I reached the gun first, kicked it beneath the autopsy table, and grabbed Serena's wrist.
She kept calling my name as I dragged her into the corridor.
She stumbled behind me through the wine cellars and the dungeons, scraping one shoulder along the stone when I pulled her down the last stairs.
At the bottom of the west wing's sub-basement, I opened the old cistern. The family had stopped using it years ago. Damp earth and stagnant water fouled the air.
“Kaelen, please,” she sobbed, her words echoing in the vast, empty space. “I did it for you! For us! I love you!”
I shoved her against the wet stone and drew a syringe from my coat.
While Lorenzo read the documents, I had ordered Alistair to fill the syringe with a high concentration of the neurotoxin Elara had carried for five years.
