Chapter 4 - The Midnight Confession
The clock on the library mantel chimed 2:00 AM.
The Moretti mansion was shrouded in profound, eerie silence. The heavy snowstorm outside had battered the estate for hours, burying the driveways beneath three feet of drifts and cutting off cellular signals across the valley.
In the second-floor hallway, Avery moved silently, wearing soft-soled slippers and a dark sweater. She carried a small thermal container filled with fresh, uncontaminated spring water and a set of replacement tea leaves for Dominic’s morning tray.
As she passed the master suite, she noticed a narrow sliver of yellow light spilling out from beneath the heavy walnut door.
She paused.
The door was unlocked—a rare security lapse for a man hunted by rival syndicates.
Avery pushed it open an inch.
Dominic was not in bed. He was sitting in an armchair by the unlit fireplace, wearing a dark silk robe, his head thrown back against the leather cushion, his eyes closed. His breathing was shallow, ragged, and whistling slightly in his chest.
On the floor beside him lay an overturned porcelain saucer.
Avery slipped into the room instantly, closing the door behind her without a sound. She knelt beside his chair, pressing her fingers against the carotid artery in his neck.
His pulse was racing—erratic, weak, and dangerously fast. Tachycardia brought on by acute chemical poisoning.
“Dominic,” she whispered, shaking his shoulder gently. “Dominic, open your eyes.”
His eyelids fluttered open, heavy and unfocused. It took him several seconds to recognize her face in the dim amber glow of the embers.
“Avery...?” he breathed out, his voice a dry rasp.
“What did you take?” she demanded, her clinical instincts taking full control. “Did you eat something outside of what I cleared?”
Dominic weakly raised a trembling hand, pointing toward the bedside table. Resting there was an empty silver cup—the midnight sedative Eleanor supposedly insisted he take every night to help him sleep.
“My mother... brought it,” Dominic whispered, coughing softly, a thin line of blood appearing at the corner of his mouth. “She said... she said it would ease the pain in my chest.”
Avery’s blood ran cold. The sheer scale of the betrayal crashed over her like a freezing wave.
She grabbed the silver cup, scraping the residual sediment from the bottom with a clean metal spatula, sealing it inside a sterile specimen bag.
“She’s trying to finish it tonight,” Avery said, her voice trembling with barely contained rage. “The storm cut off the estate. No ambulances can reach us. She thought the snow would hide your death until morning, calling it a heart failure.”
Dominic reached out, his cold, skeletal fingers wrapping around Avery’s wrist. His grip was surprisingly firm.
“Don’t... don’t let her win, Avery,” he rasped, his gray eyes burning with a final, desperate plea. “My father trusted her. I trusted her. If she did this... expose her. Let the syndicate see what she really is.”
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“Hold on to me,” Avery commanded, pulling his arm over her shoulder. “We’re getting to the darkroom. I have emergency atropine and saline IV lines down there. If I can flush your system before the cardiac arrest hits, we might save your life.”
With superhuman effort, Avery hauled the syndicate boss from his chair, dragging him down the darkened corridors of the east wing toward the service stairs, leaving the master suite behind just as a soft, rhythmic knock echoed against the outer door.
