Chapter 15 The Laboratory
I’ve been having a lot of fresh experiences since I stepped into the Wolfe Estate.
Every moment has been a fresh experience. Today’s experience is finding myself in a room full of billionaires being told my own thoughts were stolen property. Apparently, in the world of the Wolfe family, a girl from a bankrupt furniture firm doesn’t just "invent" things. She doesn’t have the pedigree for genius. She doesn’t have the right zip code for a brain that actually functions.
And because they’re not ready to accept that I’m smart, they’re happily buying any nonsense Beatrice concocts.
Beatrice is standing by the Old Madam’s chair now, her hand resting on the matriarch’s shoulder like a comforting vulture. She has this way of pitching her voice so it carries perfectly across the room, hitting every ear with just the right amount of poison.
Yesterday, I thought she was just skilled at getting people to believe her. However, I can see now that it’s more about the people’s unbelief in me than even the words she’s saying.
"Mother, look at the girl," Beatrice says, her lip curling in a way that suggests she’s smelling something dead. Her facial expressions are always so animated. "She lived in a house where they were probably counting pennies for the water bill. You really believe she has a private research lab tucked away next to her collection of thrift store shoes? She’s a dropout. She found some desperate chemist, some failed scientist in a basement, and she bought him. She’s using his work to buy her way into this family. It’s the only thing that makes sense."
Celia Wolfe, the Old Madam, looks at me. Her face is a map of ancient, cold lines. The woman I saved from certain brain death at the risk of my own life and the life of my child, isn’t looking at me with gratitude. She’s looking at me like I’m a stain on her favorite rug that refuses to come out.
To be honest, even when she woke up yesterday, I realized that that plain expression on her face wasn’t indifference. It was disbelief that graduated into shock and then denial.
She doesn’t want to believe that she owes her life to me so she turns her head toward Alistair. Her voice is as thin and sharp as a paper cut.
"I will not have a fraud as the mother of the next Wolfe heir," Celia says. "Alistair, call the Marriage Registry. Tell them to send their officials to the estate immediately. I want this divorce processed before the sun sets. We’ll find a way to get the child after birth but this girl leaves today."
Alistair’s father, Arthur, and his mother, Eleanor, stand nearby. Eleanor was quiet throughout the whole fiesta yesterday. In fact, at one point, she left the room. I saw in her file that she’s frail and very prone to sickness and usually avoids stressful situations. I didn’t have an opinion about her yesterday and it seems like I’m about to have one now.
She adjusts her pearls, then slowly runs her eyes up and down my body. Her brows crease and I see the slight shake of her head when she’s done with her assessment.
She looks like someone who gave another person the benefit of the doubt and still ended up disappointed.
Today, I’m wearing my own dress. One I bought with my money and one that I happen to be proud of. It’s a silk green dress that stops directly below my knee.
But I don’t think wearing diamonds would save me from the spite this family already has for me.
"She really is a common little thing, isn’t she?" Eleanor says, loud enough for the aunts and uncles to nod in agreement. "To think we almost let her play us for fools."
I hear a grunt and then a not-so-subtle scoff. I turn to find the source of the sound and my heart sinks deeper into my chest.
It isn’t just the family. The household maids, women who have spent years breathing the same rarified air as the Wolfes, start to murmur. They stand by the doors, their eyes bright with the kind of excitement that only comes from watching someone fall.
The dislike from all, or most of the eyes in the room is strong enough to make my hands shake.
"Crawl your way out of here!" one of them whispers, a low hiss that is taken up by the others.
"Crawl! Crawl!" the chant starts, a rhythmic, ugly sound that vibrates through the floorboards.
I feel the heat rising in my neck. My nails dig into my palms until the skin breaks, but I don’t let a single tear fall. I’ve spent my life being told I wasn’t enough. Not enough for my father. Not enough for Julian. And now, not even enough for my own mind.
The bitterness is a physical taste in my mouth, like copper. I look at Alistair. He’s standing perfectly still, his face a mask of granite. He isn’t stopping them. I can’t read the damn Mann
I don’t know if he’s on my side or against me.
But I do know that he’s always motionless when a lot is going on in his head. Is he calculating right now? Or has he already made a decision?
He doesn’t seem to be against me but...he doesn’t seem to be for me either. I don’t want to spend time figuring out what’s going on in Alistair’s head. That can take forever. I need to take a stand myself.
"Enough," I say.
The word isn’t loud, but it has a jagged edge that cuts through the chanting. The room goes quiet. I step forward, shaking off the weight of their stares. I don’t look at the maids or the aunts. I look directly at Celia Wolfe.
"You think I bought this formula?" I ask. I let a small, dry laugh escape my throat. "You think a girl who couldn’t afford her own tuition had the money to hire a world-class chemist to ghostwrite a heart medication? Do you know how stupid that sounds?"
