Chapter 2 - THE POISON BENEATH THE MEDICINE
The Grayhaven House laboratory occupied a sealed room beneath the east wing.
Few people knew it existed.
Damian had built it years earlier to test imported products for toxins after a rival family poisoned one of his warehouses. He had never imagined it would be used to examine medicine prescribed by his own physician.
The syringe contained a heart medication.
It also contained a second substance.
A slow-acting paralytic.
In small doses, it caused weakness, irregular heartbeat, difficulty breathing, and gradual organ failure.
Its symptoms could easily be blamed on complications from Damian’s original poisoning.
Dr. Kessler disappeared before the test results were complete.
His car was found abandoned near the Pennsylvania border.
Viktor insisted the doctor had acted alone.
Damian did not believe him.
That evening, Mara sat with Lila in the servants’ room.
“You cannot enter Mr. Volkov’s room again,” she said.
Lila hugged her cloth rabbit.
“He was hurting.”
“That does not matter.”
Lila’s eyes widened.
Mara immediately regretted the words.
“I mean, it matters. But that room is dangerous.”
“Because of the angry men?”
“Yes.”
“Is Mr. Damian angry?”
“Very.”
“Is he bad?”
Mara looked toward the closed door.
She had heard stories about Damian Volkov.
Businesses seized.
Enemies disappearing.
Men leaving meetings with broken hands.
But she had also seen him stop a doctor from using a suspicious syringe because a deaf child was afraid.
“I don’t know,” Mara said honestly.
A guard appeared in the hallway.
“Mr. Volkov wants to see you.”
Mara’s stomach tightened.
She carried Lila with her.
Damian had been moved from the bed to a high-backed chair near the window. His skin remained pale, but the tremor in his hands had lessened after the contaminated medicine was removed.
On the table beside him lay several photographs.
Kessler.
Viktor.
Household employees.
Nurses.
“Sit,” Damian said.
Mara remained standing.
“Mr. Volkov, I am grateful you did not dismiss me, but Lila and I should leave.”
“No.”
It was not shouted.
It was worse than shouting.
“Someone inside this house has been poisoning me for months,” Damian said. “Your daughter identified the latest attempt.”
“She was frightened by the vial.”
“She heard something.”
Mara glanced at Lila.
“Lila does not hear the way other children do.”
“I noticed.”
“She has severe hearing loss in one ear and partial hearing in the other. Her device helps, but sometimes sounds become distorted.”
Damian studied the child.
“Distorted does not mean useless.”
Mara said nothing.
Damian pushed a photograph across the table.
It showed Dr. Kessler entering Grayhaven House with a black case.
Another photograph showed Viktor meeting him near the garage.
A third showed a nurse leaving through a side entrance with an envelope.
“Six nurses came before Kessler,” Damian said.
“Eight,” Mara corrected before she could stop herself.
Damian’s eyes lifted.
“You counted?”
“I cleaned their rooms.”
“Why did they leave?”
“They said you frightened them.”
“Did they say anything else?”
Mara hesitated.
One nurse had cried while packing.
Another had whispered that the dosage charts made no sense.
A third had accused someone of changing the medication after she prepared it.
Mara had ignored the comments because servants at Grayhaven survived by not remembering what they overheard.
“One nurse said your medicine was being switched,” Mara admitted.
“Which nurse?”
“Elena Ward.”
Damian looked toward his guard.
“Find her.”
The guard left.
Lila wandered toward the table and touched Viktor’s photograph.
She frowned.
“This man sings at night.”
Mara pulled her hand away.
“What?”
Lila pointed toward the ceiling.
“He sings in the walls.”
Damian leaned forward.
“There are no rooms above this one.”
Lila tapped her hearing device.
“I hear him when Mama cleans the silver room.”
The silver room was Mara’s name for the old dining salon beside Damian’s bedroom.
Its walls were covered with mirrored panels.
Damian looked toward one of his guards.
“Search behind the mirrors.”
They found a listening device inside the wall.
Then another.
Then a hidden wire leading toward Viktor’s private office.
Damian closed his eyes.
May you like
His younger brother had not simply known about his condition.
He had been listening to every conversation beside Damian’s bed.
