My Second Marriage with the Mafia Kingpin novel Chapter 339

Chapter 339: Cigarettes

According to Raka, the cases he had found that resembled Lucian’s were rare. However, they all shared the same circumstances that led to it.

Most of them had worked in factories handling certain chemicals and had been exposed to a particular type of air over an extended period. They were predominantly older men, with the youngest in his late thirties — though given that Lucian’s exposure had apparently begun in his "teenage years," that discrepancy made sense.

"That’s why I’m asking if you ever worked in a factory." Raka looked at Lucian with a flat expression, sipping his coffee. "There’s no shame in it."

He delivered the diagnosis as casually as if commenting on the weather.

Ashley and Lucian processed his explanation in silence. She turned to Lucian, catching how tightly his brows were drawn together.

I don’t know much about his life before our marriage, she thought. But I can’t imagine he had any reason to work in a factory.

As far as she knew, Lucian had grown up privileged — the heir to the previous don of Dominion.

Lucian, for his part, knew with certainty that he had never worked in the conditions Raka was describing. He glanced at Ashley and gave a quiet shake of his head.

"Are you sure it’s just that?" Ashley asked, turning to Raka. "I mean — if it’s something inhaled, how is he the only one affected?"

"Did you work in the same factory?"

Ashley pressed her lips together. It was complicated. They had told Raka everything relevant — Lucian’s lifestyle, his insomnia, the broader picture. But there were things they couldn’t disclose, and it wasn’t because they feared Raka would talk.

It was because knowing more could put him in danger.

Silence settled over the office. Ashley turned it over in her mind while Lucian quietly watched Raka finish his coffee. Then, after a moment, Lucian asked the only question that truly mattered.

"Can it be cured?"

Ashley snapped out of her thoughts and looked up, eyes fixed on Raka.

Raka drank from his cup. He blinked at them, tilted his head, and held the cup loosely against his chest.

"You’re already treating it."

The couple stared at him.

"What?" Ashley blurted out.

Raka shook his head and set the cup down on the table. "Give me more," he said, and — as if she were his personal attendant — Ashley refilled his cup without a word.

"You mentioned months ago that he was having trouble sleeping, which eventually progressed into insomnia," he began. "But because of his lifestyle changes and the tea he’d been taking, it served as a meaningful intervention before the poison could fully compromise his system."

He cleared his throat and stood. "Here, let me show you."

Raka picked up the results from his desk and returned to the couch across from them, spreading the imaging out on the table in chronological order.

"This is his first scan, from when he was initially diagnosed."

Lucian and Ashley leaned in, eyes moving across the images as Raka walked them through each one.

She saved me again. Without even knowing it.

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