Chapter 2 - The Cyanide Mint
Dmitri didn't ask questions. With the speed of a trained soldier, he grabbed a silver pen from the desk, forced Alexei’s mouth wider, and used his phone's flashlight to illuminate the back of his throat.
There, wedged between the lower gum and the tongue, was a gelatinous, melting blue capsule—hardly larger than an unchewed mint. It was dissolving rapidly into the bloodstream through the sublingual tissue.
“Swab! Get medical tweezers now!” Dmitri roared.
Maria didn’t think. Her instinct as a mother overtook every shred of fear. She reached into her apron, pulled out a sterile cotton wipe she always carried for Sophie’s scraped knees, and dove forward. “Dmitri, don’t puncture it! If it ruptures entirely, it will flood his trachea!”
With trembling yet steady fingers, Maria slid her fingers into the mouth of the most feared crime boss in the Midwest, pinched the remaining slick outer shell of the dissolving capsule, and extracted it just as it was about to slip into his esophagus.
She dropped the blue gelatin fragment onto a clean ceramic coaster on the desk.
The instant the obstruction cleared, Alexei’s chest hitched violently. A ragged, whistling gasp tore from his lungs. His body convulsed as air flooded his starved brain, but his eyes remained rolled back, pupils blown wide.
“What was in that?” Dmitri hissed, staring at the melting blue substance that was already releasing a faint, bitter almond scent into the air.
“Potassium cyanide coated in enteric gelatin,” a voice barked from the hallway.
Dr. Lev Abramov, the Petrov family's private personal physician, rushed into the study with two paramedics who didn't arrive via city ambulance, but through the estate’s private tunnel network. Lev shoved an oxygen mask over Alexei’s face, immediately driving a syringe of hydroxocobalamin into his jugular vein.
“The absorption was delayed by the gelatin casing,” Lev breathed heavily, watching the heart monitor beep erratically before finding a desperate, rapid rhythm. “Whoever gave him this wanted him dead five minutes after swallowing his coffee, without leaving powder in the mug. If that remaining shell hadn't been extracted before it completely dissolved... his heart would have stopped sixty seconds ago.”
Lev looked down at the floor.
Sophie was still kneeling there, her pink plastic stethoscope clutched against her chest, watching the doctors work with calm fascination.
“Who found it?” Lev asked, wiping sweat from his brow.
Dmitri pointed a shaking finger at the little girl in purple leggings. “She did.”
The paramedics strapped Alexei to a tactical gurney, lifting his massive frame with practiced precision. As they rolled him toward the private elevator that led to the underground medical bunker beneath the east wing, Alexei’s heavy eyelids fluttered open.
The sedative and the neurotoxin had robbed him of speech, but his gaze drifted through the forest of armed men until it locked onto the tiny girl standing beside the linen cart.
Sophie waved her small hand. “Bye-bye. Take your vitamins, big mister.”
Alexei Petrov’s fingers twitched against the gurney strap. His dark, piercing eyes held hers until the steel elevator doors closed between them.
Maria grabbed Sophie, pulling her into her arms so tightly the toddler grunted in protest. Maria’s legs gave out, and she sank to the floor in the hallway, burying her face in her daughter’s dark curls, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Mommy, why are you crying?” Sophie asked, her little hands patting Maria’s cheeks. “I fixed him. I’m a big doctor now.”
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Dmitri stepped over, his tailored suit disheveled, his pistol re-holstered beneath his jacket. He looked down at the shivering maid and the child with the plastic toy.
“Maria,” Dmitri said, his tone no longer that of an employer, but of a general in the middle of a war. “You and your daughter do not leave this house tonight. The gates are locked down. The person who put that mint on his desk is still inside this mansion.”
