Chapter 5 - The Midnight Poison
Midnight arrived with the steady patter of rain striking the high-rise glass. The scent of expensive jasmine perfume drifted into the room seconds before the heavy oak door creaked open.
Veronica stepped inside.
She wore a long black velvet coat, her blonde hair pinned back flawlessly. Behind her stood her personal assistant, carrying a camera with a suppressed flash.
"Leave us," Veronica instructed the assistant in a cold, detached tone. "I want five minutes alone with my dear husband-to-be before the monitors go flat."
She walked toward my bed, her heels clicking against the linoleum. I lay completely flat, my eyes half-lidded, breathing through my mouth to simulate the shallow, dying gasps of a poisoned man.
Veronica pulled a small glass vial and a syringe from her designer handbag.
"You really were a fool, Dominic," she whispered, leaning over my face, her breath smelling of champagne and mint. "You thought I loved you because you bought me diamonds and penthouses. But a dragon in a cage is just a trophy. And trophies are meant to be traded in."
She uncapped the syringe, drawing the clear fluid from the vial.
"Die before Friday, my love," she purred, pressing the tip of the needle against the rubber port of my main IV tube. "The money moves faster when you stop breathing."
She pressed the plunger.
Before the liquid could travel three inches down the line, my left hand shot out from under the blanket like a steel trap, clamping around her wrist with enough pressure to bruise the bone.
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Veronica gasped, her eyes bulging in pure, unadulterated terror as I sat straight up in bed, my face inches from hers.
"You always did have terrible timing, darling," I growled.
