Chapter 10 Ten Seconds
Trying to save a life in a room full of people who obviously hate you and have no faith in you is a strange situation to be in.
Despite the circumstances, my hand is still rock steady as I hold the syringe. The only other calm face is Alistair. The rest of the Wolfe family looks like they’re ready to stage a public execution.
I try to take a move closer to Alistair’s grandmother when my free hand is yanked back with so much force there’s a cracking sound in my arm. Now, between the Old madam and me, another Wolfe is blocking my path.
I recognize him from the photos I studied. He’s Alistair’s uncle, Richard and he’s standing with his wife, Clara. They stand together, arms linked, forming a wall of expensive wool and judgmental glares.
Honestly, my patience is wearing really thin.
"If you want to inject that poison into our mother, you’ll have to go through us first," Richard bellows. He is a broad man with a face that has spent too much time being pampered by five-star chefs. His chubby cheeks are a mottled, angry pink.
I look at Alistair. He stands just behind me.
"There’s no time," I tell him.
He doesn’t move toward his uncle. He doesn’t even raise his voice.
"Move," Alistair says. "Anyone who dares to obstruct this will be held personally accountable for whatever happens next. If she dies because you wanted to play gatekeeper, I’ll ensure you spend the rest of your lives wishing you’d been in that coffin with her."
I understand from experience that intimidation is Alistair’s primary language. From the look in their eyes, it seems Richard and Clara understand it perfectly. I see the exact moment their courage fails. Their linked arms drop. They shuffle to the side, Richard looking at the floorboards while Clara mutters something about lawsuits under her breath.
I don’t wait for another protest. I drop to my knees beside Celia Wolfe. Her skin is now the color of old ash, and her pulse is nothing more than a chaotic, fluttering ghost against my fingertips.
I hope it’s not too late.
As quickly as I can, I find the vein. The needle slides in with a clean, surgical precision. I depress the plunger, watching the shimmering liquid vanish into her bloodstream.
Then, the world stops.
One second. Two. The room is so quiet I can hear the rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall. It sounds like a countdown. Five seconds. Six. Alistair is standing right over me, his shadow swallowing me whole. I can feel his gaze, a heavy, burning weight on the back of my neck.
Ten seconds.
Nothing happens. Celia remains as still as a statue.
Suddenly, her body jerks. It isn’t a gentle return to life. Her limbs begin to convulse, her back arching off the Persian rug. A thin, white foam begins to gather at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes are wide, staring at nothing, shaking with a terrifying, mindless energy.
"You’ve killed her!" Beatrice’s voice shatters the silence like a brick through a window.
Before I can even turn my head, a stinging pain explodes across my cheek. The force of the slap sends me sprawling backward. My ears ring, and the metallic taste of blood blooms in my mouth. Beatrice stands over me, and her eyes are glistening. She looks...happy.
Not happy that something might have happened to Celia but happy that it happened in my hands.
The look on her face reminds me of the one Chloe had in the hospital room when I lied about the IVF. It’s ugly.
"She’s dead! You’ve poisoned her!"
I look at Alistair, expecting protection. Expecting the man who just stood up for me to finish the job. Instead, I see a stranger. The gray in his eyes has turned to a dark, lethal obsidian. The composure he’s maintained since we entered this house has completely vanished, replaced by a primal, terrifying rage.
Alistair lunges forward. His hand closes around my throat before I can even let out a breath. He hoists me upward, the strength in his arm so immense that my feet leave the floor. My back hits the wood paneling of the wall with a dull thud.
"Alistair," I choke out, but the name is nothing but a strangled wheeze.
He doesn’t hear me. He doesn’t see me. He only sees his grandmother dying on the floor. His grip is like an iron band, crushing my windpipe. I claw at his wrist, my nails digging into his skin, but he doesn’t flinch. The world begins to blur at the edges. Bright spots dance in my vision, and the air in my lungs feels like it’s turned to lead. My hand goes to my stomach, a desperate, final instinct to protect the life inside me even as my own is being squeezed away.
Just as the darkness begins to swallow me, a sharp, ragged gasp echoes through the room.
Alistair’s grip suddenly vanishes. I collapse to the floor, my knees hitting the wood with a jarring impact. I hunch over, gasping for air, my throat burning as if I’ve swallowed hot coals.
"Grandmother?" Alistair’s voice is a tone I’ve never heard before. I look up through tear-blurred eyes.
