Chapter 3 - The Syringe on the Floor
"Marcus," I whispered, my trembling fingers clutching his tailored suit jacket. "Look under the table."
Marcus followed my gaze. When his eyes landed on the discarded syringe, the air in the room turned subzero. The faint amber liquid inside the glass barrel caught the fluorescent light, gleaming like liquid venom.
"Nobody touch that," Marcus ordered, his voice dangerously low.
Dr. Campbell glanced down and gasped. "That is concentrated potassium chloride. It’s kept in locked storage on the surgical floor. A dose that size directly into an IV line would trigger an instant, fatal cardiac arrest—for both mother and child."
The room went dead silent. The two security guards holding Isabella tightened their grip, their knuckles turning white. Isabella had stopped screaming. Her face was ashen, her chest heaving as she stared at the lethal tube she had dropped during our struggle.
"You weren't just trying to hurt my wife," Marcus whispered, slowly standing up and turning toward Isabella. His eyes were hollow with an icy, terrifying fury. "You came here to murder my family."
"No! That's not mine!" Isabella shrieked, panic clawing at her throat. "Someone planted it! Khloe brought it to frame me! She knew you were coming, Marcus! She staged the whole thing!"
"Staged it?" Marcus walked toward her, each heavy footstep echoing like a death knell. "You think my seven-month pregnant wife threw herself onto a marble floor, risked our son's life, and planted a lethal syringe just to make you look bad?"
"She hates me! She's always been jealous of what we had!" Isabella sobbed, twisting in the guards' grip.
Marcus stopped inches from her. "There was never a 'we,' Isabella. You were my executive assistant for three months until I fired you for embezzling corporate accounts. The only reason you aren't in prison is because your father begged me on his knees."
Marcus reached into his pocket and pulled out his encrypted smartphone. He tapped the screen three times, pulling up the hospital’s VIP surveillance feed. Because of prior threats against his company, Marcus had installed high-definition 4K lenses disguised as smoke detectors in this private suite.
"Let’s see what the cloud recorded before I walked through that door," Marcus said quietly.
He hit play. The audio blasted through his phone’s speakers, crisp and horrifyingly clear.
On the screen, Isabella was seen slipping into my room fifteen minutes earlier, pulling the syringe from her designer handbag. Khloe was resting in bed. Isabella approached the IV pole, her face twisted in malice.
*“Did you really think Marcus loved you, Khloe?”* Isabella’s recorded voice echoed through the room. *“Once this clears your heart, he’ll come back to the family that actually built his empire. Raymond Vance sends his regards.”*
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Then the video showed me waking up, screaming, fighting her off, and getting dragged out of the bed onto the floor.
At the mention of Raymond Vance, Marcus’s body stiffened completely. His eyes widened in shock. Raymond was his own uncle—and the senior vice-chairman of Sterling Enterprises.
