Chapter 2 - Cold Almond
Dominic carried the twins without jarring their sleep, each step deliberate, gliding toward the mounted monitor beside the liquor cabinet. Elena followed close behind, holding the contaminated bottle by its rubber collar, treating it like live ordnance. On the split-screen security display, the camera overlooking the basement wine cellar flickered erratically with static.
"Static on an internal optical cable?" Dominic muttered, his jaw tightening until the cords on his neck flared. "That’s not equipment failure. That’s a localized EMP jammer."
"Look at camera four, boss," Marcus's voice hissed through the speaker. "The corridor behind the nursery pantry."
Dominic tapped the glass screen with a scarred thumb. Camera four showed the corridor outside the kitchen. The footage was looping—a three-second clip of an empty hallway, repeating indefinitely. Whoever had penetrated the kitchen had not merely walked in; they possessed military-grade surveillance interception protocols. They knew the blind spots, the server cycle frequencies, and the rotation schedule of the armed guards.
"Elena," Dominic murmured, never taking his eyes off the glass. "You smelled it before you served it. What did it smell like?"
"Crushed peach pits, Mr. Vance," she whispered, her voice barely carrying above the low hum of the air conditioning. "And the powder had clumped near the valve. Formula doesn't coagulate in distilled warm water unless an alkaline base is introduced."
Dominic looked down at her. In his world, innocence was usually just ignorance in disguise, but Elena’s gaze was clear, wide with genuine terror yet sharp with intelligence. She hadn’t run. She hadn’t dropped the bottle to destroy the evidence. She had stayed right beside him, shielding the children with her warning.
"You have medical training," Dominic stated flatly, not a question.
"Two years of pediatric nursing in Bucharest before my family lost everything," she confessed, her cheeks pale. "I know what cyanide looks like in milk, sir. It wouldn't have caused immediate convulsions. It would have shut down their respiratory systems within twenty minutes, masquerading as sudden infant death syndrome."
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The realization hit the room like a shockwave. It wasn't an assassination meant to terrorize him; it was meant to look like an unavoidable tragedy.
Suddenly, the overhead chandelier gave a sharp pop. The manor plunged into pitch darkness, and in the distance, a muffled gunshot echoed from the basement stairs.
