her back, wipe her face.
We reach the island.
Elio has the helicopter door open before the landing gear touches down. He’s holding one end of a gurney as I carry Viviana out, gingerly placing her on her back. The doctor is already here, as Vampa promised. He orders me out of his way.
It’s painful and humbling to know that there are times when even I can’t be in charge. Screaming at the heavens won’t help Viviana. Beating someone bloody won’t either. It damn near killed me when I went through it with my sister, Aurora’s mom. It’s no less excruciating now.
In fact, somehow, this feels even worse…
The doctor draws the blood he needs to run the test, his voice clipped as he confirms that medical equipment is already en route to her room, per Vampa’s instructions.
As soon as the doctor takes the needle out of Vivi’s vein, we’re running.
Between me, Elio, and the half dozen men who met us on the helipad, we keep Viviana steady on the gurney as we rush her up to the house and into her room.
Vampa and Francesca have already arrived via another helicopter; they follow Doctor Santi in behind us.
The commotion prompts a flurry of activity inside the little bird’s box. I motion one of the guards to take it to my suite.
Santi joins me at Viviana’s bedside.
The look he gives me freezes the blood in my veins. I force myself to ask, “Could it be arsenic?”
“It could. It’s the most likely diagnosis, based on the symptoms the signora is presenting. The blood test will confirm it. They are highly accurate when the exposure is acute and recent. But even my private lab will need a few hours to get the results.”
The world seems very, very far away. “The treatment in the meantime?”
The doctor drops his attention to Viviana. She’s so still in the bed. Unconscious but breathing. “You won’t like it.”
“I don’t care if I fucking like it!” I roar. “I only care if it keeps her alive!”
At my outburst, the entire room goes silent. Vampa sends the guards out. He signals for Elio to follow. The younger man exits, softly closing the door behind him. I’m left behind with Viviana, Vampa, Francesca, and the doctor.
The last speaks. “Is it likely your wife ingested the arsenic in the past hour or two?”
“Yes.”
“You’re absolutely sure?” He isn’t shy about looking at the others. “There’s no chance she was showing signs of poisoning before tonight? No chance that someone in the villa would attempt to kill her?”
I lock eyes with Vampa. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t blink.
The old man is loyal to his core. He wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the plans we’ve put in place, not if it would end up hurting Aurora.
To him, Viviana is something to be bartered, traded.
He knows as well as I do that she’s only valuable to us alive.
I shift to Francesca. There is no love lost between her and Viviana.
I know how jealous Francesca is. She has always wanted to be Signora Marchetti.
In many ways, she’s been filling that role platonically since she moved into the villa.
I’m not blind to how upset she is by Viviana’s arrival, but I also know Francesca would never betray me or the Family in any way.
Not after what we’ve been through together.
I turn to the doctor. “I’m absolutely sure. No one on the island would dare hurt the signora. If she’s been poisoned, it happened on the mainland. And the only place she’s been on the mainland is inside my hotel.”
Where she should’ve been safe.
The doctor doesn’t give me time to dwell on my failure, or the unforgiving memories it forces to the surface.
“Sì, sì. Prego. In which case, given how recently she was poisoned, the least invasive treatment—and the one with the lowest chance for serious side effects—is to flush the poison out of her system. I’ll pump her stomach, give her activated charcoal to help absorb any remaining toxins, then replace her fluids with an IV and keep her under close observation. That is the first line of attack.”
Fuck. “And after that, if it doesn’t work?”
The doctor grips my shoulder, looking grim. “Let’s not cross that bridge unless we have to.”
I barely feel myself nod, unable to tear my eyes from my wife’s face. “Do it. Velocemente. Whatever you have to do, just do it now. You can’t let her die, Santi. Promise me you won’t let her die.”
“I’ll do everything I can, Giovanni. Now”—he starts to strip off his coat and roll up his sleeves—“until the nurses arrive, I’m going to need your help.”
Roughly an hour later, Viviana is deep asleep in her bed. Doctor Santi is still checking the various fluid lines and wires that connect her to the monitors.
Some of the color has returned to her cheeks following the gruesome process of pumping her stomach, and the doctor has reported that her vitals are reassuringly steady.
It will be a while before we know if Viviana is out of the woods, but he’s fairly confident we flushed the poison out of her system before it could do real damage.
Still, I feel like I’m walking a tightrope between relief and despair. One misstep and we’ll go careening in the wrong direction.
“Giovanni. Signore!”
“What?” I yell at Santi, louder than intended.
Viviana stirs, whimpering slightly as her hand seeks her stomach.
I thumb a strand of hair from her forehead. “Shhhh, passerotta mio. Shhhh. I’m sorry, Viviana. Rest.”
