Chapter 17 - The Confrontation
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Audrey stumbled backward, her high heels slipping on the spilled, poisoned water. She hit the edge of the mahogany dresser, her chest heaving as she stared at the man in the doorway.
“Victor!” she gasped, her hands shaking violently. She desperately tried to reconstruct her mask, forcing a hysterical, sobbing tone into her voice. “Victor, thank God you’re here! Your mother… she was having a seizure! I was trying to give her water, but she knocked it out of my hand!”
Victor didn't blink. He stepped fully into the room, locking the heavy door behind him with a loud, final click.
“A seizure,” Victor repeated, walking slowly toward her, his dark eyes fixed on her trembling face. “Is that what you call it when you try to force a lethal dose of synthetic digitalis down a paralyzed woman’s throat?”
Audrey’s face drained of all color. The fabricated tears instantly stopped.
“I… I don't know what you're talking about,” she stammered, backing away until she was cornered against the wall. “It was just water, Victor. You're scaring me.”
“Am I?” Victor asked softly. He stopped a few feet away from her. “I should be. Because for three weeks, I’ve watched you torture my mother. I watched you pour her water onto the floor. I watched you call her a burden. And tonight, I watched you try to murder her.”
“You're insane!” Audrey shrieked, her panic reaching a fever pitch. “You have no proof! You can't just accuse me of this! Do you know who my father is? If you touch me, he will destroy you!”
Victor smiled. It was a cold, humorless stretching of lips that made Audrey’s blood run entirely cold.
“Marta,” Victor called out into the room.
The slatted doors of the walk-in closet slowly opened. The housekeeper stepped out into the dim light. She wasn't holding a cleaning cloth. She was holding a stack of the sealed parchment packets containing the pills Audrey had tried to force on Sylvia for the last twenty-three days.
“Marta kept the evidence, Audrey,” Victor said, gesturing to the terrified but resolute maid. “Every single pill. And my toxicologist confirmed exactly what they are.”
Audrey stared at the maid, sheer, unadulterated hatred twisting her beautiful features into something ugly and demonic.
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“You lying immigrant trash,” Audrey spat, taking a sudden, violent step toward Marta. “I’ll have you deported! I’ll have you thrown in a cage!”
Victor moved faster than Audrey could register. His hand shot out, catching her by the throat, slamming her brutally back against the wallpaper.
