Chapter 2 - The Pill Was Only the Beginning—Sophia’s Drawing Contained Three Dates That Matched Other “Medical Emergencies” I Had SurvivedBy sunrise, I had three doctors, two chemists, and my entire security team working in silence.
Nobody knew the full story.
I wanted it that way.
If Victor had access to my security system, I could no longer assume my own house was secure.
Gabriel understood immediately.
“Do you want him detained?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because if Victor knows we suspect him, we'll lose the trail.”
Gabriel nodded.
I trusted him.
More than I trusted most men.
But even that trust felt different now.
I gave him one instruction.
“Don't tell anyone about the pill.”
“What do I tell the staff?”
“That I took my medication as usual.”
He nodded.
“What about the cameras?”
“Restore nothing.”
That confused him.
I leaned forward.
“I want them to think the deletion went unnoticed.”
He understood.
“We watch.”
“Exactly.”
The doctor brought me the laboratory report.
The pill wasn't merely wrong.
The compound had been manufactured by a private pharmaceutical distributor.
One associated with a company I owned.
That made no sense.
I hadn't ordered that medication.
Someone had diverted it.
We traced the batch number.
The official shipment was supposed to contain my legitimate prescription.
The false tablets had replaced part of the shipment before delivery.
The distributor records showed a signature.
Victor's.
I stared.
Twenty-five years.
Twenty-five years of trust.
One signature.
And the world tilted.
Then Sophia appeared.
She carried three sheets of paper.
“Sir?”
I looked up.
“What is it?”
She placed them on my desk.
More drawings.
This time, the bottles were different.
Blue.
White.
Red.
And beside each was a date.
March 11.
May 22.
July 3.
I recognized every date.
March 11 was the night I collapsed at a charity dinner.
May 22 was when my heart suddenly raced during a business meeting.
July 3 was the medication reaction my doctors blamed on stress.
I stared at Sophia.
“Why did you draw these?”
“Because they sounded wrong.”
“What sounded wrong?”
“The bottles.”
I looked at her.
“What do you mean?”
“Different sounds.”
She shook each imaginary bottle with her hand.
“Big.”
Then:
“Small.”
Then:
“Almost empty.”
My chest tightened.
I pulled my old medical files.
March.
May.
July.
Three episodes.
Three changes in medication.
Three times Victor had personally handed me the pills.
My trusted man had been quietly testing something.
Perhaps increasing the dosage.
Perhaps measuring my reactions.
Perhaps trying to determine exactly how close to death he could push me.
I called my physician.
“Pull all medication histories from the last year.”
The records arrived.
There were nine irregularities.
Nine.
I stared.
Eight had been dismissed as manufacturing errors.
But every one occurred within forty-eight hours of Victor managing my medications.
I suddenly remembered something.
Victor always insisted on being there whenever I took them.
I had once called it loyalty.
Now I wondered whether it was surveillance.
He wasn't simply giving me medication.
He was monitoring the results.
That was more frightening.
I asked Gabriel to bring me the internal medical records.
He did.
Someone had altered two pages.
The timestamps had been changed.
And the person who made the changes had used Gabriel's credentials.
I looked up.
Gabriel's face went pale.
“I didn't do that.”
“I know.”
“Boss—”
“I know.”
But now I had another problem.
Someone was using Gabriel's access.
Someone could move through my systems.
Someone had enough knowledge to alter medical records.
And someone had been doing it for months.
I called Elena.
“Where is Sophia?”
“Upstairs.”
“Bring her.”
Sophia entered holding her teddy bear.
I placed the medical files on the desk.
“Do you recognize these?”
She stared at the pages.
“No.”
“Do you recognize this?”
I showed her a photograph of Victor.
She nodded.
“He has the bottle.”
“What bottle?”
“The red one.”
“Which date?”
She pointed.
July 3.
My blood ran cold.
“That was the day I collapsed.”
She nodded.
“Mr. Victor cried.”
“He cried?”
She looked confused.
“Because he thought you were going to die.”
That sounded almost convincing.
Then she added:
“He said, ‘Not yet.’”
I froze.
“What?”
“He said it when he was outside the kitchen.”
“When?”
“July.”
I stared at the drawing.
Not yet.
That implied patience.
Planning.
A timeline.
He hadn't wanted me dead then.
He had been preparing.
I asked Sophia:
“Did he say when?”
She shook her head.
“Can you draw what you heard?”
She nodded.
Within minutes, she drew a clock.
7:45.
Then a bottle.
Then a black X across it.
At the bottom she wrote:
WAIT.
I looked at Elena.
She was crying.
I looked at Gabriel.
He was furious.
And I understood.
Victor wasn't trying to kill me quickly.
He wanted control over the timing.
He wanted my death to look natural.
He wanted a story.
Heart condition.
Medication complications.
Sudden arrhythmia.
May you like
And nobody would question it.
Except a five-year-old girl who listened to bottles.
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