Page 46 of The Arianna Arrangement

Ari’s eyes met mine, but she didn’t say a word. I pushed the speaker button because there were no secrets here. “You’re on speaker. I’m here with Ari.”

“Lucian is dead.” My eyes widened as they snapped to my wife with surprise. “His security said he went to his office around lunch time saying he had a migraine. I got home around four and went to his office to debrief and found him dead. Fuck. It looks like a stroke, but you know protocol. The other families will want an autopsy so I have to know, Ari, is it going to show anything that contradicts what meets the eye?”

“Are you fucking for real right now Sandro?” My voice was low and cold. “How dare you insinuate she had anything to do with this. We’re not even in the fucking country right now, so how in the world would she have pulled that off if she wanted to?”

He sighed. “You know as well as I do that she doesn’t have an issue ordering a hit. How many have we thwarted because of the little cumstain your sister is dating? I just need to be prepared if this isn’t what it seems.”

“Fuck you, Sandro. I don’t care that you’re the Don now, I’m breaking your nose when I see you.” Was Ari a wild card? Yes. But enough to kill her own father? No.

Ari took the phone out of my hand. “Think about it, Sandro. How would I have ordered a hit on him? The only connections I have are within the family, and no one is stupid enough to do that. It would be a suicide mission.”

“I know. I’m just scared, Ari. I don’t know how the other families will react and I’m not ready to lead the family in a war. I’ve only been fully initiated for two weeks.”

Ari’s eyes closed and her posture relaxed a little. “You’re going to do just fine. The other families won’t want to break the accords as long as nothing shows as suspicious on his autopsy. And even if you just took the oath two weeks ago, Sandro, he’s been training you for this since you were born. Marco will be by your side the whole time, as will Elio. Together you’re going to make the Vitale name better than it’s ever been before.”

He let out a relieved sigh. “Okay. I’ve got to go deal with all this. You two are flying home tomorrow, right?”

I took the phone back from Ari to take care of whatever arrangements we needed to. “Yes. We fly into Crestwood but I’m sure that can be changed.”

“No. Fly back to Crestwood and drive in. Come through New Jersey so you don’t go through anyone else’s territory. We want to take every precaution right now. Bring plenty of security. As many as you can. A rush was put on the autopsy and we were told we could hold the funeral in two days.”

I nodded, not that he could see me. “How long will you need us to stay in New York?” Ari started school in just over a week and while I knew her missing the first few days wouldn’t be a big ordeal, I didn’t want to be in New York any longer than needed.

“You should be able to head back to Crestwood the day after the funeral as long as everything goes well.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I wasn’t going to question him right now. The weight of the world had just been placed on his shoulder, and other than the punch I owed him for suggesting my wife had something to do with her father’s death, he needed support, not questioning.

“Alright. We’ll see you tomorrow. Call back if you need anything.”

He hung up without another word and I reached for Ari’s hand. Even though Lucian was a despicable human being, he was still her father. “Are you okay?”

She smiled at me sadly. “Yeah. But we need to talk.”

Chapter 22

Arianna

The look Tucker gave me when I said we needed to talk said it all. He suspected what I was going to say. After looking around, he turned his attention back to me. “Let’s go back to the room for privacy.”

That was probably a good idea. I didn’t have any reason not to trust his security, but this wasn’t something I could just say in front of anyone.

The walk back to our room was spent in silence and as soon as the door was shut and locked behind us, Tucker turned to me. “Talk.”

“I did it.”

His jaw clenched. “How? We’ve been here for a week.”

I pulled him over to the couch so we could sit. I didn’t want to have this conversation by the door. “Two days before the wedding, I snuck into his room and took one of his migraine pills and replaced it with one that had xylometazoline powder in it. I made sure it wasn’t at the top of the bottle, that way we’d be out of New York before he took it and we couldn’t be framed for it.”

“There’s no framing if you're actually guilty, Ari.” He growled. Tucker was pissed, but it was probably more fear than anger.

“And there’s no murder without evidence. While it’s possible to detect that on an autopsy, they’d have to be looking for it directly. It’s not on typical tox screens because in nasal spray form, it’s available over the counter. I only dosed one pill, so if they test the rest in the batch, nothing will come out suspicious.” I’d made sure to dot every I and cross every T. There was no way this would be pinned on me.

Tucker took my hand in his, his fingers fidgeting with my ring. “Sandro said that the guards said he was complaining of a migraine. Those can cause strokes, right?”

“Yep. All signs will point to a stroke and the autopsy won’t show any evidence of foul play.”

“What if there’s video footage of you tampering with his pills?”