"Someone Is Poisoning You," The Little Maid’s Daughter Whispered That My Fiancée Was Poisoning Me—Then One Butter Dish Exposed the Woman Sent to Inherit My Empire

Salvatore Moretti.

My mother’s younger brother. My uncle.

The man who sat at my Christmas table every year, who drank my wine, and who had stood beside my father’s casket promising to guide me when I took over the family business at twenty-five.

The pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place with sickening clarity.

Salvatore had been complaining for months about my 'soft' leadership style. He hated that I preferred legal investments, shipping contracts, and real estate over narcotics and extortion. He wanted the Romano empire to return to the blood-soaked days of my father.

And if I died of a sudden, undetectable illness without an heir, the leadership of the Romano family would naturally fall to him as the oldest surviving relative.

Isabella hadn't just been a gold-digger; she was Salvatore’s Trojan horse. A high-society girl recruited to slip into my bed and poison my bread while Salvatore waited in the shadows to inherit my throne.

I put down the receiver and walked over to the window, looking out over the autumn garden.

“Marco,” I spoke into the intercom.

“Yes, Don Romano?”

“Bring Isabella down to the wine cellar.”

Ten minutes later, I walked down the stone stairs into the subterranean cold of the estate’s wine cellar. The air was thick with the scent of oak barrels, damp earth, and old vintage wines.

Isabella was tied to a wooden chair in the center of the room, illuminated by a single hanging bulb. Her white silk shirt was disheveled, her hair falling wild around her pale face.

I stood in front of her, holding a thick folder of bank records that Marco had just pulled from her private safe deposit box.

“Two million dollars,” I said, tossing the folder onto a wooden wine crate in front of her. “Wired from a shell account in Zurich registered to Salvatore Moretti.”

Isabella flinched at the name.

“He promised you total immunity, didn't he?” I sneered softly. “He told you that once I was in the ground, he would marry you off to a wealthy politician in Boston with a clean name and five million dollars in cash.”

Isabella closed her eyes, a tear cutting through the dust on her cheek.

“He told me you were a monster,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “He said you killed your own brother in Sicily.”

“My brother died of leukemia when I was twelve,” I said coldly. “Salvatore lied to you about everything, Isabella. Just as he lied to my father, and just as he lied to the commission.”

I leaned in close, my face inches from hers.

“And do you know what Salvatore will do the moment he finds out you failed?” I asked softly. “He won't pay you two million dollars. He will put a bullet in your head to ensure you never speak to the federal prosecutors.”

Isabella gasped, pure terror washing over her face. She knew I was telling the truth. In our world, failed assassins were never allowed to live.