The hospital waiting room smelled of floor wax and old linoleum—a sterile, unforgiving scent that felt entirely out of place for a child who should have been smelling of baby powder and sweet milk.

The rain had turned into a steady, gray deluge by the time Maren’s sleek black sedan pulled up to the security gates of the Wescott estate. She sat in the passenger seat, her expression tight, her fingers drumming an erratic rhythm against her leather handbag.

The heavy iron gates remained shut.

Maren lowered the tinted window just enough to look out at the guard booth. "Open the gates," she called out, keeping her voice level, laced with the practiced authority she usually wielded over the estate staff. "I need to retrieve some paperwork for Mr. Wescott from the third floor."

The guard inside the booth didn't step out into the rain. He simply pressed an intercom button. "Orders from Mr. Wescott, Miss Ellis. You are not permitted entry."

Maren’s jaw tightened. A sharp, ugly flash of irritation crossed her face—the mask slipping entirely now that she realized her meticulously constructed world was unraveling.

"This is absurd," she snapped, pushing the car door open despite the pouring rain. She grabbed her umbrella, stepped out onto the slick tarmac, and marched toward the glass window of the guard booth. "Call Adrian right now. Tell him Maren is here and she will not be treated like a trespasser in her own family’s home."

"He already knows you're here, Miss Ellis," a deep, gravelly voice echoed from behind her.

Maren froze. She slowly turned around on the wet asphalt.

Standing beneath the wide concrete overhang of the estate entrance were Adrian and Owen. Adrian wore no coat; the cold rain plastered his dark hair against his forehead and soaked through his crisp white shirt, but he didn't seem to notice. His eyes were fixed on her with a terrifying, hollow intensity. In his arms, wrapped in a fresh blanket, was Milo—awake, quiet, and breathing on his own.

Maren’s breath caught in her throat, but she forced her features back into an expression of wounded bewilderment.

"Adrian? What is the meaning of this?" she asked, her voice trembling just enough to sound authentic. "Why am I locked out? And why have you brought Milo out into this freezing rain? He just came from the hospital—"

"Stop talking, Maren," Adrian interrupted. His voice was devastatingly quiet, carrying across the wet courtyard without a single hint of warmth.

He took two slow steps forward, closing the distance between them. Owen stepped in beside him, holding up the clear plastic evidence bag containing the unmarked amber dropper bottle and the embossed leather journal.

Maren’s eyes dropped to the bag. All the color drained from her face in a single heartbeat, leaving her skin the gray-white of old parchment.

"Where..." she whispered, her voice losing its polish. "Where did you get that?"

"In your wall safe," Adrian said. "Right next to the personal effects of my late wife—items you claimed were lost during the move."

"It’s not mine," Maren stammered, taking a desperate step backward, her heels sinking into the wet mud of the garden bed. "Someone planted it there! Owen, you know how these security systems work—anyone could have accessed my room—"

"No one else has the biometric override code for your private wall safe," Owen stated flatly. "And the forensic sweep of the dropper matches the chemical signature extracted from my son’s blood work at the hospital."

Maren looked from Owen to Adrian, realizing the trap had closed completely. The terrified, vulnerable facade dissolved, replaced by a bitter, venomous sneer that twisted her features into something unrecognizable.

"You fools," she hissed, her voice rising above the sound of the falling rain. "You absolute fools. Do you think I wanted to hurt the boy? I didn't want to kill him! I just wanted him sick."

Adrian took another step forward, his chest heaving. "Why?"

"Because you were slipping away!" Maren shrieked, tears mixing with the rain on her cheeks. "After Elena died, you locked yourself inside this mausoleum! I gave you my youth, my time, my entire life managing this estate, waiting for you to see me, waiting for you to realize that Elena was gone and that I was the one holding your life together! But all you cared about was that child. He was the anchor keeping you tied to a dead woman. Every time I looked at him, I saw the wall between us!"

She pointed a shaking finger directly at the bundle in Adrian’s arms.

"If he was sick just enough, you would need me more," she cried, her voice cracking into hysteria. "You would lean on me. We would be a family. That maid—that wretched Talia—she walked into the nursery just as I was adding the drops to his afternoon formula bottle. She saw me. She tried to stop me, so I locked her out and told her she was crazy. But she took him to the sink to wash the residue from his skin... and you—you fired her like a dog!"

Adrian stood completely still. The rain poured down his face, washing away the salt of his tears and the bitter realization of his own catastrophic blindness.

He had trusted the wrong person. He had let grief turn his heart into stone, blinding him to the monster living under his own roof, while punishing the only person who had tried to save his son.