Chapter 2 - THE ANATOMY OF A POISONDr. Moreno snapped his medical bag shut with a crisp, metallic click that echoed like a pistol shot in the silent foyer. He adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, his eyes pale and clinical behind the lenses as he looked at Victor.
"The toxicology is preliminary, Mr. Blackwood, but definitive," Moreno said, his voice devoid of bedside manner. "It’s not arsenic, and it’s not cyanide. It’s a synthetic organophosphate—metribuzin-derivative. Slow-acting, cumulative, and remarkably difficult to trace unless you know what you're looking for. Someone has been administering micro-doses to little Chloe for at least three weeks."
Serena gasped, pressing a hand to her chest with theatrical horror. "Three weeks? But... but she only eats what the private chef prepares! Are you accusing the kitchen staff? This is madness!"
"No one is accusing the kitchen yet, Serena," Victor cut across her with a flat, lethal stillness. He turned his head slowly, locking eyes with her. "Because the chef’s pantry requires a biometric master key. A key that only three people in this entire estate possess: Myself, my head of security, and you."
The temperature in the foyer seemed to drop ten degrees.
Marco didn't move a muscle, but his hand drifted an inch closer to his holster. Serena’s face drained of every drop of color, leaving her skin the chalky white of a corpse. For the first time since Marco had known her—through hostile corporate takeovers, blackmail scandals, and high-society backstabbing—Serena Montigue looked genuinely terrified.
"Are you insane, Victor?" she whispered, her voice trembling with righteous fury. "You’re suspecting me? After everything I’ve built by your side since Elena died? I’ve mothered that ungrateful child when you couldn't even look at her without seeing her mother’s ghost!"
"Shut your mouth," Victor whispered. It was not a shout. It was a command issued from the bottom of an abyss.
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Before Serena could retort, a sharp, frantic chime echoed from Marco’s security console. One of the perimeter monitors flashed red.
"Sir," Marco said, leaning over the screen. "We have movement at the western perimeter gate. Not the press. A vehicle just rammed the secondary service entrance. They’re inside the grounds."
