Chapter 8 - The Interrogation in the DarkTwo hours later, Victor was tied securely to a heavy steel chair in the estate's private basement wine cellar, surrounded by racks of vintage Bordeaux that couldn't distract from the grim atmosphere.
I stood over him, my face carved from stone, while Miller held a cup of ice-cold water and dumped it directly over Victor's head.
Victor sputtered, coughing as his eyes snapped open. He blinked against the harsh overhead light, looking up at me with sheer terror.
"Mr... Mr. Whitaker... please, I can explain..." Victor stammered, blood trickling from a cut above his eyebrow.
"You have exactly ten seconds to tell me who hired you," I said calmly, pulling a silver pocket watch from my vest and clicking it open. "Arthur Vance? Or someone else? Because if you lie to me, I won't call the police. I'll let my legal team ensure you spend the rest of your natural life in a maximum-security prison where sunlight is just a rumor."
Victor shook his head frantically, sweat pouring down his neck. "It wasn't Arthur! It was... it was Margaret!"
I froze. "Margaret? She was fired weeks ago."
"She didn't care about being fired," Victor gasped, wincing in pain. "She blamed Emily for ruining her position, and she blamed you for humiliating her. She knew about the estate's legacy security loopholes because she worked here for ten years. She paid me fifty thousand dollars to steal your vault codes and plant that toxic degreaser in the kitchen sink in the first place!"
The silence in the wine cellar became absolute, heavy, and suffocating.
My blood ran ice cold.
The toxic cleaner in the kitchen sink hadn't been an accidental oversight left behind during routine chores. It had been an intentional, calculated attempt by Margaret to poison my son, frame Emily for negligence, and destroy my household from within.
And if Emily hadn't intervened... Zion would be dead, and I would have fired her, completely blind to the trap that had been laid for us both.
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I looked over at Emily, who was standing quietly in the shadows of the cellar entrance, listening to every word. Her eyes met mine in the dim light, filled with a mixture of shock and deep, shared trauma.
"Miller," I said coldly, not breaking eye contact with Emily. "Call the authorities. Tell them we have a confession for attempted murder and corporate espionage. And dispatch a second team to bring Margaret in before she boards a flight out of the country."
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