"At 12:14 a.m., my housekeeper’s three-year-old daughter climbed into my bed and announced she could do what doctors failed to do for three years: make me sleep. But just as my eyes began to close, the fearless little girl whispered a description of the person who visited my room whenever I 'almost slept'—and pointed straight to someone in my own family."

I tucked Lily into her small cot, watching her instantly drift back into untroubled slumber, clutching her one-eared rabbit.

Then I walked back up the private spiral staircase to my suite, locking the heavy oak bedroom door behind me. I didn't turn on the lights. I stood in the darkness, letting the moonlight cut through the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the glittering Manhattan skyline.

“He smells like old mint, Mr. Moretti. And he wears shiny shoes like the pictures in the den.”

That was what Lily had whispered before falling quiet.

Old mint. Shiny Italian leather shoes. Access to the private master suite on the top floor of the Moretti Tower—a floor secured by biometric iris scanners and encrypted keycards that only three living people possessed: myself, my head of security, and my cousin, Dante Moretti.

Dante.

The golden boy of the family. The charismatic vice president of Moretti Holdings who always played the role of the supportive, slightly overworked sibling, managing public relations while I handled the ruthless underbelly of our shipping and real estate empire. Dante, who always smelled faintly of expensive peppermint lozenges because of his chronic throat issues. Dante, who had insisted on personally bringing me a cup of "special herbal calming tea" every single night for the past thirty-six months.

My stomach churned violently. I rushed to the en-suite bathroom, gripping the marble sink as a cold sweat broke out across my back.

Tea.

Lily had mentioned tea earlier. “Medicine? Yes. Tea? Yes... but it didn’t work.”

For three years, Dante had played the dutiful cousin, entering my room after I finally drifted into a chemically induced haze—or slipping something into the decanter of water and evening tea my private chef prepared—ensuring my insomnia remained chronic, my mind remained foggy, and my grip on the company slowly eroded.

They weren't trying to cure me. They were slowly poisoning me.

By 2:00 a.m., my mind was operating with the cold, calculated precision of a machine. I didn't panic. Panic was for amateurs. When you head a syndicate like the Morettis, betrayal is an occupational hazard; you don't mourn a traitor, you trap them.

I walked out to my desk, bypassed my main computer terminal, and pulled out an encrypted satellite phone that connected directly to my most trusted fixer, Salvatore.

“Boss?” Salvatore answered on the first ring, his voice sharp and instantly awake despite the hour. “Is everything alright? The perimeter sensors show clear—”

“Sal, listen to me very carefully,” I interrupted, my voice dead calm. “I want you to pull every security camera log from the private elevator lobby on the forty-fifth floor for the past thirty days. Specifically between midnight and 4:00 a.m.”

“The forty-fifth floor? That’s only accessible from your private residential wing, Dante’s office, and the executive boardroom.”

“Do it. And Sal?”

“Yeah, Boss?”

“Get in touch with Dr. Evelyn Vance, the independent toxicologist we used during the Port Authority dispute two years ago. Have her meet me at my private medical lab off-site in Manhattan in four hours. Bring a sample of the herbal tea blend left on my nightstand.”

A heavy, dangerous silence hung on the line. Salvatore had served my father before me; he knew the sound of a coup unfolding in the dark.

“Consider it done, Mr. Moretti. Shall I bring backup?”

“No. Not yet. Let’s see how deep the rot goes first.”

I hung up the phone and walked back to the nightstand. There, resting on a silver coaster, was a porcelain cup half-filled with the steaming chamomile tea Dante’s personal assistant had delivered to my door at 10:00 p.m.

I picked up the cup, smelled it, and detected the faint, sharp undertone of mint. But beneath the pleasant aroma lay something else—a faint, metallic bitter tang that normal taste buds would miss, especially when masked by honey and lemon.

A slow, humorless smile spread across my face. For three years, they thought they were driving me insane. They thought the sleep deprivation would cause me to mismanage the upcoming board vote on the global shipping merger, allowing Dante to take over as acting CEO.