Chapter 7 - The Poisoner's Shadow
By quarter past twelve, the great mahogany dining room on the first floor was filled with the heavy stench of expensive cigars and nervous perspiration.
The table was set for twelve, though only seven men sat around the antique perimeter.
At the far head of the table sat Rhett Marquetti, dressed in a bespoke midnight-blue suit that concealed the thick white medical bandages wrapped around his ribs.
To his immediate left sat Lorenzo, whose smile was as sharp and brittle as cheap glass.
Standing directly behind Rhett’s high-backed leather chair was Winnie Doyle.
She was no longer wearing her blue smock; Rhett had instructed the head housekeeper to provide her with a formal black wool service dress with a high collar and long sleeves.
It was stiff, uncomfortable, and made her look like a Victorian headmistress, but she carried a heavy silver water pitcher with the posture of a palace guard.
Beneath the folds of the heavy black apron she wore over the skirt, her right hand rested comfortably against the heavy hickory handle of a commercial floor scraper she had shortened with a hacksaw that morning.
“The numbers from the South Boston docks are down eight percent for the second quarter, Rhett,” Lorenzo said, casually waving a Churchill cigar between two manicured fingers.
“The longshoremen’s union is demanding another two points on the offloading fees for the container ships from Rotterdam.”
Rhett leaned forward, resting his chin on his steepled fingers, his face an impenetrable mask of dark confidence.
Nobody at the table could have guessed that four hours earlier, his blood had been flooded with chemical antidote and his heart had nearly given up its rhythm.
“The longshoremen will take what they’re given, Lorenzo,” Rhett said, his voice deep, gravelly, and commanding.
“They take forty percent, we take sixty.”
“If their local president has an issue with the split, tell him he can explain it to the Coast Guard when his personal yacht mysteriously hits a submerged ledge off Newport.”
A low chuckle rippled through the older capos around the table.
These were men who had served Rhett’s father: old-school killers who respected strength and despised hesitation above all else.
Lorenzo’s smile flickered, a tiny muscle twitching beneath his eye as he looked down at his silver plate.
“You seem remarkably energetic today, cousin,” Lorenzo said, his voice dripping with subtle, poisoned curiosity.
“I heard from the staff that you had a... restless night.”
The dining room went completely silent; even the clinking of silverware against china came to an abrupt halt.
Rhett did not blink.
“I had a wonderful night, Lorenzo,” Rhett said smoothly.
“I had an unexpected visitor who reminded me that when a house has termites in the floorboards, you don't call an exterminator.”
“You burn the floor and shoot the contractor who installed the wood.”
Lorenzo’s hand tightened imperceptibly around his water glass.
At that moment, the double service doors swung open, and two waitresses from the catering staff entered carrying heavy silver trays containing the dessert service.
Among them walked a woman Winnie had never seen before: tall, slender, with dark hair tied back in a silk scarf, wearing the traditional black-and-white uniform of the estate staff.
She carried a small, covered porcelain bowl directly toward Rhett’s position at the head of the table.
Winnie’s eyes immediately tracked the newcomer’s hands.
The girl wasn't holding the tray by the balance point beneath the silver platter; she was gripping the rim with her thumbs pressed hard against the ceramic cover.
Her nails were short, unpolished, and completely free of the burns and calluses that every legitimate kitchen worker carried.
More importantly, as she stepped around the side of the chair, she didn't look at Rhett’s face.
She looked directly at Lorenzo Marquetti, whose left hand had just dropped beneath the edge of the mahogany table.
“The boss’s private panna cotta,” the girl murmured, her voice carrying a distinct northern New Jersey accent that had no business in a Providence kitchen.
She reached out to set the dish down directly in front of Rhett.
Before the porcelain could touch the polished wood, Winnie Doyle stepped forward with the speed of an angry bear.
She did not ask questions; she slammed the heavy silver water pitcher down directly onto the girl’s right wrist.
The crack of the silver hitting bone echoed through the dining room like a hammer striking an anvil.
The girl let out an ear-piercing shriek, the porcelain bowl slipping from her numb fingers and shattering into a hundred pieces across the mahogany tabletop.
A thick, creamy white dessert spilled across the wood, immediately dissolving into a frothing, bubbling gray sludge where it touched the silver candelabra.
“Get down!” Winnie roared, her voice booming with the authority of thirty years of dockside shouting.
She grabbed Rhett by the collar of his expensive blue suit with both hands and hauled him bodily backward out of his chair, sending them both crashing to the floor behind the sideboard.
The girl pulled a nickel-plated automatic pistol from the pocket of her apron with her uninjured left hand.
Before she could level the barrel at the floor where Rhett lay, Tommy Velez burst through the double doors, his eyes wide and wild with desperate adrenaline.
He didn't hesitate; he raised his twelve-gauge duty shotgun and fired once directly into the ceiling.
The deafening roar of the shotgun blast brought a shower of plaster, crystal chandelier fragments, and white dust down across the entire dining room.
The capos scrambled backward from the table, overturning chairs, drawing their weapons, and shouting in three different dialects of Italian.
Lorenzo was already on his feet, his cane forgotten, scrambling toward the terrace doors that opened onto the back gardens.
Rhett rolled to his feet instantly, his face a mask of cold, murderous rage, entirely unbothered by the plaster dust coating his hair.
He pulled a heavy semi-automatic pistol from his shoulder holster, stepped over the shattered porcelain, and aimed it directly through the French doors.
“Lorenzo!” Rhett’s voice cut through the gunfire, the screams, and the smoke like a thunderclap.
May you like
The fleeing cousin froze with his hand on the brass latch of the terrace door, looking back over his shoulder into the black muzzle of Rhett’s weapon.
***
