Chapter Five: The First Confession
Bianca Moretti did not look powerful without the white dress.
She looked young.
That made her more dangerous.
Skylar found her in a secure room beneath the hospital wing, arm bruised from restraints, hair loose, eyes too bright. Dominic had allowed the meeting only because Skylar threatened to walk out with her IV pole.
He did not like being threatened.
Skylar liked that he obeyed anyway.
A guard waited outside.
Dominic watched through glass.
Bianca smiled when Skylar entered.
“Still alive.”
“Disappointing?”
“Complicated.”
Skylar sat across from her.
“I need the compound name.”
Bianca leaned back.
“I need a lawyer.”
“You need a father who did not leave you.”
Bianca’s expression snapped.
There.
Skylar kept her voice steady.
“He ran after the ballroom lockdown.”
“He will come for me.”
“No.”
“You do not know him.”
“I know men who use daughters as contracts.”
Bianca’s mouth tightened.
Skylar waited.
Silence did what pressure could not.
Bianca looked down at her bare finger.
The ring was gone.
“He promised me freedom.”
“By marrying Dominic?”
“By surviving him.”
Skylar did not move.
Bianca’s laugh was small and ugly.
“The ring was meant for Dominic after the ceremony. A scratch. A kiss. A tragic cardiac event. I would become the grieving widow.”
“And Lorenzo would control the Rossi estate through you.”
Bianca’s eyes filled.
“I thought I would control something.”
Skylar almost pitied her.
Almost.
“The compound.”
“Vesper-9.”
Skylar’s body went cold.
A military-grade neurotoxin modified for skin absorption.
Illegal in every country that still pretended to have laws.
“Who supplied it?”
“My father.”
“Who inside the estate?”
Bianca looked toward the glass.
Dominic stood behind it, unreadable.
Bianca smiled faintly.
“Matteo opened doors.”
Skylar did not blink.
“Which doors?”
“Medicine. Staff files. East tunnel.”
“Tunnel?”
“The old service passage from the rose garden to the conservatory. Your lover’s house has more veins than a corpse.”
Skylar stood.
Bianca’s voice stopped her.
“You were the doctor from the apartment.”
Skylar turned.
“Lorenzo kept your file.”
A pulse beat at Skylar’s throat.
“Why?”
“Because Dominic knelt for you.”
The room narrowed.
Bianca continued, softer now.
“My father wanted you alive. Dominic offered routes, judges, ports. My father refused.”
Skylar’s mouth went dry.
“What did he accept?”
Bianca looked at her with something like envy.
“Your name.”
Skylar understood slowly.
Then all at once.
Her career.
Her public life.
Dr. Gallagher.
A sacrifice made without her consent.
“He loved you badly,” Bianca said.
Skylar opened the door.
Dominic waited outside.
She did not look at him.
Not yet.
“Get me atropine, pralidoxime, lipid emulsion, magnesium, cooling blankets, and every cufflink from every man in your house.”
Dominic nodded once.
“And Matteo?” he asked.
Skylar finally looked at him.
“Keep him alive.”
His eyes darkened.
“Why?”
“So he can talk.”
That was not mercy.
It was surgery.
