Chapter 3 - The Sweet-Smelling Death
“Hold your breath!” I roared, lunging across the room.
I grabbed a woolen baby blanket from the rocking chair, ripped a strip from it with my teeth, and tore toward the bathroom attached to the nursery. I turned the sink tap on full blast, soaked the fabric, and rushed back to press it firmly over Hannah’s mouth and nose.
“Breathe through this! Keep the baby covered!” I shouted, my own lungs burning as the sweet, almond-like scent of the vapor began to fill the air.
Halothane. Or something heavier. A synthetic neurotoxin designed to drop an adult elephant in seconds, engineered to bypass standard HVAC carbon filters through an override valve. Whoever was controlling the smart-home system had complete access to the estate’s environmental controls.
Hannah nodded frantically, tears streaming down her face as she pressed her jacket and the wet wool blanket over Leo’s tiny face. The baby whimpered in his sleep, stirring slightly, but his breathing remained steady—fueled by the milk he had finally managed to swallow minutes before.
I checked the door again. The reinforced steel frame was bolted shut by electromagnetic locks tied directly to the mansion’s primary server room in the sub-basement.
The server room.
That was where the override was housed. If I couldn't open the door from the inside, I had to cut the power to the estate entirely, forcing the system onto dead-man manual backups. But the master electrical breaker wasn't in the nursery; it was located in the utility corridor behind the main kitchen on the ground floor—three floors down, through a house that was now entirely compromised.
“Mr. Rossi… the windows,” Hannah choked out, her eyes watering from the fumes leaking through the wet fabric.
I looked at the double-paned nursery windows. Bulletproof glass. UV-coated, shatter-resistant polymer designed to withstand a direct hit from a high-powered rifle. There was no breaking them from the inside without explosives.
The room was spinning slightly. The gas was potent. Even with the wet cloth pressed to my face, my limbs were beginning to feel heavy, sluggish, resistant to my commands.
“Listen to me,” I said, grabbing Hannah by her shoulders and forcing her to look directly into my eyes. My voice was raspy, laced with the toxic edge of the encroaching gas. “They want us unconscious. They want it to look like an accident—a faulty gas line or a tragic carbon monoxide leak in the nursery. Do you understand?”
She nodded, shivering violently. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to get this door open.”
I backed away from her, raising the Beretta. I didn't aim at the smart-home speaker this time. I aimed directly at the digital keypad embedded in the reinforced steel frame beside the door—the electronic brain that controlled the deadbolt.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Three deafening gunshots shattered the absolute quiet of the nursery. Sparks showered down in a brilliant cascade of white and blue fire as copper-jacketed hollow-points ripped through the plastic housing of the keypad. The internal circuits hissed, smoking brightly before going dead.
The electromagnetic lock clicked.
I threw my shoulder against the heavy mahogany door. It didn't budge an inch. The physical deadbolt—a two-inch solid steel pin—was still thrown from the other side.
Behind me, Brenda the night nurse stirred on the armchair, letting out a confused, groggy groan as the gas began to drag her back down into unconsciousness.
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And then, from the hallway outside, came the sound of slow, heavy footsteps approaching the door.
Someone was coming to check their work.