"Careful girl!" Celia snarls, and I roll my eyes.
"I’m too poor and uneducated to make the formula. But I’m rich and smart enough to get someone to do it?" I scoff and continue immediately before Beatrice spurs her poison again. "If you’re so convinced I’m a fraud, let me show you. Right here. Right now."
Dr. Aris looks like he’s just been offered a front-row seat to a miracle. His silver spectacles practically glow with excitement. "A live demonstration? In the estate’s lab? Madam, this would settle the matter instantly."
Beatrice scoffs but I see her bite her lower lip and look around the room. "She’s stalling. She’ll just blow something up and call it an accident."
"I won’t blow anything up," I say, my voice steady. "I’ll write down the reagents I need. If I can’t synthesize that exact amber liquid in under thirty minutes, I’ll sign the divorce papers myself. I won’t even wait for the officials to arrive. I’ll walk out that door on my own."
Alistair finally speaks. It seems he’s done with his calculations. "Greyson."
The butler appears instantly.
"Get her whatever she needs," Alistair says. His gaze is locked on mine. "Move everyone to the lab."
Ten minutes later, I am standing in a room that makes my little makeshift setup at home look like a child’s chemistry set.
The Wolfe private laboratory is a cathedral of stainless steel and glass. The air is cold and smells of ozone and high-end cleaning supplies. There are rows of centrifuges, pipettes that probably cost more than my car, and a rack of chemicals that would make a university dean weep with envy.
Why do they even have a lab in this place?
But then again, why not?
I don’t look at the family gathered behind the observation glass. I don’t look at Beatrice’s smug face or Alistair’s silent shadow. I pull on a white lab coat. I tie my hair back with a rubber band I find in a drawer.
I grab a notepad and scrawl a list of reagents. Magnesium chloride. Specific stabilizers. Two organic compounds that are the secret to the formula’s speed. I hand the list to Greyson who rushes out of the room. He returns a few minutes later with the items I need.
I move to the bench. I don’t have to think about what to do. My hands know this dance. I’ve performed it a thousand times in the dark, in the quiet of my own room, with only my mother’s journals for company.
I start the pharmaceutical synthesis. I measure with a precision that comes from years of not being able to afford a single mistake. I pipette the magnesium base, watching the clear liquid swirl in the beaker. I heat the solution over a blue flame, the soft hiss of the burner the only sound in the room. I add the stabilizers, watching the liquid shift from clear to a pale straw color.
I can feel their eyes on me through the glass. I can feel the weight of their doubt. But as the liquid begins to deepen in color, turning that specific, rich amber, the air in the room starts to shift.
Like physically shift because the Wolfe’s start talking among themselves. Some of them fidgety some crack their knuckles, some
I work with a fluid, practiced rhythm. I don’t fumble. I don’t check my notes. Twenty minutes on the dot, I turn off the burner and let the mixture settle. I draw the liquid into a clean test tube and hold it up to the light.
It is perfect. An amber-colored liquid, clear and shimmering.
I walk out of the lab and back into the observation area. I set the test tube on the table in front of Dr. Aris.
The doctor doesn’t waste a second. He takes a sample and runs it through a digital analyzer on the counter. We all watch the monitor. The lines on the graph begin to move, mapping the chemical signature of the liquid.
A few seconds later, the screen flashes green.
"Identical," Dr. Aris whispers. He sounds like he’s in church. He looks at the readout, his eyes widening behind his glasses. "Not just identical to the sample from yesterday. This concentration is... it’s higher. The purity is staggering."
He turns to look at the family, who are frozen like statues.
"This isn’t just a copy of a commercial drug," Dr. Aris says, his voice rising with a frantic, professional energy. "This is superior. It’s more effective and faster than anything currently available on the market worldwide for treating sudden cardiac arrest. Do you understand what she has done? This substance is of incalculable commercial and strategic value. It’s a game-changer."
Beatrice’s face has gone a terrifying shade of gray. She looks like she’s about to be sick. Eleanor has her hand over her mouth, her pearls forgotten. Richard, the uncle who was so ready to throw me out, is staring at the test tube as if it’s a pile of gold.
But it’s Alistair’s reaction that I’m looking for.
He is known for being unshakeable. He is the man who manages billion-dollar crises before breakfast without breaking a sweat. But right now, as he looks from the green screen back to me, his composure finally cracks. His eyes are wide, a look of sheer, unadulterated astonishment breaking through his mask of stone.
He looks at me as if he’s seeing me for the first time. Not as a vessel. Not as a contract. But as a woman who just handed him the world on a silver platter.
"Well," I say, my voice sounding light and dangerously calm. I look at Beatrice, whose hand is trembling. "I believe there was a wager involved. And I’m still waiting for my apology."