Page 72 of His Playground

“I want the entire kitchen staff in chains,” I tell Sammie. Whoever did this is going to pay.

“Done.” He nods and exits the room, leaving Louie behind.

“It was supposed to be me,” I whisper.

“I know,” he says.

I never should have let her swap that food. I thought it was odd for the kitchen to send up a different dish, but I put it down to me requesting an extra plate at the last minute and the chefnot having enough. I didn’t think it was because someone was out to fucking poison me.

“She told me to kill him,” I say to Louie.

“Who?”

“Her father. She told me to kill him before he killed me,” I explain.

“She loves you.” He nods. “And she’s right. We need to end this.”

“I need to know what’s on that drive first. I need to know why he wants it.” I’ve been slowly going through the files. At the moment, I’m not seeing much.

Well, all of it is enough to put him behind bars. But other than that, nothing would cause waves in our world. I’d never hand it over to authorities. I’m a lot of things, but a rat isn’t one of them.

There’s a knock on the door. The doctor walks into the room a moment later. “Mr. Bianchi.” He nods to me. “How long has she been asleep?”

“I don’t know. About ten minutes,” I tell him.

“Okay, give me some space,” he says, placing his bag on the bed.

“She’s going to be okay, right? You can fix this?”

“I was told she only ingested a spoonful of the contaminated food?” the doc asks me.

“That’s right.” I nod my head.A spoonful too fucking much.

“We need to flush her system. Get the toxins out. I’ll run some IV fluids through her as well. I think she’s going to be okay,” he says.

“You think?Thinkisn’t good enough. She needs to be okay!” I yell at him.

“Carlo, calm down. Let the doctor do his job.” Louie shoves at my chest, pushing me backwards.

“Calm down?My wife was fucking poisoned.” I shove him back.

“I’m aware. And as soon as we know she’s okay, we’re going to turn this anger on the people who deserve it,” he says.

Jazzy’s scream has my head snapping to the left.Fuck.

“Go check on your daughter. I’ll stay here,” Louie tells me.

“I can’t leave Antonia. What if she wakes up and I’m not here?” I ask him.

“You can’t be in two places at once.” Louie points to the bed. “And Jazzy can’t see this.”

He’s right.She can’t see Antonia sick like this.

“I’ll be two seconds.”

I sprint out of the room, stopping at Jazzy’s door. I find Emmanuel sitting on the floor with her in his lap, her head on his shoulder. He’s saying something to her in Spanish. She seems settled. She’s not screaming or looking for me. Emmanuel nods, letting me know he’s got it, so I go back to my wife.

How do people do this? Split themselves between the ones who need them.