Chapter 3 - THE RIPPLE OF CONFLICTWithin ten minutes of Alejandro’s recovery, sirens blared across the estate. The mansion went into total lockdown under the order of "No one enters, no one leaves."
Alejandro sat on the high-backed leather sofa in his study. Though still pale, his eyes had regained their lethal, terrifying intensity. The personal medical team swept the floor, confirming that the wine had been laced with a rare, targeted neurotoxin designed to trigger severe respiratory anaphylaxis within minutes.
Elena was dragged up from the basement. Seeing Emma standing beside Alejandro, Elena fell to her knees on the cold marble floor, her heart stopping in terror.
"Mr. Moretti… please, have mercy!" Elena sobbed, pressing her forehead against the ground. "She’s just a child! Punish me, I beg you, but don't harm my daughter!"
Alejandro didn't answer immediately. He stood up slowly, his expensive leather shoes stepping quietly toward Elena, before he crouched down to look Emma in the eyes.
"Your mother told you never to leave the basement," Alejandro said, his deep voice carrying immense weight. "Why did you disobey her?"
Emma shrank back slightly, but she bravely held his gaze. "Because… because I heard glass break. And you couldn't breathe. Mama taught me… if someone can't breathe and you have medicine to save them, leaving them to die makes you a bad person."
A heavy silence fell over the room. Alejandro narrowed his eyes. For the first time in his life, he was looking at someone who looked at him without calculation, fear, or deceit.
"Vargas," Alejandro called out to the Captain of the Guard standing nearby. "Where is the footage from the hidden camera?"
Vargas bowed his head, sweat dripping down his forehead. "Sir… when we accessed your private server, the ten minutes of footage prior to the incident had been… wiped clean from the internal drive. The assassin used a high-level override code."
Alejandro’s jaw tightened. A high-level override code. That meant the poisoner wasn't an ordinary servant—it was someone holding real power within the Moretti inner circle.
"However," Vargas hesitated, "we managed to recover a corrupted still frame before the wipe completed. It shows a hand dropping a tablet into your glass."
Vargas handed over a tablet screen. The image was grainy, but one detail was unmistakably clear: on the index finger of the hand was a signet ring engraved with a golden hawk—the exclusive ring worn only by blood members of the Moretti family.
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The person who wanted Alejandro dead was sitting at his own family table.
And that person was still inside the mansion, pretending to be innocent, realizing that a four-year-old child had just ruined everything.
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