Celia Wolfe is sitting up, her hand clutching at Alistair’s sleeve. Her breathing is shallow but steady. The bruised purple has left her face, replaced by a faint, ghostly flush of life. She blinks and looks around the room at the circle of shocked faces.
The heavy doors to the living room swing open. The butler rushes in, trailing a man who looks like he walked out of a Victorian medical journal.
I immediately recognize him.
Dr. Aris. He is a celebrity doctor and also a veteran physician. His hair is a shock of white, his eyes sharp and bright behind silver spectacles. He smells of peppermint and antiseptic.
He doesn’t say a word to anyone. He goes straight to Celia, performing a series of rapid, professional checks. He checks her pulse, her pupils, the rhythm of her heart. The room is silent as we wait for the verdict.
"Remarkable," Dr. Aris says, finally sitting back on his heels. He looks at the empty syringe on the floor and then up at the assembled family. "Her rhythm is stable. If this medication hadn’t been administered when it was, she would have been brain-dead within minutes. This was a textbook case of Torsades de Pointes. Whoever made this diagnosis saved her life."
The silence that follows is strange. I don’t know if it’s relief or shock. Alistair is still kneeling by his grandmother, his hand resting on her shoulder. He doesn’t look at me.
I clench my fists as I stare at him. I wish he would. I wish he would look at the red marks his own fingers have left on my neck.
Dr. Aris turns his gaze toward me. He looks at the bruises on my face, the blood on my lip, and the way I’m still shaking as I try to find my feet.
"You identified this?" he asks. His voice is gentle, filled with a genuine curiosity. "How did you know? Most veteran cardiologists would have reached for the nitroglycerin and finished her off."
"My grandfather," I say. My voice is a hoarse, painful rasp. I have to stop to swallow past the soreness in my throat. "He died from it. My mother was a healer. She taught me the symptoms before she passed. I counted the pulse count per second and used it."
Beatrice lets out a sharp, derisive grunt. She’s already smoothed her hair and straightened her silk dress, her face shifting back into a mask of smug disdain.
"Luck," Beatrice mutters. "She got lucky. She’s a dropout who played doctor because she had nothing left to lose. Don’t act like she’s some kind of genius, Doctor."
Dr. Aris ignores her. He picks up the two empty vials from the rug, turning them over in his hand. He studies the clear, shimmering residue inside.
"And the medication?" he asks. "Where did this come from? This isn’t a standard hospital-grade magnesium sulfate. The concentration is far higher, and there are stabilizers here I’m sure I won’t recognize."
I take a deep breath, my hand resting on the metal case in my pocket. "My mother started developing it and passed it to me. It’s a derivative she and I worked on for years. My mother’s journals had the foundation, and I...I finished it."
The room erupts again, but this time the sound is different.
"Not only is it untested, but you developed it? Yourself?" Beatrice asks, her voice hitting that high, shrill note of false laughter. She looks around the room with wide eyes.
"Oh, please. Does anyone actually believe this? She’s a girl from a bankrupt family who didn’t even finish high school. She doesn’t have a lab. She doesn’t have a degree."
She steps forward, her finger pointed directly at my chest.
"I see what this is," Beatrice says, her voice gaining strength as the lie takes root. "She’s been planning this from the start. She bought some high-grade remedy on the black market, stripped the labels off, and kept it in that little box just waiting for a moment like this. How did she know to bring a remedy? Like she knew something like this would happen. She probably researched the Old Madam’s heart condition. She wanted to play the hero. She wanted to trick Alistair into thinking she was indispensable."
She looks at Alistair’s father and then back at the Old Madam.
"Think about it," Beatrice continues. "She’s a person of despicable character. She’s a social climber who has been scheming to get close to the Wolfe name. She’s a fraud, Alistair. She’s a dangerous, manipulative girl who would risk your grandmother’s life just to secure her own position in this house."
I look at Celia Wolfe. She is watching me with those sharp, ancient eyes, her face unreadable. Then I look at Alistair.
He is standing now, his back to me. He doesn’t defend me. He doesn’t say a word. The man who nearly choked the life out of me minutes ago is now letting his family tear what’s left of my reputation into shreds.
I feel a cold, hollow sensation in my chest that has nothing to do with my breathing. It’s the same feeling I had in the hospital when I slapped Chloe and Julian.
I came here to save a life, and in return, I’ve found myself in a den of monsters where the only thing more dangerous than their hatred is the silence of the man I’m supposed to trust.