Chapter 2 - The Amber Liquid
By my eighth day at the Cross estate, I had learned the unwritten rhythm of the house. Gabriel slept in erratic blocks, tormented by phantom nerve pain that standard medication could only partially dull. He spent his afternoons in the second-floor library overlooking the gray Atlantic, reviewing shipping manifests and real estate portfolios on a custom-mounted tablet, refusing visitors and snapping at anyone who lingered too long.
The staff tiptoed around him like ghosts. Only Landon Mercer and Dr. Alistair Vance, a sleek, silver-haired physician who visited every Tuesday and Friday, had unfettered access to Gabriel’s private wing.
It was a Tuesday afternoon when the discrepancy caught my eye.
I was dusting the mahogany bookshelves in the library while Gabriel was downstairs in the physical therapy room with his trainer. The room smelled of old paper, lemon oil, and the faint, medicinal tang that always seemed to linger near his desk. On the corner table, beside a stack of leather-bound ledgers, sat his midday medication organizer—a black leather case with compartments marked by days of the week.
Next to it sat a small, amber glass pill bottle.
I paused, my feather duster hovering over a volume of maritime law. I had cleaned this desk three hours earlier, right before lunch. That amber bottle hadn't been there.
Curiosity, born of long hours and an instinct sharpened by months of financial survival, made me step closer. I didn't touch the bottle with my bare hands; I used the edge of my microfiber cloth to tilt it so I could read the label.
It wasn't Gabriel’s prescription.
Gabriel’s primary pain management regimen consisted of a strict, time-released compound prescribed by Dr. Vance—a white capsule stamped with a distinct manufacturer’s code. This bottle, however, contained small, round, cherry-red tablets. A generic beta-blocker mixed with a high-dosage sedative. Combined with Gabriel’s actual medication, or taken in place of it during physical exertion, a dose of those red pills would cause a severe drop in blood pressure, dizziness, erratic heart rhythms, and cognitive fog.
In a man recovering from severe spinal trauma and struggling with mobility, it would look like a sudden medical relapse.
It would look like he was losing his mind.
My heart did a strange, cold stutter in my chest. I pulled my phone from my apron pocket, switched off the shutter sound, and snapped three clear, high-resolution photos of the bottle, capturing the pharmacy label, the serial number, and the specific pills inside. Then I placed the bottle back exactly where I had found it.
Who had put it there?
Dr. Vance had visited at noon. Landon had been in the East Wing all morning. But thirty minutes before I found the bottle, I had seen someone else leaving the private hallway: Julian Cross, Gabriel’s younger cousin and the vice president of Cross Development.
Julian had spent the last six months publicly lamenting Gabriel’s tragic condition while quietly lobbying the board of directors to trigger the company’s emergency incapacitation clause—a legal mechanism that would strip Gabriel of his voting shares and hand operational control of the multi-billion-dollar empire directly to Julian and his corporate allies.
If Gabriel suffered a series of sudden, unexplained dizzy spells or cognitive lapses during executive meetings, the board would have no choice. They would vote him out.
The front door chimed softly downstairs. Footsteps echoed on the grand staircase.
I slipped my phone back into my pocket just as Gabriel rolled into the library, his face flushed from physical therapy, his shoulders heaving with exhaustion. He stopped ten feet from the desk, his eyes locking onto mine with suspicious intensity.
"What were you doing near my desk?" he demanded, his voice tight.
"Dusting," I said, holding up the microfiber cloth. "Libraries collect a lot of paper lint, Mr. Cross. If I don't dust it, nobody else will."
He stared at me, searching for a lie. "You were standing too close to the side table."
"I was dusting the side table."
Gabriel gritted his teeth, gripping the wheels of his chair. "Get out. I'm done for the day."
"Your medication is on the desk," I said carefully, watching his face. "The midday dose."
Gabriel paused, reaching out to open the leather case. His fingers hovered over the compartments. For a split second, he looked at the amber bottle beside it, his brow furrowing with sudden confusion. He picked up the amber bottle, squinted at the label, and then set it back down without taking anything.
"Leave," he repeated, lower this time.
May you like
I didn't argue. I picked up my caddy and walked out of the room. But as the door swung shut, my mind was racing. Gabriel hadn't recognized that bottle. He hadn't ordered it.
Someone inside his inner circle—someone he trusted with access to his private sanctuary—was systematically poisoning his days, waiting for him to fail so completely that he would sign away his empire without a fight.
