Chapter 2 - The Glass on the Carpet
The clock on the mahogany nightstand clicked to 2:06 a.m. with a sound like a snapping twig.
Rhett Marquetti’s heels drummed against the Persian rug in a violent, staccato rhythm that made the heavy brass floor lamps tremble.
Winnie Doyle did not flinch, even as the boss’s left arm whipped out in an involuntary spasm and struck her knee hard enough to bruise.
She had lived this nightmare once in a tenement hallway on Federal Hill, and she knew that fear was a luxury only spectators could afford.
“Keep that radio keyed, Tommy,” she said without looking over her shoulder.
Her voice was remarkably steady for a woman wearing an eight-dollar poly-blend smock covered in lemon-scented floor wax.
“Tell Dr. Mercer to bring atropine, a portable suction unit, and oxygen tanks immediately.”
Tommy’s knuckles were stark white around the plastic casing of the walkie-talkie.
“How the hell do you know Mercer’s name?” he stammered, his young voice cracking under the weight of the room’s forbidden air.
“I clean the executive wing, you idiot, which means I empty his personal trash every Tuesday and see the bills from Mercer’s private surgical clinic,” Winnie snapped.
She tucked her rolled-up cleaning apron under Rhett’s neck to cushion his skull from the brass clawfoot base of the nightstand.
The man on the floor was known throughout New England as the Iron Prince of Providence.
He was thirty-four years old, built like an undefeated middleweight, and rumored to have put three rival capos into the Seekonk River before his thirtieth birthday.
Yet right now, his skin was the color of damp parchment, and a thin line of pinkish foam was gathering at the left corner of his mouth.
His pupils were shrunk to the size of pinpricks, barely visible beneath half-lidded, quivering lashes.
Winnie recognized that sign instantly from the night shifts she used to pull in the textile mills before the layoffs.
That was not an epileptic seizure brought on by exhaustion or fever.
Epileptic seizures did not cause pinpoint pupils and sudden, catastrophic respiratory depression.
Her eyes darted across the floor, tracking the perimeter of the chaos with the methodical precision of someone who looked for dust in corners.
Six inches from the edge of the bed sat a heavy crystal tumbler.
It had tipped over against the baseboard, spilling a puddle of amber scotch into the plush wool fibers.
Beside the spilled alcohol lay an ice cube that had only half melted, leaving a glossy track across the polished dark walnut flooring.
Next to the melted water was something else that caught the faint ambient glow of the city skyline outside the terrace windows.
It was a faint ring of chalky white residue, completely dry, coating the inside rim of the glass.
Winnie reached out with two fingers, not touching the glass itself, but hovering close enough to catch the scent.
Beneath the smoky peat of the thirty-year-old single malt, there was an unmistakable undercurrent of bitter crushed almonds and burnt copper.
Cyanide or a synthetic organophosphate compound.
A cold chill swept down the center of Winnie’s spine, prickling the fine hairs along her neck.
Someone inside the perimeter had slipped poison into his nightcap, knowing he would lock the door at midnight.
They had banked on the household rule to do the dirty work for them.
They knew that even if he choked, even if he screamed, even if his lungs seized up like rusted iron, the guards outside would stand like statues until sunrise.
“Frank,” Winnie said, her tone dropping into a low, dangerous register.
The senior guard was still standing in the fractured doorway, his hand hovering over the Glock holstered beneath his tailored suit jacket.
His eyes were darting from Rhett’s convulsing body to the broken lock on the floor, sweat glistening on his temples.
“Did you see who brought that tray up at eleven?” she asked.
Frank’s jaw tightened visibly, the muscle jumping beneath his graying stubble.
“Nobody went in except the kitchen staff,” Frank said, his voice flat and defensive.
“Which kitchen staff?” Winnie demanded, wiping a bead of sweat from her own forehead with the back of her forearm.
“Mrs. Gable made the stew, and young Rosa brought up the decanter,” Frank replied, taking a half-step back into the hallway.
“Rosa doesn’t work Mondays,” Winnie said without missing a single beat.
Frank froze in mid-stride.
Before he could formulate a lie, Rhett let out a terrible, gasping groan from deep in his diaphragm.
The violent shaking subsided, replaced by a limp, terrifying stillness that was infinitely worse than the convulsions.
His lips were turning an alarming shade of dusty lavender.
“His airway is blocked,” Winnie whispered, instantly throwing herself forward onto her knees.
She pinched his nose, tilted his chin backward with two grease-stained fingers, and listened closely against his parted lips.
Nothing came out except a wet, shallow rattle that faded into complete silence.
She did not think about who he was, or what his soldiers did to people who crossed the family.
She only thought of Charlie, whose chest had gone quiet behind a three-inch fire door while she screamed his name through the steel slot.
Winnie placed the heel of her hand directly in the center of Rhett’s broad, muscular chest.
She locked her elbows, stacked her other hand over the top, and shoved down with the full, substantial weight of her body.
One.
Two.
Three.
The cartilage in his sternum groaned beneath the force of her compressions.
“Tommy, get in here and blow air into his mouth when I tell you!” she barked over her shoulder.
Tommy looked as if he were about to vomit, his eyes wide and wild with terror.
“I can’t touch him, Doyle! If he dies and my DNA is on his mouth, Lorenzo will flay me alive!”
“If he dies right now, you won't live to see the dawn anyway!” Winnie roared.
Her shout echoed down the long, silent corridor of the mansion’s private quarters.
Tommy scrambled across the threshold on his hands and knees, terror overriding every training protocol he had ever learned.
“Count to thirty!” Winnie ordered, her breath coming in ragged huffs as she threw her body down against the dying boss’s heart.
“Fourteen! Fifteen! Sixteen!”
On the twenty-second compression, Rhett Marquetti’s right hand shot out like an iron clamp.
His long, calloused fingers closed around Winnie’s wrist with bone-crushing strength.
Winnie gasped as his grip tightened, cutting off the circulation to her fingers in an instant.
His dark eyes snapped open, completely wild, burning with an unholy fever and suffocating fury.
He did not see the room, nor did he see Frank or Tommy trembling against the wall.
He only saw the woman kneeling directly over his chest, her dark hair coming loose from its pins, her face inches from his own.
His cracked lips parted, and a single drop of crimson blood leaked from where he had bitten through his tongue.
“Who...” he rasped, his voice sounding like gravel dragged across broken glass.
“Breathe, you stubborn bastard,” Winnie whispered back, leaning her weight down despite the agonizing grip on her wrist.
He pulled her closer, his knuckles turning white, dragging her down until his hot, poisoned breath washed across her cheek.
“Who... broke... the door?” he managed to wheeze, his gaze locking onto her brown eyes.
“I did,” Winnie said, refusing to pull away.
A strange, feral flicker ignited in Rhett’s black pupils before his eyelids fluttered, rolled back, and his head snapped back against the floor.
His grip on her wrist went entirely slack, leaving purple bruises in the shape of five long fingers against her pale skin.
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Outside in the driveway, the high-pitched shriek of an unsilenced ambulance siren tore through the Rhode Island night.
***
