Chapter 1 - The Tea That Changed Everything
The new maid caught the Castellano matriarch’s hand before the slap landed—and then calmly told her the real reason Rafe had hired her.
The silver tea tray struck the marble floor first.
Porcelain shattered beneath the chandelier.
Amber tea splashed across the white marble as Margarite Castellano raised her hand.
“Know your place, girl!”
Sloan Whitaker caught her wrist.
Not roughly.
Not desperately.
Precisely.
Every servant in the foyer froze.
Sloan leaned closer.
“Your son didn’t bring me here because he needed another maid.”
Margarite's face changed.
Above them, Rafe Castellano stood on the grand staircase balcony.
He looked pale.
But he wasn't surprised.
Sloan continued.
“He brought me here because someone inside this house is making him sick.”
Margarite stared at her.
“Who sent you?”
Sloan released her wrist.
“Everyone close enough to reach him is someone I have to watch.”
She stepped back.
“Including you.”
No one breathed.
Rafe slowly descended the first step.
For six weeks, his doctors had blamed his worsening illness on stress.
Then medication.
Then an undiagnosed condition.
But Rafe knew his own body.
He had noticed one pattern.
He became violently ill only after eating or drinking inside his own home.
He had hired Sloan three days earlier under a false identity.
She wasn't there to clean.
She was there to find out who was poisoning him.
And tonight, she had finally found something.
The tea cup.
The one Margarite had personally insisted Sloan carry.
The one Rafe had never touched.
Because Sloan had switched it at the last second.
And the cup now lying shattered on the marble contained the first clue.
A faint white residue clung to its rim.
Sloan had seen the same residue on Rafe's medication bottle that morning.
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Someone wasn't trying to scare him.
Someone was slowly making him sick.
