Chapter 7 - The Poison in the Veins
Maddie felt a sudden, sickening cold spread from the center of her chest down into her fingertips.
The cocktail.
Before Bradley had shoved her into the pool, his mother Vanessa had handed her a crystal flute of vintage rosé champagne, claiming it was a toast to the upcoming merger. She had taken three long sips before the shove. She had assumed her nausea, the sudden blurriness in her peripheral vision, and the trembling in her hands were merely shock and hypothermia.
""Christian!"" Maddie choked out, clutching the doorframe as her knees buckled beneath her.
The phone slipped from her fingers, clattering against the hardwood floor.
Christian was across the hallway in two strides, catching her before her head hit the ground. He knelt beside her, his cool hands cupping her face. Her skin had turned an alarming, translucent chalk-white, beads of cold sweat breaking out along her hairline.
""Maddie, what is it?"" his voice dropped its guarded formality, sharp panic cutting through his usual composure.
She couldn't speak; her vocal cords felt paralyzed, as if coated in lead. With trembling fingers, she pointed weakly toward the glowing screen of her phone on the floor.
Christian picked it up, watching the ten-second clip. His jaw hardened into pure granite. ""Aconite,"" he muttered under his breath, reading the subtle symptoms in her pupils and labored pulse. ""Slow-acting cardiac glycoside. They thought you’d simply drown or suffer cardiac arrest from the cold water shock.""
He scooped her up into his arms effortlessly, shouting toward the intercom on the wall: ""Marcus! Prep the private medical bay on floor two! Call Dr. Lin immediately! We have an acute neurotoxin ingestion!""
Maddie clung to Christian’s lapels, her vision tunneling into darkness. Sound warped around her—the heavy thud of Christian’s boots sprinting down the stairs, the sterile hiss of automatic sliding doors, the bright glare of surgical lights overhead.
""Stay with me, Maddie,"" Christian’s voice was right against her ear, fierce and unrelenting. ""You didn't survive that fall into the water just to die on my floor. You wanted revenge. You don't get to quit before you see Bradley break.""
""The... boardroom..."" she managed to whisper, blood pooling faintly at the corner of her lower lip where her teeth had clamped down against a violent seizure.
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""I will carry you into that room myself if I have to,"" Christian swore, holding her down as a masked physician rushed forward with a pre-filled syringe. ""Now fight it.""
The needle pierced her vein, and the world dissolved into blinding white fire.
