Chapter 2 - The Taste of Copper and the Lock
The room seemed to lose all air.
Vincent didn't yell. He didn't smash the bottle against the floor. He simply capped it again, holding it by the neck with two fingers as if it were a unexploded ordnance.
"Mrs. Hargrove," Vincent said softly.
"Yes, Mr. Moretti?"
"Lock the main estate gates. No one leaves this house. No vehicles enter or exit the driveway. Tell security to cut the external Wi-Fi routing and landlines until I give the command."
Mrs. Hargrove’s hands tightened slightly within her black cotton gloves, but her expression remained an unreadable mask. "Immediately, sir."
Cassandra took a quick step back, her satin-gloved hand fluttering toward her collarbone. "Vincent, really! You're acting as if there's been some sort of security breach! It’s a domestic issue. If the maid suffered an accident in the kitchen, we should simply call an ambulance and let Norah take care of the baby."
Vincent didn't answer her. He walked slowly across the nursery rug, his heavy leather shoes making no sound against the thick wool. He stopped in front of me, looking down at my bruised face and the blood drying along my jawline.
He crouched down, bringing his massive frame level with my eyes. The scent of rain, wool, and faint tobacco radiated from him.
"What happened to your head, Elena?"
"I don't know, sir," I whispered, holding my side as a sharp pain flared near my ribs. "I was in the lower pantry checking the morning delivery list. I heard Enzo crying in the nursery, but the service door had been clicked shut from the outside. I turned around to open the lock..."
"And?"
"Someone was standing behind the utility rack," I said, my heart hammering against my ribs. "I smelled orange blossom. Then something hit me."
A heavy silence descended upon the room.
Norah Wickham took an instinctual step toward the rear hallway, but before her foot could hit the floor, two broad-shouldered men dressed in dark suits materialized in the corridor behind her—Vincent’s personal security detail, who had been waiting near the main entrance.
Cassandra’s face flushed a deep, angry red. "Is she implying that I had something to do with her falling over her own mop?! Vincent, this girl is an unsanitary, low-class temp worker! Her child shouldn't even be in this wing of the house!"
Vincent ignored his fiancée entirely. He reached out and touched Lily’s shoulder gently, his large hand shockingly soft against my daughter's pink cardigan.
"Lily," Vincent said, his voice dropping into a tone I had never heard him use with anyone in this house. "When you came into the room, where was the bottle?"
Lily pointed her small finger toward the low mahogany changing table near the window. "It was on the floor under the little curtain. The red string was undone."
"Did you see who put it there?"
Lily shook her head, her rabbit hair clip finally giving up and falling into her lap. "No. But the lady was making a noise."
"Which lady?"
Lily pointed her tiny finger straight past Mrs. Hargrove, straight past Norah, and landed firmly on Cassandra Vale.
"The lady with the shiny gloves," Lily said plainly. "She was putting the purple water into the baby bottle with a tiny glass straw."
Cassandra gasped, dropping her handbag onto the polished floor. "You insolent little liar! How dare you! Vincent, are you honestly listening to the ramblings of a toddler?! This is a absurd setup! This woman and her brat are trying to extort us!"
Vincent stood up slowly. His height was imposing, his presence filling the sunlit room until even the high ceilings felt claustrophobic.
He handed the glass bottle to his lead security chief, Marko, who had stepped quietly into the room.
"Take this directly to Dr. Vance at the private clinic," Vincent instructed Marko calmly. "Have him perform a full chemical screen. I want to know every compound in that liquid within forty-five minutes."
"Understood, Mr. Moretti," Marko replied, sealing the bottle in a clear biohazard bag before turning on his heel and exiting down the corridor.
Vincent then turned his gaze back to the three women standing in the nursery.
"All of you," Vincent said, his voice dropping into an icy register that made my skin prickle with goosebumps. "In my study. Now."
He looked down at me, his eyes softening by a fraction of a degree. "Elena. Take your daughter into the library. Wash your face. My personal physician will be here in ten minutes to look at your head."
"Mr. Moretti," I stammered, pulling Lily close against my chest, her warm little body trembling slightly against my uniform. "I can work... I can clean the—"
"You're done working for today, Elena," Vincent interrupted, his voice leaving zero room for argument. "Sit in the library. Keep the door locked from the inside until I come for you."
I gathered Lily into my arms, pushing myself off the floor despite the spinning room, and carried my daughter down the long, mahogany-paneled hallway toward the grand library.
As I closed the heavy oak door of the library behind us and turned the brass key in the lock, I looked back down the corridor one last time.
May you like
Vincent was standing outside his study door.
He was holding the small glass eye-dropper that Marko had just swept from beneath the mahogany changing table—a small, innocent-looking piece of glass that still held three tiny drops of a deep, violet-colored liquid.
