Chapter 3 - POISON IN THE CHAMPAGNE
By morning, the city was ablaze with gossip. Headlines splashed across social media feeds and front pages: THE MAID WHO STOLE THE FALKNER CROWN.
Inside the Falkner Penthouse, Helena sat across from Adrian in an opulent dining room that felt more like a cage than a sanctuary. Dressed in a simple yet elegant ivory dress provided by Adrian’s personal stylist, she looked completely transformed, though her mind was miles away, fixed on her mother’s hospital bed.
A butler entered, carrying a silver tray with hot tea and a tablet displaying the morning financial news. “Sir,” the butler said cautiously, “Mr. Vance—Vivienne’s father—has called an emergency board meeting for noon. He is attempting to invoke the legacy clause to strip you of your executive voting rights, claiming you are mentally unfit following your public break with his daughter.”
Adrian didn't even look up from his coffee. “Let him try. Vance Corporation relies on our logistics contracts. Cancel them all by 11:00 AM.”
“Wait,” Helena interrupted, her eyes narrowing as she looked at the tablet screen. She tapped a news article detailing the Vance family’s recent pharmaceutical investments. “Don't cancel the logistics contracts yet, Adrian.”
Adrian raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Why?”
“Look at the supply chain records,” Helena said, pointing to a series of shipping manifest numbers listed in a leaked audit. “My mother used to keep the books for the Vance estate before she was blacklisted. She told me that whenever Vance Corporation launched a new pharmaceutical line, they ran their raw materials through offshore dummy companies to dodge safety inspections. If you cut their logistics now, they’ll hide the paper trail. But if you force a sudden audit on their current shipments at the port, you’ll catch them holding untraceable batches of contaminated cardiac medication.”
Adrian stared at her, a low, appreciative smile forming on his lips. “You didn't just survive in the shadows, Helena. You were watching them.”
“I had to,” Helena said, her voice turning cold as steel. “When you’re at the bottom, watching the people at the top is the only way you stay alive.”
Before Adrian could reply, his private phone rang. The screen displayed the name of the chief surgeon at St. Jude’s Hospital. Adrian answered immediately and put it on speaker.
“Mr. Falkner,” Doctor Thorne’s voice sounded frantic. “We have an emergency. Your guest, Mrs. Eleanor Vance, experienced sudden respiratory collapse twenty minutes ago. Her toxicology report just came back.”
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Helena stood up so fast her chair overturned. “What happened to my mother? Is she alive?”
“She is alive, miss, but barely,” the doctor replied nervously. “Her blood contains lethal traces of digitalis toxin. Someone intentionally poisoned her IV line during the shift change.”
