Chapter 3 - The Ghost of Ricardo Alvarez
By afternoon, the estate was under a state of silent siege. Alessandro had ordered Caleb to pull the employment records of every individual hired within the last two years, but his primary focus remained on Sophia and her late husband, Ricardo.
He sat with Sophia in the sunroom, away from the tension of the main house. Emma was playing quietly on the rug with a set of wooden blocks, seemingly oblivious to the predators circling the estate.
"Tell me about Ricardo, Sophia," Alessandro said gently, pushing a cup of chamomile tea toward her. "How did he die?"
Sophia swallowed hard, her eyes filling with unshed tears. "Ricardo was a chemist, sir. He worked for a pharmaceutical subsidiary called Valora Tech. It’s a company that develops synthetic heart medications."
Alessandro’s eyebrows rose slightly. Valora Tech was a subsidiary that had recently been acquired by Duca Enterprises during a quiet corporate takeover managed entirely by his cousin, Valerio.
"Go on," Alessandro urged.
"He was working on a project he wasn't supposed to see," Sophia whispered, looking down at her hands. "He came home one night terrified. He said someone high up in the parent company was forcing his lab to manufacture a highly concentrated, untraceable toxin. He refused to sign off on the chemical batch. Three days later... he came home, complained of a bitter taste in his evening tea, and died in his sleep. The police said it was a natural heart attack. They wouldn't listen to me."
"And Emma saw him?"
"She was there when he drank the tea," Sophia sobbed. "She remembered the smell. She has an incredibly sensitive nose, sir. Even as a baby, she could smell things before anyone else. When she stood in your kitchen this morning and smelled that exact same chemical sweetness... she knew."
Alessandro stood up and walked to the large glass windows overlooking the manicured gardens. The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, forming a picture of corporate greed and cold-blooded murder. Someone within his own company had used a chemical developed in his own laboratory to eliminate a whistleblowing chemist—and had now used that same poison to attempt to take the Duca crown.
Suddenly, the glass window shattered.
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A high-velocity sniper round tore through the double-paned glass, passing exactly where Alessandro’s head had been a second before, embedding itself into the mahogany paneling of the opposite wall.
"Get down!" Alessandro roared, throwing himself over Sophia and Emma as a second shot ripped through the room, showering them in glittering shards of glass.
