Chapter 16 - Cyanide in the Nursery
The winding road leading up the cliffs toward Blackwood Castle was choked with mist. The Gothic spires of the fortress rose against the jagged lightning like broken teeth tearing at the sky.
The main iron gates were smashed open, the private security guards posted there lying dead in the gravel, their bodies cold. Julian had cleared the board of any witnesses.
Emily, Victoria, and Marcus abandoned the vehicle half a mile down the winding mountain path to avoid detection. Dressed in dark tactical rain gear, they moved through the dense hemlock forest, the rain soaking them to the bone, drowning out the sound of their footsteps.
"Thermal imaging shows three heat signatures on the fourth-floor master balcony," Marcus whispered, lowering his night-vision scope. "Two perimeter guards with automatic weapons. And Julian. He's holding a small bundle."
Emily’s heart felt as though it were being crushed in a vice. *Clara.*
"How do we get in?" Victoria breathed, the pain in her shoulder causing her breath to hitch. "The main doors will be rigged."
"The service tunnels beneath the wine cellar," Emily said, her memory flashing back to her months planning the lavish wedding she once believed would be the start of her happily-ever-after. "Julian had custom climate-controlled wine cellars installed directly into the cliff rock. There is a hydraulic maintenance lift that leads straight into the bride’s dressing suite."
The bride’s dressing suite—the very room where Emily had put on her diamond-encrusted veil, where Julian had kissed her forehead and whispered, *“Today, my love, our two worlds become one.”*
They slipped through the rusted iron grates of the storm drain, navigating the freezing, subterranean channels beneath the castle. The air smelled of damp earth, centuries-old stone, and ozone. Within ten minutes, they reached the steel service elevator. Marcus bypassed the electronic relay with a magnetic jumper, and the platform began its silent, steady ascent toward the fourth floor.
When the elevator doors parted, they were greeted not by gunfire, but by the overwhelming, nauseating scent of bitter almonds.
"Hold your breath!" Marcus hissed, shoving Emily and Victoria backward into the elevator shaft.
Cyanide.
On the vanity table inside the luxurious bridal suite, surrounded by cracked mirrors and abandoned floral arrangements, sat a silver baby bottle, half-filled with warm milk, emitting the unmistakable chemical vapor of lethal poison. Taped to the mirror was a digital tablet, its screen illuminated in the dim room.
Suddenly, the screen blinked on. Julian Sterling’s face appeared in crystal-clear high definition.
He looked thinner than he had during the trial, his cheekbones sharper, his tailored charcoal suit immaculate despite his recent prison break. His ice-blue eyes stared straight into the lens, terrifyingly sane and infinitely cruel.
"Welcome home, Emily," Julian’s voice resonated through the tablet’s speakers with theatrical warmth. "You always had impeccable timing. You have exactly seven minutes before Clara’s formula is administered via the automated feeding apparatus strapped to her crib on the balcony. You survived a four-story fall, my darling. Let’s see if your daughter can survive gravity and poison all at once."
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The tablet went black. Above them, through the heavy cedar ceiling, came the clear, piercing cry of an infant.
***
