Chapter 3 - THE SNAKE DEN
The room spun beneath my feet.
Sarah hadn't lost a brave battle to illness. She had been murdered.
Eleanor hadn't entered my life by accident. She had executed a cold, calculated, multi-year assassination of my entire family to claim the $150 million Sterling estate. And now, she was doing the exact same thing to my daughter.
I looked at Maya, sleeping peacefully under the white hospital blankets, the IV tube running into her wrist. A deep, consuming darkness took over my soul. The kind man, the grieving husband, the patient father—he died in that hospital room. In his place stood a monster with one singular purpose: total annihilation of Eleanor and everyone who helped her.
I walked out of the room to meet Chief Miller in the corridor.
“Richard,” Miller said, stepping forward with his hands on his belt. “I saw the toxicology report. I’ve already dispatched two units to your estate to bring Eleanor in for questioning regarding child endangerment.”
“No,” I said firmly, grabbing Miller by his uniform coat. “Pull them back.”
Miller blinked in surprise. “What? Richard, she poisoned your daughter!”
“If you arrest her tonight on child abuse charges, her lawyers will have her out on bail by tomorrow morning,” I snapped, my eyes blazing. “She’ll shred documents, liquidate offshore accounts, and flee the country with Dr. Julian Mercer. You don't know the whole truth yet, Frank.”
I leaned in and whispered what Dr. Vance had just discovered about Sarah’s death.
Chief Miller’s face turned pale. “My God... Sarah? Murder?”
“Yes,” I gritted out. “So we don't catch her with a slap on the wrist. We let her think she still has control. We let her play her hand. I’m going back to that house tonight alone.”
“Richard, that’s insane,” Miller warned. “She’s dangerous. If she knows you’re onto her—”
“She thinks I’m just a grieving, distracted fool who cares about public opinion,” I replied coldly. “She threatend me before I left. She thinks she holds leverage over me. I’m going to make her believe her leverage worked.”
Forty minutes later, I pulled my SUV back up the long, winding driveway of the Sterling Manor. The rain had slowed to a miserable drizzle. The high-society guests had long since fled, leaving behind a wake of gossip that was undoubtedly tearing through the city’s upper class like wildfire.
I opened the front door. The house was dead quiet.
I found Eleanor in the master study upstairs. She was sitting behind my desk, pouring herself a glass of scotch, a thick leather-bound folder open in front of her. She had changed into a dark silk robe, her posture tense, her eyes sharp.
“How is the little weakling?” Eleanor asked smoothly, not even looking up as I walked into the room.
“She’s in stable condition,” I said, keeping my posture slouched, pretending to be broken, beaten, and exhausted. I sank into the leather armchair opposite the desk. “They found the drugs in her system, Eleanor.”
Eleanor paused, holding the glass to her lips. She slowly turned her head to look at me, a cold, mocking smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
“Did they now?” she hummed. “And I suppose you told the doctors it was me?”
“I told them nothing,” I lied smoothly, letting my voice shake. “I told them she must have found old medication in the bathroom cabinet. I protected you, Eleanor. Because... because of what you said at the door.”
Eleanor leaned back in the high-backed chair, looking down her nose at me like a queen surveying a conquered peasant.
“Smart man, Richard,” she purred. “I always knew you had a pragmatic streak. You see, you might own Sterling Enterprises, but I own your past. You love your late wife’s squeaky-clean reputation, don't you? You love that the city thinks of Sarah as an angel.”
“What did you do to Sarah, Eleanor?” I asked, leaning forward, playing the desperate husband. “Tell me the truth.”
Eleanor stood up, walking slowly around the desk until she was standing right over me. She reached down and patted my cheek with a cold, manicured hand.
“Sarah was weak,” Eleanor whispered darkly. “She sat on a fortune she didn't know how to enjoy. She wanted to donate half of your wealth to pediatric cancer research! Can you imagine? Throwing away millions on dying rat-children? I saved your empire, Richard. Julian and I simply... accelerated nature’s timeline. A little thallium mixed into her daily IV treatments at Mercer’s clinic. It imitates advanced organ failure perfectly.”
My jaw clenched so hard I thought my teeth would shatter, but I didn't move a muscle.
“And Maya?” I asked softly.
“Maya is Sarah’s clone,” Eleanor sneered, her eyes gleaming with pure psychopathy. “Every time I look at that pathetic little girl, I see Sarah. I couldn't kill her outright—that would look suspicious so soon after Sarah's death. But a slow, gradual decay? A tragic heart defect brought on by ‘genetics’? The public would have showered me with sympathy. I would have been the grieving stepmother who lost everything.”
She opened the leather folder on the desk, flipping to a legal document.
“So here is how this plays out, Richard,” Eleanor declared, sliding a pen toward me. “You will sign over 51% of your voting shares in Sterling Enterprises to my private holding company. You will send Maya away to a boarding school in Switzerland by the end of the week. And you will maintain this marriage publicly. If you refuse...” She smiled wickedly. “I release the fake medical records Julian forged, proving that you were the one who authorized Sarah’s lethal dosage to claim her inheritance.”
She thought she had trapped me in a steel cage. She thought she was the predator.
I looked down at the paper. Then I looked up at Eleanor, and for the first time that night, I let out a low, dark chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” Eleanor snapped, her smile instantly vanishing.
May you like
I reached into my breast pocket and pulled out a small, black electronic device with a flashing red light.
“You really should have checked the room for bugs, Eleanor,” I said softly. “Chief Miller and the State Prosecutor have been listening to every single word of your confession from the surveillance van parked down the street.”
