Chapter 5 - The Air Turned Sweet
The air turned sweet and floral.
Then one of the older capos swayed on his feet.
“Move!” Tomas shouted.
Bodyguards shoved open the terrace doors. Guests stumbled toward fresh air. Maya grabbed Noah and ran. Valeria covered her mouth with the edge of her dress and kicked a chair through a side window when the latch jammed.
Gregory pounded on the study door, but Valeria ignored him.
Serena did not.
The doctor sprinted toward the study with a key.
Tomas tackled her before she reached the lock.
“What’s in the vents?” he demanded.
“I don’t know!”
“Wrong answer.”
Valeria grabbed Serena’s purse and dumped it onto the floor.
A compact. Keys. Two syringes. A flash drive.
And an empty ampule labeled with a veterinary sedative.
Serena closed her eyes.
Tomas looked at Valeria. “Enough of that in the ventilation system could knock out half this room.”
“Could it kill anyone?”
“Depends on the dose.”
Midnight arrived while alarms screamed through the estate.
The internal doors locked.
Tomas manually killed the system seconds later.
When the air cleared, Gregory was still alive, Serena was in restraints, and Noah was safe outside.
But one person had vanished.
Maya.
Valeria ran onto the terrace.
“Noah!”
“I’m here!”
He stood with two guards near the fountain.
“Where’s Maya?”
Noah pointed toward the service wing.
“She went back because she said she forgot something.”
Valeria and Tomas searched the kitchen, pantry, laundry room, and staff corridor.
They found Maya’s phone on the floor near the servants’ stairs.
The screen was cracked.
A message was open.
It had been sent to Maya from Luca’s number three minutes earlier.
COME ALONE. I HAVE PROOF GREGORY KILLED CARLO.
Carlo Romano.
Valeria’s father.
Dead for fourteen months.
Official cause: heart failure.
May you like
Valeria stared at the message.
Then Tomas whispered, “I don’t think your father died naturally.”