Once she’s settled, I glare at the doctor.
He glares back. “I’m sorry for disturbing you, Gio, but now that your wife is resting, you need to get cleaned up. I can’t allow you to stay so close if there’s any chance trace contaminants ended up on you while we were flushing her system.”
Flushing her system.
Such a clinical way to describe such an awful process, forcing fluids into her via a tube and drawing them back out again, over and over until everything ran clear.
We washed her face, her hands. Stripped off her clothes and washed her body too.
The process was laborious, excruciating to watch, and I never want to do it again.
By the time the doctor and I got Viviana into fresh clothes and into bed, we were both soaked with sweat.
I know I need to get cleaned up, but I haven’t been able to leave her. Can’t tear my eyes off her face.
My need to protect Viviana is ferocious, consuming—and goes against everything I’ve set in motion.
“Get cleaned up, Giovanni,” Santi repeats the order, pulling me out of my head. “Then talk to your family. They’ll be anxious for news about your wife.”
When I don’t move, he puts a fatherly hand on my shoulder. “I’ll stay with her until you return. Go. Before I bring Vampa in here and have him drag you out.”
He’d do it, too. Santi has been a trusted family ally since before I was born. And friends with Vampa for just as long. If he wants me out of this room, he can make it happen.
“Fine,” I say, giving in. “I’m going, I’m going.”
I rush to my suite and speed through a shower, returning to Viviana’s room right after to make sure her condition hasn’t changed. When the doctor waves me off, I go in search of Vampa and Francesca.
I don’t have to go far. Both are hovering at the top of the stairs, talking in low voices. They stop as soon as they see me.
“How is the signora?” asks Vampa.
“Stable,” I answer. “At least for the moment.”
Francesca is glaring at the ground. She might’ve been worried about Viviana back at the club, but now that the doctor thinks my wife is going to pull through, she’s reverted to being perpetually pissed off where Viviana is concerned. “You should move her.”
I step closer to the woman. “What?”
“You heard what I said, Gio. If she’s stable, you should move her out of that room. Off the island. She doesn’t belong here.”
“Where do you suggest she belongs, Francesca?”
“Anywhere but here.” The words come out as a reflex. A gut reaction she’s unable to control. As soon as Francesca realizes what she says, she goes incredibly pale.
Paler still, when she sees the rage I’m barely able to contain. “Careful, Francesca. You seem to have forgotten what I said in the club. Or is it possible you weren’t listening to begin with?” I drag her toward me, grip unbreakable. “Was it you?”
“Me?”
“Did you poison Viviana?”
Her face blanks. Her eyes terrifyingly wide. “I-I wouldn’t. You know I wouldn’t.”
“I thought I did. Told myself that you’d never betray me like that. But you can’t seem to let it go, Francesca. I keep warning you, and you keep pushing.”
I manhandle her until her back hits the nearby wall.
Vampa watches from over my shoulder. “Was tonight the breaking point? The moment you decided to take matters into your own hands and get rid of Viviana yourself? I know you have enough pharmaceuticals in your room to get the job done. But, arsenic? That’s a little Agatha Christie, don’t you think? ”
“Gio, stop!” Francesca’s voice is pained. Her composure gone. “I swear, I didn’t poison your wife. It wasn’t me.”
“Promise me on Aurora’s life.”
She doesn’t flinch. “I promise. On Aurora’s life. I didn’t try to kill your wife.”
I let time stretch. Let her see how close I am to banishing her from the island. “Don’t make me doubt you again. And until you can accept the fact that I’m married, that Viviana is my wife, stay the fuck away from her and me.”
I release her. “Go.”
Francesca rushes to the stairs, down to the next floor to her room.
She doesn’t risk looking back. Once she’s gone, I turn to my underboss.
“Someone tried to murder Viviana tonight.” I sound cold, detached; meanwhile, every molecule inside of me is seething.
“Find the person who did this. I don’t care who you hurt, who you kill—you find the person responsible and bring them to me. ”
Resistance radiates off him in waves. What the fuck is with my people tonight?!
I stand my ground, reminding him who exactly is in charge.
“I don’t give a fuck what you think about her, old man.
You know as well as I do, she needs to stay alive.
So, we need to know who is behind this, need to make sure they don’t have the chance to try again.
And we both know where you need to start. ”
The Romanos.
Vampa’s spine relaxes a fraction. “Sì, Signore.”
I can already see the ruthless calculations he’s doing in his head. It pulls a sick smile to my lips.
I’m lethal. But Vampa is the one who taught me everything I know. When he gets his hands on whoever is responsible, they’re going to wish they’d taken the poison themselves.