Chapter 4 - THE POISON IN THE PANTRY
The cold steel of the chef’s knife bit slightly into the skin of my neck.
I froze, the silver pocket watch heavy in my palm. The ticking seemed to echo in the silent foyer, mocking me.
“Don’t make a sound,” Chef Louis hissed, his free hand gripping my shoulder with crushing force. “Walk toward the kitchen. Slowly.”
I did as he said, my mind racing. Marcus wasn't Meredith’s only insider. She had bought the chef, too. It made perfect sense. Louis was the one who controlled every morsel of food that entered Ava’s mouth.
We moved through the dark dining room, the shadows stretching long and sinister across the polished floors. The loyal guards Dante mentioned were stationed outside the perimeter, completely unaware that the threat was already inside the house.
He pushed me through the swinging doors into the massive, stainless-steel kitchen.
The room was lit only by the pale glow of the commercial refrigerators.
Louis shoved me forward. I stumbled, catching myself on the marble island. I spun around to face him.
He was wearing his pristine white chef’s coat, but his eyes were wild, desperate.
“You were never supposed to check that tart,” Louis spat, pointing the heavy kitchen knife at my chest. “Meredith told me you were easy to intimidate. She said if she threatened your job, you’d back down. You ruined months of planning.”
“You tried to kill an eight-year-old girl,” I said, my voice shaking with rage. “Over what? Money?”
Louis let out a bitter, humorless laugh. “Money? You think this is just about a payout? Look at the watch, Jenna. Look at the crest.”
I looked down at the heavy silver watch in my hand. In the dim light, I traced the engraving on the cover. A serpent wrapped around a crown.
“The Moretti family,” Louis said, his chest heaving. “Meredith’s real last name isn’t Hale. It’s Moretti. Dante slaughtered her father ten years ago to take control of the ports. This whole engagement, this entire charade, was a long con to destroy Dante from the inside out.”
My stomach dropped. Meredith wasn't a greedy socialite. She was a mafia princess executing a decade-long vendetta.
“She doesn't just want him dead,” Louis continued, pacing the kitchen floor. “She wants him to suffer. She wants to take his daughter, his ex-wife, and his empire, and leave him with nothing before she puts a bullet in his head. And you, you stupid little maid, got in the way.”
“Dante is going to find out,” I said, lifting my chin. “He’s with Sarah right now.”
Louis smiled. It was a terrifying, hollow expression.
“He won’t find Sarah,” Louis said softly. “Because Sarah isn't at her house. She hasn't been there all night.”
A sickening wave of realization washed over me. The tracker under the car. The flight to Zurich. It was all a distraction.
“Where is she?” I demanded.
Louis pointed the knife toward the heavy, reinforced steel door at the back of the kitchen. The door that led down to the wine cellar.
“Meredith had Marcus bring her here three hours ago,” Louis whispered. “While you were all eating dinner, Sarah was bleeding out in the basement. Meredith left her down there to die.”
No.
I looked at the steel door, then back at Louis.
He lunged at me.
Adrenaline surged through my veins. I didn’t run away. I grabbed a heavy, cast-iron skillet from the stovetop and swung it with everything I had.
The heavy iron connected with Louis’s wrist with a sickening crack.
He screamed, dropping the knife as his bone shattered.
Before he could recover, I swung the skillet again, hitting him squarely in the temple. Louis collapsed to the tiled floor like a stone, unconscious.
I dropped the pan, my chest heaving, gasping for air.
I ran to the steel door. It was locked with a heavy padlock.
I frantically searched Louis’s pockets, finding a ring of keys. My hands were shaking so badly it took three tries to find the right one.
The padlock clicked open. I threw the heavy door wide and grabbed a flashlight from the emergency kit on the wall.
“Sarah!” I yelled, rushing down the narrow concrete steps into the freezing, damp cellar. “Sarah, are you down here?”
The beam of my flashlight cut through the darkness, sweeping over rows of dusty wine bottles and towering wooden casks.
At the very back of the cellar, slumped against a stone pillar, was a woman.
She was bound with heavy zip ties, her head slumped forward. Her blonde hair was matted with dark, drying blood.
“Sarah!” I dropped to my knees beside her, setting the flashlight down.
I felt for a pulse at her neck. It was there, but it was weak. Her skin was freezing cold. She had been brutally beaten, a deep laceration across her forehead actively bleeding down her pale face.
“Sarah, please wake up,” I begged, frantically looking for something to cut the thick plastic zip ties on her wrists.
Her eyelids fluttered. She let out a pained, shallow groan.
“Ava…” she rasped, her voice barely a whisper. “Where is my baby?”
“She’s upstairs. She’s safe,” I promised, finding a shard of broken glass on the floor and sawing desperately at the plastic ties. “Dante locked her in her room with the guards.”
Sarah’s eyes snapped open. True terror flooded her face.
“No,” Sarah choked out, grabbing my wrist with shocking strength. “The guards… Dante’s guards outside her door…”
“They’re protecting her!” I said.
Sarah shook her head wildly, tears streaming down her bruised face.
“They aren't Dante’s guards,” Sarah sobbed. “Meredith paid them off. I heard Marcus talking to them before he dragged me down here. They’re waiting for Dante to leave the property so they can take Ava.”
My heart stopped completely.
I had locked Ava in her bedroom. And I had told the two men standing in the hallway exactly where she was.
I had served Dante’s daughter to the wolves on a silver platter.
I stood up, the broken glass cutting my palm, but I didn't feel it.
Before I could take a step toward the stairs, a heavy, metallic click echoed through the dark cellar.
I slowly turned around.
Standing at the top of the stairs, perfectly silhouetted by the kitchen light, was Meredith.
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She had changed out of her evening gown into a sleek black pantsuit. And in her hand, pointed directly at my chest, was a suppressed pistol.
“You really should have just gone back to the kitchen to fetch the tart, Jenna,” Meredith said, her voice echoing in the cold stone room.
