Chapter 2 - The Cup Nobody Wanted Tested
The first thing Carlo Costa did was laugh.
The second was reach for the teacup.
Enzo caught his wrist before his fingers touched the porcelain.
"Leave it."
Carlo stared at him.
"Are you out of your mind?"
"Maybe."
Enzo tightened his grip.
"But nobody touches that cup."
Matteo lay against his pillows, breathing through an oxygen mask.
Dr. Keller had already contacted the hospital and requested a targeted evaluation.
The maid's observation wasn't a diagnosis.
But the pattern was concerning enough that he refused to dismiss it.
"Mr. Costa needs emergency hospital care," Keller said.
"He has everything he needs here," Carlo argued.
"Not everything."
Keller turned toward Enzo.
"I need a properly equipped cardiac team, appropriate testing, and access to treatments we don't have in this room."
Enzo reached for his phone.
"Get the ambulance."
Carlo's expression hardened.
"Moving Matteo could kill him."
"Leaving him here might do the same," Keller replied.
Nia backed toward the door.
Her knees felt unsteady.
She had done what she needed to do.
Now she wanted to leave.
Preferably the mansion.
Preferably the state.
But Matteo suddenly reached out.
"Miss Lewis."
She stopped.
"Yes, sir?"
"How long have you suspected something?"
Nia looked down.
"Three days."
"Three days?"
"I wasn't sure."
"Why didn't you tell anyone?"
Before she could answer, Carlo interrupted.
"Because she's lying!"
Enzo turned sharply.
"Shut up."
Nia stared at Matteo.
"I was afraid."
His expression shifted.
For a moment, he wasn't the feared businessman whose name appeared in whispered conversations.
He was simply a sick man being told someone might have betrayed him.
"Of whom?"
Nia couldn't bring herself to look at Carlo.
Matteo understood anyway.
He closed his eyes.
"Everyone out except the doctor and Enzo."
Carlo stepped forward.
"Matty, we're family."
"Then you'll understand why I need answers."
The guards escorted Carlo from the room.
He passed Nia on his way out.
His face was calm.
His whisper wasn't.
"You should've kept cleaning."
A cold sensation traveled down her spine.
The ambulance arrived seventeen minutes later.
By then, Keller had arranged for a hospital team to meet Matteo.
Enzo accompanied the stretcher downstairs.
Nia stood against the wall while the paramedics passed.
Matteo's eyes opened briefly.
He found her in the hallway.
"Don't let them fire her," he murmured.
Enzo nodded.
"Nobody's firing her."
The ambulance doors closed.
The mansion suddenly felt enormous.
And empty.
Nia hurried toward the servants' entrance.
She needed her purse.
Her keys.
Her phone.
She was going home.
She reached her locker and stopped.
Its door was open.
Someone had emptied it.
Her jacket was gone.
So was her wallet.
And her grandmother's old botanical notebook.
"No," she whispered.
She searched the floor.
Nothing.
Then she noticed a folded piece of paper inside the locker.
Three words were written across it.
Wrong family, sweetheart.
Nia backed away.
Her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered without thinking.
"Hello?"
A man's voice spoke.
"You made a mistake tonight, Miss Lewis."
Her entire body went cold.
"Who is this?"
"You have a very expensive little house in Oregon."
Nia gripped the phone.
"Leave my grandmother's house alone."
"Then learn when to keep quiet."
The line went dead.
Nia stood motionless.
Her grandmother had been gone for eight months.
That house was the only piece of her childhood she had left.
The door behind her opened.
She spun around.
Enzo stood there.
"What happened?"
She held up the note.
For a moment, he simply stared.
Then he took out his phone.
"Nobody leaves the estate."
Nia shook her head.
"I need to go home."
"You can't."
"You don't understand."
He looked at the note again.
"Actually, I think I do."
Enzo led her into the mansion's security office.
Six monitors covered one wall.
He rewound the hallway footage.
At 5:42 p.m., a woman wearing a housekeeping uniform entered the servants' changing room.
Her face was partially concealed beneath a cap.
She stayed for four minutes.
Then she emerged carrying a small black bag.
Nia leaned forward.
"That's my bag."
Enzo enlarged the image.
The woman's face remained difficult to see.
But something on her wrist caught Nia's attention.
A thin gold bracelet.
Three tiny blue stones.
She had seen it before.
Earlier that morning.
On the wrist of Beatrice, Carlo's private assistant.
"That's her," Nia whispered.
Enzo stared at the screen.
"You're certain?"
"The bracelet. I helped her find it after she dropped it in the laundry room."
Enzo called one of the guards.
"Find Beatrice."
The guard answered immediately.
"Sir, she left twenty minutes ago."
Enzo swore.
Then another call came through.
It was Keller.
Enzo put him on speaker.
"We've obtained preliminary findings," the doctor said.
Nia held her breath.
"Matteo has evidence of exposure to a cardiac glycoside. We're conducting additional testing to identify the source and determine treatment."
Enzo looked at the frozen image of Beatrice.
"Will he survive?"
"We're doing everything medically appropriate. He is critically ill."
Nia lowered herself into a chair.
She had been right.
But that didn't mean she was safe.
Enzo ended the call.
"I need to ask you something."
Nia looked up.
"What?"
"Your grandmother's notebook. Did it contain anything about foxglove?"
"Yes."
"Anything else?"
"Recipes. Garden records. Notes about dangerous plants."
Enzo's expression grew troubled.
"What was your grandmother's full name?"
"Evelyn Lewis."
He went completely still.
"Say that again."
"Evelyn Lewis."
Enzo slowly pulled out his phone and opened an old photograph.
It showed a much younger Matteo standing outside a modest farmhouse.
Beside him was an elderly Black woman wearing gardening gloves.
Nia stared.
Her breath caught.
"That's my grandmother."
Enzo turned the photograph toward her.
On the back, written in faded blue ink, were five words.
May you like
Evelyn Lewis saved my life.
And the photograph was dated seventeen years earlier.
