Chapter 3 - The Toxic Truth
The silence in the open-concept dining room was deafening. The holiday music seemed to fade into a complete, ringing void.
"Mauricio, it's a mistake!" Carmen shrieked hysterically, clutching her pearl necklace as she stepped backward toward the decorated Christmas trees. "Elena had a weak heart! Everyone knew that! The doctors said it was natural!"
Mauricio didn't hear her. He was staring blindly at the bold, black text on the coroner's report.
Elena hadn't died of natural causes. The toxicology report explicitly detailed massive, lethal traces of a highly untraceable, slow-acting digitalis toxin in her bloodstream. She had been systematically, deliberately poisoned over the course of three months.
And the letter detailed exactly how the poison had been administered.
It was mixed into the herbal tea that Carmen had specifically brewed and served to Elena every single morning under the guise of "strengthening her immune system."
"You murdered my wife," Mauricio whispered, the sheer, evil magnitude of the betrayal settling heavily into his bones.
"No!" Carmen wailed, completely dropping her elegant mask, revealing a desperate, feral coward. "I loved Elena! I treated her like my own daughter!"
"Liar!"
A new, fierce voice echoed through the kitchen. It was Maria, the family’s longtime head housekeeper. She stepped out from the hallway, trembling with fear but radiating pure, righteous anger.
"She hated Elena," Maria stated loudly, looking directly at Mauricio. "Your mother hated that Elena refused to invest her pharmaceutical money into your mother’s failing real estate company. I heard them screaming in the study the night before Elena died. Your mother told her that if she didn't sign the transfer papers, she would make sure Elena didn't live to see Christmas."
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Mauricio slowly lowered the papers. The grieving, devastated widower completely vanished. A cold, demonic, and utterly terrifying wrath fully awakened in his dark eyes.
👉 What dark, twisted motive did the grandmother have for opening the letter?
