Chapter 2 - The Silent Poison
The testing took less than an hour.
Adrian sat in his private study, the heavy oak doors shut and locked.
His phone buzzed on the mahogany desk.
“Speak,” Adrian said, hitting the speakerphone button.
“You’re not going to like this, Boss,” Marcus’s voice came through, grim and low.
“Tell me.”
“The lab rushed the swab. The rim of the substitute glass was coated with a synthetic derivative of Aconite.”
Adrian didn’t flinch, though his blood ran cold.
“Wolfsbane.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fast-acting?”
“Extremely,” Marcus confirmed. “Odorless, tasteless. You would have had a heart attack before the main course.”
Adrian leaned back in his leather chair, staring at the ceiling.
“And the water carafe?”
“Clean,” Marcus said. “They only targeted your glass.”
“They wanted to make sure nobody else at the table was caught in the crossfire.”
“Which points to a targeted hit, Boss.”
“By someone who knew my exact place setting.”
Adrian drummed his fingers on the armrest.
“Who had access to the dining room today?”
“I’m pulling the security logs now,” Marcus said.
“The perimeter wasn't breached. It was an inside job.”
“Check the internal access cards.”
“Already on it. I’ll bring the tablet to your study.”
Five minutes later, Marcus walked in and set an iPad on the desk.
“Look at this.”
Adrian glanced at the screen, scanning the rows of data.
“These are the digital locks for the wine cellar and the dining room corridor.”
“Right,” Marcus pointed to a specific timestamp.
“At 3:15 PM, someone swiped into the dining corridor.”
“Whose card?”
Marcus hesitated. “Veronica’s.”
Adrian stared at the name on the screen.
Veronica Sterling.
His fiancée of six months.
She was supposed to be the bridge between his legitimate real estate empire and a high-society political family.
“She claimed she went down to find wine,” Adrian murmured.
“But she didn't access the cellar,” Marcus pointed out.
“Her card never swiped at the cellar door. Only the dining corridor.”
“Seventeen minutes later, her card appears on the second-floor logs.”
“She was in the dining room.”
Adrian’s voice was dangerously calm.
“She switched the glass. But why?”
“Money? Power? Someone paid her off?” Marcus offered.
“Veronica comes from old money. She doesn’t need mine.”
“Maybe she needed you out of the way for something else.”
Adrian stood up and walked to the window, watching the rain pour over his estate.
“I need to know everything she has touched in this house.”
“I can do a full audit of the security system,” Marcus suggested.
“Do it,” Adrian ordered.
“But do it quietly. I want to know exactly what my dear fiancée has been up to.”
May you like
He turned back to Marcus.
“And bring Grace Miller to me. I have more questions.”
