Chapter 234

Ella POV

My contact at the prison told me Hayes followed his script exactly, and for the moment, I decided to put the wolf out of my mind. Few things had ever worked out as nicely as discovering the good doctor’s gambling addiction, and Hayes had several million reasons to do as he was told.

When the time was right, I’d get him released, maybe faking his death? And he could retire to the island of his choosing. I found myself oddly reluctant to take care of him more permanently; he’d been such a faithful little thing.

And what a time we’d had together. So many near misses, so many last-minute saves, when all the while the little jackal should have died the second she showed up in Zane’s life.

How many attempts had I made? How many times had she come out unscathed? To say nothing of Grace’s calling her wolf in time to save her when she should have died about sixty seconds after Olivia had pushed her out into the world.

Damn it, but even a slew of terrorists hadn’t been able to reach that woman.

So, there was nothing for it now but to take matters into my own hands. If you want something done right, and all that. Besides, with Hayes in jail, I was running out of lackeys.

There’s a room I rent out downtown as a lab without a scrap of paper or a single keystroke to connect me to it. I’d spent many productive hours there. I did my usual routine of going out, being seen, even having lunch at a funky little restaurant with a disco ball and the best ramen in the territory.

Then I went in a store and out the back, then into an Uber with a pair of large sunglasses and an account not in my name. Then it was a matter of walking into an apartment while skirting the two security cameras in the lobby. Then I changed into lumpy clothes and a black wig.

I wondered sometimes what Zane imagined I did with all my money. Did I he think I spent it all on dresses and jewels? Probably.

I wound up in my little laboratory in good time. I had already gathered the raw materials of smelting copper, galena, and zinc. I had thought of plundering some electronics, but with my working knowledge of chemistry, this was actually an easier way to procure what I wanted.

I suited up and made sure the ventilation was working properly. My first step was to leach the thallium from the raw materials with sulfuric acid. Then the rather tedious process of precipitating the solution several times over to purify it. Finally, I converted the thallium to thallium sulfate and then extracted it by electrolysis on my platinum plate.

When I was done, I had a little gray bit of metal. It was more than enough.

Rat poison for a little rat, I thought.

Getting back home meant doing the process in reverse. I secured the lab, went to my apartment to change back into myself, wandered around, and finally went home.

It was late, and I poured myself a glass of red and sat in my darkened living room to think.

It all began with my sister. Olivia had always wanted what wasn’t hers, and that included Cavendish Territory. I remember as a child, such a sweet thing I was, and first being told that as a beta, I could not have the status of my alpha sister. Later, I found out this wasn’t actually true.

Pack Betas were rare, but they existed. Rather famously, Ivan the Terrible was a beta, and he’d started at the Grand Prince of Moscow and then spent thirty-seven years as the first Tsar of Russia, turning that little backwater into an empire.

I greatly enjoyed learning about the House of Medici. Though many of the members were betas, they reigned in Medici’s fifteenth century with religious and secular leaders. My idol, Catherine de' Medici, was said to be a beauty, like me, and brilliant. She’s given birth to many Pack Alphas and had retained her power over her pack even after her mate’s sudden death.

Of course, it was with the history of Catherine that I learned about poisons. My favorite story was that she introduced the fashion of gloves that had been perfumed to cover the odor of the animal excrement used at the time in leather tanning. When I read about how enemy died after receiving a pair of such gloves, I knew I had found my role model.

I thought of the little chunk of gray metal now in my home safe. I wouldn’t have to resort to thallium if Zane had simply accepted my role in his bed. But no, he was as stubborn as he was foolish.

My next steps were inevitable. The damn human just wouldn’t die properly, and I confess the knowledge the poison would take at least a couple days to kill her was a bit of a cherry on top.

Would Zane suffer, watching his little side piece die in agony? He had suffered when Olivia died, and then even more when Grace disappeared—thank you, Scott.

He could have avoided all the unpleasantness and had himself what I have been told is a mighty fine roll in the grass with me, but he had made his choices.

My only obstacle now was actually getting the thallium into Sarah’s food or drink, but that was the work of a few minutes of makeup and simpering.

Yes, Sarah was going to come to her end at last.

Then I could take care of the children.