Chapter 1 - The Poison in the Glass
The freezing water of Savannah Creek lapped against my chin as I stood shivering in the dark, hidden beneath the rotting wooden pylons of the old pier. Above us, the muffled sirens of emergency vehicles began to wail in the distance, responding to the horrific, tragic "accident" my husband had just staged. I stared at Tobias, my brother, who was standing on two perfectly functional legs. For fifteen years, I had pushed his wheelchair. I had retrofitted my home with ramps. I had wept for the life he had lost when our parents’ car went off a cliff. But standing in the murky river water, the illusion shattered, and a terrifying new reality took its place.
"What was he putting in my body, Tobias?" I demanded, my voice shaking uncontrollably from the cold and the shock. "Tell me right now."
Tobias reached into his waterproof tactical pouch and pulled out a small, heavy-duty flashlight, clicking it on to illuminate the narrow concrete maintenance gap we were hiding in. His eyes, usually soft and defeated, were sharp and relentless.
"The warm milk Garrett brought you every single night," Tobias said, his voice echoing over the rushing water. "He told you it was for your insomnia. He told you it was a special herbal blend to help you manage the stress of running the shipyard. It was a lie. For three years, Rosalind, he has been micro-dosing you with a synthetic paralytic combined with a slow-acting neurotoxin."
I physically recoiled, my back hitting the damp concrete wall. My stomach violently heaved. Every night, Garrett would stand in our kitchen in his silk pajamas, stirring a teaspoon of honey into a steaming mug of milk, kissing my forehead as he handed it to me.
"The neurotoxin was designed to mimic the early symptoms of early-onset ALS," Tobias continued, gripping my shoulders to keep me steady. "Garrett’s father, Richard, used a similar compound on our parents to sedate them before he tampered with their brakes fifteen years ago. Garrett was doing the same to you. He was slowly degrading your motor functions. That is why you’ve been feeling so weak lately. That is why your hands would shake during board meetings. He was establishing a medical history of neurological decline so that when you eventually died, nobody would question it. And tonight, he gave you a concentrated dose right before the drive. That’s why you couldn't unbuckle your seatbelt. Your muscles were paralyzed."
Tears streamed down my face, mixing with the muddy river water. My own husband. The man who held me when I cried over the stress of our family legacy, the man who promised to protect me, had been methodically poisoning me in my own bed.
"And Penelope?" I choked out, the image of my pregnant half-sister waiting for him on the shore burning behind my eyes.
"Penelope was his inside source," Tobias said, his expression hardening into pure disgust. "She always hated that our father left the majority of the shipyard to you. She struck a deal with Garrett. He marries you, slowly kills you, inherits the controlling shares as your widower, and splits the empire with her. They’ve been sleeping together since the day of your wedding rehearsal."
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I closed my eyes, a guttural sob tearing its way out of my throat. My entire life was a carefully constructed slaughterhouse.
"We have to go," Tobias urged, checking the shoreline through the wooden planks. "Garrett is out there playing the grieving husband for the paramedics. He thinks we are trapped at the bottom of the river. We need to let him believe he won."
