Chapter 3 - The Venom in the Lavender
"Mateo!" Dominic roared.
The heavy mahogany doors of the nursery were thrown open within three seconds. Mateo, Dominic’s head of security, burst into the room with two armed guards close behind him, their weapons raised.
"Boss!" Mateo gasped, taking in the scene—the blood on the carpet, the housemaid on the floor, Evelyn with bloody hands, and the baby breathing through a silver tube in the crib. "What happened?"
"Get an ambulance here now," Dominic ordered, his voice cold and hard as steel. "Use the private medical dispatch. If anyone from the city press hears about this, I'll hold you personally responsible."
"Yes, sir!" Mateo turned, shouting into his radio as he sprinted down the hall.
Dominic walked slowly toward Mara. The housemaid tried to scramble backward toward the window, her terrified, innocent facade attempting to reconstruct itself like broken glass trying to reassemble.
"Mr. Vale..." Mara whimpered, her hands trembling as she held them out defenselessly. "She... she forced me! She brought that knife in here! I tried to save him!"
Evelyn stepped forward, taking a clean cloth from the changing table and casually wiping her fingers.
"She didn't try to save him, Dominic," Evelyn said smoothly. "She was waiting for him to stop breathing completely before calling for help. That way, by the time the paramedics arrived, it would look like a sudden, tragic case of infant respiratory distress syndrome."
"You're lying!" Mara screamed, her voice cracking into a high-pitched screech. "You hated the baby! Everyone knows you wanted him out of the way so you could have Mr. Vale's money!"
Evelyn ignored her outburst entirely. She turned to Dominic, her voice as calm and analytical as if she were delivering a lecture at a medical university.
"For three weeks, Noah has suffered from progressive contact dermatitis and respiratory distress," Evelyn explained, pointing toward the corner of the room. "The family doctor diagnosed it as eczema. He was wrong. It was concentrated toxic exposure."
Dominic’s eyes narrowed. "Toxic exposure?"
"Lavender oil," Evelyn continued. "Or rather, a highly concentrated extract of Digitalis purpurea—foxglove—mixed into a carrier oil scented with synthetic lavender. In small doses applied to the skin, it absorbs into the bloodstream. It causes localized rash, slow heart rate, lung inflammation, and eventually... complete respiratory collapse."
Dominic felt a sudden, icy chill settle into the pit of his stomach. "Where did she get it?"
"She didn't buy it," Evelyn said, stepping over to the nursery closet and opening the bottom drawer. She pulled out a small, clear glass bottle with a cork stopper, wrapped in a handwritten label. "She distilled it herself. The equipment is hidden in the old boiler room behind the laundry wing."
Mara’s jaw dropped. The last vestige of her innocent nanny act shattered into dust. Her face twisted into a vicious sneer.
"How... how do you know that?" Mara spat, her voice no longer sounding like the sweet, devoted housemaid who baked cookies for the guards. It was sharp, venomous, and bitter.
Evelyn looked down at her with a look of supreme disdain.
"Because I didn't lose my medical license because I was bad at my job, Mara," Evelyn said coldly. "I lost it because I paid attention to details that powerful people wanted overlooked. You left traces of organic plant matter under your fingernails during yesterday’s breakfast service. You smelled of boiled foxglove leaves, not market lavender."
Dominic took two slow steps toward Mara. The air around him seemed to freeze. The atmosphere in the nursery grew so heavy that even the guards standing at the door held their breath.
"Who paid you?" Dominic asked softly.
The question was not loud, but it carried the weight of a death sentence.
Mara laughed—a bitter, hollow sound that echoed off the nursery walls. She looked up at Dominic, wincing as she wiped blood from her upper lip.
"Nobody had to pay me, Dominic," she sneered, dropping the polite title of 'Mr. Vale' completely. "Your brother was a king. His wife was a queen. And you? You're just a violent brute holding onto an empire you don't deserve."
"You poisoned a baby," Dominic said, his hand resting on the hilt of his weapon. "A child you swore to protect."
"I gave that child seven months of love while you were out shooting people in warehouses!" Mara hissed, her eyes wild. "He was supposed to be mine! If your brother had lived, he would have made me head of the estate staff! But then she walked in."
Mara pointed a shaking, blood-stained finger at Evelyn.
"She came in here with her expensive silk dresses, her cold eyes, her high-society father, pretending she owned the place!" Mara snarled. "I knew if she married you, she’d send me back to the slums. She’d hire professional nurses. She’d take Noah away from me!"
"So you decided to kill him?" Evelyn asked quietly. "To frame me?"
"If Noah died while you were alone in the house with him, Dominic would have put a bullet in your head himself!" Mara laughed hysterically, tears of rage mixing with the blood on her face. "It was perfect! I would have comforted him in his grief! I would have been the only loyal person left in his life!"
Dominic stared at the woman who had lived under his roof for two years. The woman who had brought him coffee every morning. The woman his late brother had trusted with his only heir.
The absolute depth of human malice hit him like a physical blow.
The heavy footsteps of the private medical team echoed up the grand staircase. Two paramedics carrying a portable ventilator and an emergency pediatric kit rushed into the room, led by Mateo.
"Get the child stabilized," Dominic commanded the paramedics, his voice devoid of all warmth. "He stays under double guard at the private hospital until I arrive."
"Yes, Mr. Vale!" the lead paramedic nodded, kneeling beside the crib to secure Evelyn’s makeshift silver airway tube with medical tape.
Dominic turned back to Mateo.
"Take her down to the sub-basement," Dominic said, gesturing toward Mara. "Do not kill her. I want to know every person she spoke to on that disposable phone over the last sixty days."
Mateo grabbed Mara by the upper arms, hauling her off the floor like a sack of trash.
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"You're too late, Dominic!" Mara screamed as Mateo dragged her backward out of the nursery, her boots dragging across the Persian rug. "It’s already started! The Vale name is done! The northern borders are opening tonight!"
Dominic’s eyes snapped to Evelyn as the door slammed shut.
