Poison in the Garden

POV Aitana

The air within El Robledal’s glass conservatory hung thick with the scent of damp earth and midnight jasmine. Mid-morning sunlight streamed through the translucent panels, casting golden patterns across the orchids and giant ferns Doña Victoria tended with such meticulous care. After that night of complete surrender in Sebastian’s arms, my body still carried a new, lingering warmth — a sweet heaviness in my limbs and a sense of rootedness I had never thought to feel again.

Sebastian had gone down early to the library with his legal team. Morning news confirmed the Serrano empire was collapsing at breathtaking speed: Don Germán Serrano had been formally summoned to testify before a federal judge regarding the laundering of the eighty-two million dollars stolen from my grandfather, while shares in his pharmaceutical laboratories plummeted in free fall. Within exclusive clubs and high-society magazines, Adela Serrano’s name no longer stood synonymous with corporate royalty — it had become radioactive shame, and every former acquaintance fled from it in terror.

Taking advantage of Selene’s first piano lesson under Doña Victoria’s direct supervision, with two guards posted at the music room door, I walked out to the conservatory to clear my mind. I needed a moment alone to grasp that the nightmare of living in hiding was finally drawing to an end.

Footsteps crunched across the gravel pathway, cutting through the soft murmur of the fountains.

“Miss Ferrer, forgive the interruption”, a woman’s voice called out from behind me. “I carry the blood-pressure charts and lab results the attending physician ordered for Doña Victoria. I was told at the entrance you might sign for receipt.”

I turned naturally. Before me stood a woman clad in the estate’s private medical staff uniform: loose white coat, latex gloves, a surgical mask covering the lower half of her face, and a clinical cap concealing her hair. She held a metal clipboard between her hands.

“Doña Victoria is in the east wing, but I can review them if you wish”, I replied, stepping forward without the slightest suspicion.

Instead of advancing toward the worktable, the woman reached back with her free hand and slid the heavy iron bolt across the main conservatory door. It clicked shut — sharp, metallic, and final — the sound echoing with ominous resonance between the glass walls.

Every survival instinct flared to life within me.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, stepping back, every muscle coiled tight.

The woman dropped the clipboard. It hit the gravel with a hollow, clattering crash. With trembling hands, shaking violently with agitation, she pulled off the cap and tore the mask away in one sharp motion.

My breath turned to ice in my lungs.

It was Adela Serrano.

Yet nothing remained of the polished, arrogant heiress who once strode boardrooms in couture. Her blonde hair hung dull and unkempt; deep purple bruises shadowed her eyes; her skin was ashen white; and her gaze burned wild, glassy, feverish — a look that turned my blood cold. Her lips twisted into a rictus of pure, long-buried hatred.

“You thought you could ruin me and settle here as though you owned this palace, you grasping little upstart?” Adela hissed, her voice raw and broken, as though worn thin by hours of screaming.

“How did you get inside?” I asked, keeping my tone deliberately even, retreating slowly while scanning for a side exit or something heavy enough to defend myself.

Adela let out a shrill, manic laugh — utterly devoid of sanity.

“The guards at the gate are fools who only check plastic identification cards”, she replied, lurching forward two unsteady steps. “I bribed the morning nurse, put on this white coat, and walked right in. No one turns away someone supposedly bringing medicine for the decrepit old woman.”

She stopped barely two paces away. I could smell cold sweat and stale, bitter perfume clinging to her clothes.

“My father is being questioned by prosecutors at this very moment”, Adela raged, clenching her fists so hard her nails dug into her palms. “My bank accounts were frozen this morning. My so-called friends will not answer my calls. Every brand has canceled my contracts. Everything was stripped away in twenty-four hours — all because of your meddling audit and Sebastian’s scheming!”

“Your father stole from a dying, helpless old man, and you tried to destroy an innocent child’s future to force a marriage of convenience”, I told her, my voice unyielding. “No one stripped anything from you. You and yours simply reaped exactly what your greed sowed.”

The truth struck her like a physical blow. Her face flushed with blind, unbridled fury. She took a violent step forward, closed the gap between us, and hurled a terracotta pot onto the stone flagging — it shattered into a thousand shards.

“You are nothing!” she shrieked, spittle flying. “A nobody who spread her legs in a hotel room six years ago and now plays queen because she had the luck to bear a Belmonte brat! Sebastian was mine! This empire, this name, this life — they belonged to me long before you crawled back from whatever gutter you hid in!”

“Sebastian was never yours — and he never will be”, I stated flatly. “Step away from the door and leave this property before I call security.”

Adela smiled then — a twisted, malicious, utterly deranged smile that sent pure, cold terror coiling through my stomach. She reached into her coat pocket and withdrew two things: a dark glass vial sealed with a dropper, and a gleaming steel surgical scalpel that caught the sunlight with a deadly flash.

“Do you imagine I care about consequences now?” she whispered, her sudden, deadly calm far more terrifying than her screams. She advanced again, backing me against a solid oak worktable piled high with gardening tools. “I have nothing left to lose. If my family falls to ruin and I end up in the gutter, neither of you will get your fairy-tale ending.”

She raised the scalpel to eye level, her gaze burning with homicidal madness that left no room for reason.

“I know exactly which room your little girl sleeps in”, Adela said, her voice dropping to a ghastly, conspiratorial whisper that tore straight through my heart. “I know what she eats. I know exactly when she walks in the gardens. I may not win Sebastian back — but I will make certain that little girl never inherits a single Belmonte penny. One drop of this liquid in her drink, or one clean cut across that perfect little face... and you will remember the price of crossing me for the rest of your miserable life.”

Terror for my daughter’s safety transformed instantly into a fierce, protective rage. My fingers closed tight around the iron handle of a heavy spade leaning against the table behind me — my grip white-knuckled, ready to strike her down before she could take one step toward Selene.