Page 99 of Ruthless Vow
He blinks. Swallows. Nods.
“His wine glass. Don’t touch the rim. Get it. Get the bottle. Get anything he ate.” Giada’s hands haven’t stopped moving, checking Dante’s pupils, his reflexes. “We need to know what’s in his system. Can you do that?”
“Yes.” His voice comes out rough. He clears his throat. “Yes. I can do that.”
He moves. Not fast, but deliberate. Careful. He grabs Dante’s glass by the stem, holds it up to the light.
“The olives,” he says. “He was the only one who ate the olives from the antipasto. And the bread with the oil. He dipped it twice. I watched him.”
“Get all of it. Don’t let anyone touch that table.”
Marco nods. Keeps working. His hands aren’t steady, but they’re moving.
Pietro appears with Giada’s medical bag. She tears into it, pulling out equipment I don’t recognize. Vials. Syringes. A stethoscope.
“Dante.” I touch his face again. His skin is wrong. All wrong. “Dante, can you hear me? I’m here. I’m right here.”
Nothing. His eyes stay closed.
“I need you to wake up.” My voice cracks. “I need you to look at me. Please.”
Giada slides a needle into his arm. Pushes something into his veins.
“What is that?” I ask. “What are you giving him?”
“Atropine. It’s a guess.” Her mouth is a thin line. “Until I know what poison, I’m treating symptoms. If I guess wrong, he dies.”
“Dante.” I lean closer. My forehead touches his. “You have to fight. Do you hear me? You have to fight this. You don’t get to leave me. You don’t get to.”
My voice breaks.
I never told him I love him.
One. Two. Three.The numbers come back on their own, stitching through my panic like a lifeline I didn’t reach for.
“I love you.” I whisper it against his throat. Where his pulse should be hammering. “Do you hear me? I love you. I never gotto tell you but I do and you don’t get to die without knowing that.”
Four. Five. Six.The count tangled into the syllables of his name in my head, each number a heartbeat I’m demanding from him.
A sob tears through me. I can’t stop it. Can’t control it.
“Cassia.” Giada’s hand on my arm. “I need to check his airway. I need you to move back a little.”
I don’t want to. Can’t bear to put even an inch between us. But I do. Because she’s trying to save him.
“Renzo.” Giada’s voice carries. “I need a stretcher. We need to get him to the medical wing. I can’t work on him here.”
“Called for it already.”
I look up. Lorenzo is standing near the entrance, phone in hand. His face hasn’t changed. But I see his other hand. Pressed against his thigh. His fingers white at the knuckles. He’s holding himself together by sheer force of will.
“Romano.”
The name drops into the silence like a stone into water.
Lorenzo doesn’t look at me. His eyes scan the room. The table. The empty chair where a man sat twenty minutes ago.
“Where is Romano?”
