Chapter 6 - The Poisoned Lily
The panic room behind the master closet was lined with six inches of ballistic steel.
It contained a small cot, two weeks of emergency rations, water filtration, and a bank of fourteen monitors displaying the manor’s closed-circuit cameras.
Natalie sat with Ava on the cot for forty-five minutes.
To keep the child from spiraling into terror, Natalie taught her a thumb-tapping rhythm game.
One, two, tap the shoe.
Three, four, count the floor.
Ava followed along, her focus locked on Natalie’s hands, completely insulated from the silent alarm that had locked down the estate above them.
On the security screens, Natalie watched the courtyard gates swing open.
Three black SUVs tore into the cobblestone drive at breakneck speed, spraying gravel.
Damian DeLuca stepped out of the lead vehicle before it had fully stopped.
He didn’t enter through the front doors.
He motioned to four tactical guards, who immediately fanned out to encircle the perimeter of the manor.
Ten minutes later, the heavy steel door of the panic room buzzed with an electronic chime.
The handle turned.
Damian stood in the doorway.
His overcoat was damp with rain.
Behind him stood Marcus, holding a heavy ballistic case containing the extracted transmitter.
Ava looked up from the cot, her eyes brightening.
“Daddy! I found the music box in the books!”
Damian stepped inside, dropping to one knee before his daughter.
He reached out and stroked her hair with incredible gentleness, hiding the tension in his shoulders.
“You have incredible ears, little bird,” Damian murmured.
“You saved our house today.”
Ava beamed with pride, holding up the wooden ball.
“Natalie said I was brave.”
“You are very brave,” Damian agreed softly.
He looked up at Natalie.
His eyes were dark, burning with a cold, focused fury.
“Mrs. Gable took Ava’s lunch tray up to the conservatory thirty minutes ago,” Damian said quietly.
Natalie frowned.
“We weren’t in the conservatory. We were in the library.”
“I know,” Damian replied.
“The soup on that tray was laced with a concentrated dose of digitalis.”
Natalie’s breath caught in her throat.
Digitalis.
A powerful cardiac toxin.
In a child of Ava’s weight, it would have induced fatal arrhythmia within twenty minutes.
“Mrs. Gable?” Natalie whispered, horrified.
“The woman who has run your household for twenty years?”
“Mrs. Gable didn’t prepare the food,” Damian said, rising to his feet.
“The kitchen staff did. Under the supervision of our new head chef.”
Damian turned toward the corridor.
“The head chef was hired four weeks ago. His employment references were verified by a boutique catering agency in downtown Chicago.”
Natalie stepped out into the hallway, leaving Ava safely inside the panic room under Marcus’s watchful eye.
“Who owns the catering agency?” Natalie asked, already dreading the answer.
“A shell company registered under the name of Richard Sloan,” Damian replied coldly.
The name hit Natalie like a physical blow.
Richard Sloan.
The man Meredith Sloan had pleaded with over the phone at Bellamy & Stone.
The owner of the retail building.
“Meredith Sloan wasn’t just an arrogant boutique manager,” Natalie realized, pieces of the puzzle falling into place with terrifying clarity.
“She was an asset,” Damian confirmed.
“Her brother runs money-laundering logistics for Salvatore Moretti. The incident at Bellamy & Stone wasn’t an accident.”
Damian walked down the wide hallway toward the grand staircase.
“They staged Ava’s separation to test my security response. When that failed, and when Julian’s debt route fell through, they activated their sleeper in my kitchen.”
They reached the grand foyer.
Sitting on the bottom step, weeping with broken dignity, was Mrs. Gable.
Her apron was stained with spilled soup.
Two armed guards stood at the kitchen entrance, preventing anyone from leaving.
On the floor of the foyer, pinned face-down with zip-ties around his wrists, was the young chef.
His white apron was torn, his chef’s hat discarded near the umbrella stand.
“I didn’t know what was in the powder!” the chef wailed into the floorboards.
“They told me it was a sedative! Just enough to make her sick so she’d have to go to Northwestern Memorial Hospital!”
Damian stopped at the base of the stairs, looking down at the man with utter contempt.
“A hospital transfer provides an open convoy route,” Damian said flatly.
“An armored car is hard to stop on an expressway. An ambulance is easy.”
Damian signaled to the guards.
“Remove him. Hand him to Detective Callahan at the twelfth precinct. Tell Callahan that if this man survives to make bail, I will personally audit the precinct’s pension fund.”
The guards dragged the screaming chef through the side entrance.
Mrs. Gable slowly stood up, her hands trembling as she smoothed her apron.
She looked at Natalie, her haughty, aristocratic pride completely shattered.
“I checked the inventory myself, Ms. Carter,” the old woman whispered, her voice cracking.
“I have served this family since Damian was a boy. I almost served that poison to Ava with my own hands.”
Natalie stepped forward, instinctively placing a comforting hand on the older woman’s trembling forearm.
“It wasn’t your fault, Mrs. Gable. They were calculating every angle. But Ava is safe.”
Mrs. Gable looked at Natalie’s hand, then up into her eyes.
The hostility that had defined their relationship melted away, replaced by profound, tearful gratitude.
“You saved her, child,” Mrs. Gable whispered.
“You protected our little girl.”
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Damian stood watching them from the archway, his dark eyes lingering on Natalie’s face with an expression she could not decipher.
A mixture of awe, dread, and something far more dangerous.
