Chapter 4 - The Poisoned Glass
I gave Marcus one instruction.
“Test the juice.”
He contacted Dr. Alan Pierce, the private physician who had cared for my family for twelve years. Alan was discreet, loyal, and lived less than ten minutes from the estate.
A guard met him at the service entrance.
Meanwhile, Patricia stood inside my daughters’ bedroom, waiting for them to drink.
Daniela held the glass with both hands.
Martina stared at hers.
Rosa’s eyes moved toward the antique clock.
She knew we were watching now.
Her face revealed nothing.
“Miss Patricia,” Rosa said, “perhaps I should taste it first.”
Patricia laughed.
“Why? Do you think I would poison children?”
Rosa did not answer.
That silence was answer enough.
Patricia walked toward her.
“You’ve forgotten who employs you.”
“Mr. Moretti employs me.”
“And soon I’ll be his wife.”
“Not yet.”
Patricia’s expression sharpened.
She raised her hand again.
This time, Daniela threw the glass.
It shattered against the wall.
Purple juice splashed across Patricia’s white dress.
Everyone froze.
Daniela stepped in front of Martina.
“We’re not drinking it.”
Patricia looked down at her ruined dress.
When she lifted her face, the mask was gone.
“You ungrateful little brat.”
She seized Daniela by the shoulders.
Rosa pulled her away.
Patricia turned and struck Rosa with the back of her hand.
Rosa stumbled against the dresser but remained standing.
I reached for the surveillance-room door.
Marcus blocked me.
“Thirty seconds.”
“I’m done waiting.”
“Doctor Pierce is taking the sample now.”
“Patricia just put her hands on Daniela.”
“And if we go in without knowing what’s in that bottle, she can claim the entire thing was medicine prescribed by someone else.”
“I don’t care what she claims.”
“You will when Samuel Whitaker produces forged medical records.”
He was right.
That made me hate him for several seconds.
On the screen, Rosa guided the girls into the bathroom and locked the door.
Patricia pounded against it.
“Open this door!”
Rosa whispered something to Daniela.
The girl climbed onto the sink and opened the narrow window above the bathtub.
The window led to a small maintenance balcony.
They were preparing to escape.
Patricia stepped away from the door and pulled out her phone.
“Come upstairs,” she said. “Now.”
Within two minutes, one of my household guards appeared.
His name was Nolan Price.
I had hired him six months earlier after Samuel recommended him.
Nolan was tall, broad, and heavily tattooed beneath his uniform.
“Break the door,” Patricia ordered.
Nolan hesitated.
“The children are inside.”
“Then don’t hurt the children.”
“And Rosa?”
Patricia looked at him coldly.
“She’s trespassing.”
Inside my own house.
Marcus cursed under his breath.
“Price is compromised.”
“Who screened him?”
“Whitaker’s outside firm.”
Every path led back to Samuel.
Nolan rammed his shoulder into the bathroom door.
The frame cracked.
Martina screamed.
Daniela helped her onto the balcony.
Rosa climbed out behind them just as Nolan struck the door again.
Marcus spoke into his radio.
“Team Two, move.”
Two loyal guards emerged from a concealed stairwell and intercepted Nolan in the bedroom.
He reached for his weapon.
They took him down before he cleared the holster.
Patricia stared at them.
“What are you doing?”
One guard removed Nolan’s gun.
The other said, “Security drill, ma’am.”
“What security drill?”
“A breach was detected near the east wing.”
Patricia looked toward the open bathroom.
Rosa and the girls were already gone.
Her face changed.
She knew something was wrong.
Patricia left the room quickly.
We followed her across the camera system as she hurried toward the kitchen, then through the pantry, then toward the underground garage.
“She’s running,” Marcus said.
“Let her.”
“Why?”
“Because she’ll lead us to whoever is waiting.”
Marcus sent an unmarked vehicle to follow her.
Patricia entered a black sedan registered to one of Samuel’s shell companies and drove away.
The estate gates opened remotely.
Marcus looked at me.
“I locked those.”
“Someone overrode you.”
We both turned toward the control panel.
Only a person with executive authorization could override Marcus’s commands.
Me.
Or Victor Dane.
My CFO still had an emergency credential from the years when we transported sensitive documents between company properties.
I should have revoked it long ago.
The door behind us opened.
Dr. Pierce entered holding a sealed evidence bag.
Inside was the blue bottle.
“What is it?” I asked.
He removed his glasses.
“Clonazepam mixed with a fast-acting sedative.”
My throat went dry.
“What would it do to children?”
“At the dose she placed in those glasses? They would lose consciousness within fifteen to twenty minutes.”
“Could it kill them?”
“It could suppress their breathing, especially the younger one.”
Marcus turned away.
I did not.
I needed to hear everything.
“What else?”
“The mixture would likely cause confusion and memory gaps when they woke.”
Patricia had not merely wanted them calm.
She wanted them unconscious and unable to remember clearly.
“Where are my daughters?” I asked.
“Safe room three,” Marcus said. “Rosa is with them.”
I left the surveillance room.
The hidden safe room was behind a false wall in the estate library. Elena and I had installed it after a kidnapping threat years earlier.
When I entered, Martina ran toward me.
I dropped to my knees and held her.
Daniela remained near Rosa.
Her face was guarded.
“Dad,” she said.
“I’m here.”
“You were watching?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
The question carried more pain than anger.
“Since this morning.”
She looked at Rosa’s bruised face.
“And before today?”
I could not lie.
“No.”
Daniela nodded once.
That quiet disappointment nearly broke me.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She crossed her arms.
“You believed Patricia.”
“I did.”
“You believed her about Rosa.”
“Yes.”
“You thought Rosa was stealing.”
“Yes.”
Rosa stepped forward.
“Daniela—”
“No.” My daughter’s eyes filled with tears. “He needs to say it.”
So I did.
“I failed you.”
The words felt small compared with the damage.
“I let someone teach me to doubt the people who loved this family. I saw signs, and I explained them away because the truth was inconvenient.”
Martina clung tighter to me.
Daniela’s chin trembled.
“Are you still going to marry her?”
“No.”
“Are you going to stop her?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
I looked toward Rosa.
“By finding out what she did to your mother.”
The room became silent.
Rosa removed the invoice from her pocket.
“I should have told you sooner.”
“You tried.”
“Not hard enough.”
“You were threatened.”
“So were your daughters.”
She handed me the paper.
On the back, written in Elena’s handwriting, were seven words.
Gabriel, Victor knows the brakes were changed.
My knees nearly gave way.
The official report had said Elena lost control before the truck crossed the median.
The brakes had never been mentioned.
Below that sentence, Elena had written a phone number.
Marcus dialed it.
A recorded message answered.
“This number is no longer in service.”
He traced the old account.
The line had belonged to a mechanic named Thomas Bell.
Bell had disappeared two days after Elena’s funeral.
No bank activity.
No employment record.
No death certificate.
Nothing.
Marcus’s phone rang.
The unmarked vehicle following Patricia had lost her near the highway.
But the tracker hidden inside her car was still transmitting.
She had stopped at an abandoned medical clinic twenty miles north of the estate.
Then the tracker went dark.
A second later, my phone received a photograph from an unknown number.
It showed Patricia standing beside Victor Dane.
Between them sat a thin, frightened man tied to a chair.
Marcus studied the image.
“That’s Thomas Bell.”
A message appeared beneath the photograph.
Bring Rosa and the original invoice by midnight.
May you like
Come alone.
Or the only man who can prove your wife was murdered will disappear for good.
