Chapter 4: Eleven Years of Loyalty
They brought me water.
Then coffee.
Then a plate of food I didn't touch.
Damien sat across from me at the now-empty table while his men worked quietly around us.
The twins had been taken to a private room upstairs with two guards and a doctor who had arrived within fifteen minutes — a real one, not a restaurant waitress with a hidden degree.
"Tell me about the trial," Damien said.
"Which part?"
"The part where Victor had you removed."
I wrapped both hands around the coffee cup.
"The trial was showing problems by month six.
Two of the twelve infant subjects were having episodes — the same kind your sons had tonight.
I flagged it.
I wrote it up.
I submitted my findings to the lead researcher and to the ethics board."
"And?"
"And three days later I was called into a meeting.
Victor was there.
He told me my methodology was flawed.
That I had misread the data.
That the episodes were unrelated to the compound." I set the cup down.
"He had already prepared a counter-report.
It had my supervisor's signature on it.
I don't know if my supervisor signed it willingly or not.
I never got the chance to ask him."
"What happened to your supervisor?"
"He retired.
Quietly.
Six months later." I looked at the table.
"Victor's counter-report was accepted.
The trial was paused for review, not terminated — that came later, after two more episodes with a different research team.
By then my name had been formally cited as the source of the original data errors.
My license review was triggered.
I appealed twice." I stopped.
"I lost both times."
Damien was watching me the way he had watched me with the twins.
Completely still.
Completely focused.
"You've been carrying this for three years," he said.
"I've been surviving for three years," I said.
"There's a difference."
He almost smiled.
Not quite.
"Why didn't you go to the press?"
"I tried.
Victor had already been there first.
He had a prepared statement about a disgruntled former researcher.
It ran in two medical journals before I could get anyone to return my calls." I looked up at him.
"He's very good at what he does."
"He was," Damien said.
The past tense landed quietly between us.
One of the guards appeared in the doorway.
"Sir.
He's asking to make a call."
"No," Damien said, without looking up.
The guard disappeared.
"What was Victor doing here tonight?" I asked.
"He's not a restaurant consultant."
"No," Damien said.
"He's been my financial advisor for eleven years.
He manages the legitimate side of several of my holdings.
He has access to my household accounts.
My staff records." He paused.
"My children's care schedule."
The weight of that settled over the table like something physical.
"He knew which bottles," I said.
"He knew everything," Damien said.
"That's what eleven years buys you."
"Then why?" I asked.
"Why would he—"
"That," Damien said, "is what I intend to find out."
His phone buzzed on the table.
He glanced at it.
Something shifted in his expression — just slightly, but I had been watching him carefully enough to catch it.
"There's a second person," he said.
"Victor didn't come tonight alone."
I felt the cold move through me before I understood why.
"Who?"
Damien looked up from the phone.
"Someone who was in this room earlier tonight," he said.
"Someone who left before the twins became ill."
He turned the phone toward me.
The security footage was grainy but clear enough.
May you like
I recognized the second face immediately.
And this one I had not expected at all.
