Chapter 3 - Blood and Poison
“Catch her!” Marcus roared, already signaling his tactical unit.
Julian did not run. The fury inside him had evolved into an icy, surgical clarity. He took Chloe’s small hand in his. “Marcus, take Chloe to the safe room at the penthouse. Lock it down with Level-1 protocol. No one enters unless I personally give the retinal scan. Do you understand?”
“With my life, Mr. Vance,” Marcus replied solemnly. He scooped the little girl into his arms. Chloe buried her face in the security chief’s shoulder, her small frame shivering with exhaustion.
Julian turned toward the remaining guests, his voice projecting through the cavernous hall like a crack of thunder. “The gala is over. My security team will escort you out one by one. Anyone who leaks a single frame of this footage before dawn will face the entire legal department of Vance Enterprises. We will dismantle your finances until you don't have enough to buy a cup of coffee. Clear the room.”
Within ten minutes, the grand ballroom was an empty graveyard of broken crystal, spilled wine, and shattered vanity. Only Bianca remained, flanked by two private guards, standing by the ruined dais. She had dropped all pretenses. She sat on the edge of the gilded banquet table, swinging one leg, casually inspecting her manicure.
“You’re pathetic, Julian,” Bianca scoffed, her voice dripping with venom. “You think you’re a king, but you’re just a blind, arrogant fool. Your mother was already dying. I just sped up the process.”
Julian walked toward her, his footsteps echoing in the cavernous silence. He stopped three feet away, his shadow towering over her.
“What did you give her, Bianca?”
Bianca laughed—a sharp, grating sound that bounced off the marble walls. “Ask your sister. She’s the one who bought it on the dark web. High-dose digitalis. Triggers a natural-looking myocardial infarction in patients with recent heart surgery. The coroner wouldn't have even raised an eyebrow. An elderly woman gets too excited at her son’s gala and drops dead. Tragic. Predictable.”
Julian’s fists clenched until the bones in his knuckles protested, but he did not lay a finger on her. He knew precisely what she was doing. The cameras might be disconnected, but Bianca was a creature of calculated traps. She wanted him to assault her; she wanted a criminal record on him to file an emergency injunction tomorrow morning.
“And Clara?” Julian asked, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “What did you do to my wife?”
Bianca’s smirk widened, exposing straight, bleached teeth. “Clara was soft. Just like you. She found out what Camille was embezzling from the overseas logistics contracts. Three hundred million dollars, Julian! Right under your nose! Clara was going to tell you. So Camille paid for a little mechanical alteration to Clara’s steering column.”
Bianca leaned forward, her eyes dancing with psychotic delight. “And I was the one who cut the brake lines, Julian. I was the valet at the charity gala that night. You tipped me fifty dollars when I brought Clara’s car around. You didn't even look at my face.”
Julian felt the room spin. The memory flashed violently in his mind: the torrential rain three years ago, handing his black titanium credit card and a folded fifty-dollar bill to a female attendant in a peaked cap, kissing Clara goodbye on the cheek…
*Fifty dollars.* He had handed his wife’s executioner the tip for her murder.
A guttural roar ripped from Julian’s chest, but before he could cross the distance, his phone vibrated violently against his chest. He ripped it from his tuxedo pocket.
It was Dr. Harrison, the Vance family’s chief medical officer at Presbyterian Hospital.
“Julian!” Dr. Harrison’s voice was breathless, panicked. “Your mother survived the transit, but her vitals are crashing. We ran a rapid blood panel per your orders. Her bloodstream is flooded with digitalis glycosides! Her potassium is through the roof. If we don’t administer the neutralizing antibodies within forty-five minutes, she will suffer irreversible cardiac arrest!”
“Then give her the antibodies!” Julian shouted.
“We can’t!” Harrison cried out, genuine despair in his tone. “Someone purged the hospital pharmacy’s stock of Digifab two hours ago! The regional distribution center in Queens is reporting their supply was destroyed by an intentional chemical spill! Julian… it’s a coordinated sabotage. Someone deliberately cut off the antidote for the entire tri-state area!”
Julian turned his gaze toward Bianca.
Bianca tilted her head, her smile triumphant, utterly venomous. She reached into her silver designer clutch, pulled out a small, glass vial filled with clear liquid, and held it up between two fingers.
“Looking for this, darling?” she purred. “Five doses of pure Digifab. The only surviving batch within two hundred miles.”
Julian’s jaw tightened. “What do you want?”
May you like
“The study,” Bianca whispered, her eyes flashing with greedy fire. “You’re going to walk me into your private study. You’re going to open the safe. You’re going to hand me the Blue Box, along with the signed transfer of the North Atlantic shipping shares. You give me the box, and your mother gets to live. You have thirty-eight minutes, Julian. Tick, tock.”
***
