A 40-year-old billionaire had spent more than three million dollars trying to understand why his twin sons kept getting weaker,

I didn’t let my panic show. In high-stakes situations, panic is a luxury that costs lives.

I looked at the bedside table. On the tray sat two small porcelain bowls of warm bone broth, prepared by Mrs. Harper twenty minutes before she dropped the towels, alongside two small blue bottles of liquid pediatric multivitamins that Dr. Blake had personally prescribed and delivered every Monday.

*Requires an oral activating agent to metabolize fully.*

My eyes locked onto those blue bottles.

“Vincent,” I called out, my voice slicing through the tense argument between him and Julianna.

Vincent turned immediately. “What is it?”

“The boys are asleep,” I lied smoothly, pointing to the two small figures under the duvet whose eyes were indeed fluttering shut from exhaustion. “We should let them rest. Miss Vance, perhaps you’d like to join Mr. Moretti in the study to wait for Dr. Blake?”

Julianna looked annoyed by my intervention, but seeing Vincent’s stony face, she conceded. “Fine. But don’t think this conversation is over, Vincent. Harrison will be here in fifteen minutes.”

She turned on her heel and strode out into the corridor.

Vincent lingered. “Claire? What did the forensic report say?”

I waited until Julianna’s heels faded down the marble hallway. Then I moved like lightning.

I grabbed the two blue vitamin bottles from the bedside tray and slipped them into my cardigan pocket. Then, using a clean spoon, I scooped a sample of the bone broth into a sterile specimen cup from my bag.

“The aerosol in the vent is only half the poison,” I whispered, looking straight into Vincent’s eyes. “It’s a two-part binary chemical agent. The gas weakens their lungs and binds to their fatty tissues. But to cause the systemic organ failure, it needs an ingested chemical to trigger it.”

Vincent’s breath caught in his throat. He looked at the bedside tray, then at the door through which Julianna had just vanished.

“The vitamins,” he whispered, his voice trembling with sheer horror. “Blake has been delivering those custom compounds personally every week for eleven months. He told me it was an experimental peptide formula formulated specifically for their genetic markers.”

“And who prepared their food?” I asked.

“Mrs. Harper,” Vincent said. “She’s cooked for me for fifteen years.”

“We need to test both,” I said. “Right now. Before Blake gets here with his transport team. If he takes Lucas and Leo out of this house and into a private clinic under his control, you will never bring them home alive, Vincent. They will die of ‘natural pediatric complications,’ and no coroner will ever find the toxin because Blake will be the one signing the death certificates.”

Vincent’s face morphed into something terrifying. The civilized billionaire was gone. In his place stood a predator whose offspring were under mortal threat.

“No one is taking my sons,” he snarled.

He pulled his phone and hit speed dial. “Marcus. Lock the main estate gates. No vehicles enter. If Dr. Harrison Blake arrives, do not let his convoy pass the perimeter. Detain him in the security lodge. Use whatever force is necessary.”

He hung up, his eyes locking onto mine.

“What do we do now?” he asked. For the first time, Vincent Moretti was taking orders from someone else.

“We flush their systems,” I said. “Activated charcoal and high-dose saline rehydration immediately. I have medical-grade charcoal suspension in my emergency kit. And then... we set a trap.”

“A trap for whom?”