Chapter 1 - The Weight of the Badge
The silence in the foyer following Camille’s exit was heavier than the marble under Nico’s knees. Guests dissolved backward into the shadows of the ballroom, their evening coats and silk gowns rustling like dry autumn leaves, eager to pretend they had witnessed nothing more scandalous than a dropped glass.
Adeline didn't care about the retreating audience. Her hand was still tingling from where she had intercepted Camille’s wrist, the expensive perfume of the heiress lingering like poison on her skin. She dropped to her knees beside the overturned wheelchair, her faded blue scrubs whispering against the stone.
"Mr. Alfieri," she murmured, her voice stripped of the clinical distance she usually maintained. "Let’s get you up before you try putting all your weight on that wrist."
Nico didn't answer immediately. He looked up at her, his dark eyes—usually masked behind a wall of bored, bitter resignation—studying her with a terrifying intensity. He was a man accustomed to betrayal disguised as loyalty, wrapped in silk and pearls. A nurse stepping between him and his fiancée was not a rescue; it was a declaration of war.
"You just signed your termination papers, Ms. Marsh," Nico said, his voice raspy, a low gravel grinding in his throat. He didn't take her offered hand right away. He tested his own strength, his knuckles white as he pushed against the console table. "Camille doesn't fire people. She makes them disappear."
"Let her try," Adeline snapped, sliding her arm firmly around his waist to bear the brunt of his dead weight. Despite the paralysis, his upper body was heavy, forged from years of legacy and stubborn pride. "I didn't move across the state to watch someone break your bones just because she had a bad evening. Now grab my shoulder."
With a grunt that he swallowed instantly, Nico allowed her to hoist him. The coordination was practiced—she knew how to leverage his hips without triggering spasms—and within seconds, she had settled him back into the leather seat of the wheelchair.
The security guards near the heavy oak doors looked away, their posture screaming strategic blindness. They were paid by the Alfieri estate, but tonight, they had learned a valuable lesson about Adeline Marsh: she was completely, dangerously unpredictable.
As Adeline straightened her posture, brushing a stray lock of brown hair from her forehead, a shadow fell across them.
It was Marcus Vance, the family’s longtime estate manager and corporate fixer. His suit was immaculate, his silver-streaked hair brushed to perfection, and his expression was a masterpiece of cold, corporate detachment. He didn't look at Nico on the floor; his eyes were locked entirely on Adeline.
"Pack your things, Adeline," Marcus said smoothly, his voice carrying the calm authority of a man who buried scandals before breakfast. "A car will take you back to Cicero tonight. Your final pay, plus a generous severance for your trouble, has already been wired to your account."
Nico’s hand shot out, catching the arm of his wheelchair. "She stays."
Marcus blinked, a microscopic twitch of his left eyebrow betraying his surprise. "Nico. Be reasonable. The engagement party is over. Miss Ashcroft is understandably upset, and the board cannot afford—"
"I don't give a damn about the board, and I care even less about what Camille understands," Nico interrupted, his voice dropping into that quiet, lethal register that had once made corporate competitors double-check their ledgers. "If Adeline leaves this house tonight, I stop cooperating with the physical therapy. I stop signing the restructuring documents. And I let every reporter from the Tribune into this foyer by morning."
Marcus stared at him for a long, silent moment. The calculation behind the manager's eyes was visible—weighing the value of a rebellious heir against the exposure of a ruined engagement.
"Very well," Marcus said softly, his gaze sliding back to Adeline. "She stays. But Ms. Marsh, you are restricted to the west wing. Do not cross paths with Miss Ashcroft again tonight."
Marcus turned on his heel and walked away, leaving a trail of expensive cologne in his wake.
Adeline let out a slow, shaking breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She looked down at the medical tray she had dropped earlier. The plastic cup and sealed syringes were scattered across the floor.
"You're a fool," Nico muttered, staring straight ahead at the grand staircase where Camille had vanished. "You have a brother, don't you? Wes."
Adeline froze, her hand hovering over a syringe. "How do you know about Wes?"
Nico finally turned his head, looking up at her with a look of exhausted understanding. "I read your personnel file, Adeline. People who need money don't pick fights with the people who hold the purse strings. Why did you really do it?"
Adeline picked up the syringe, her fingers steadying. "Because my brother taught me that you’re only supposed to worry after dinner. Before dinner makes you mean." She stood up, looking down at her patient with a fierce, quiet defiance. "And I wasn't feeling hungry."
Later that night, long after the ballroom had emptied and the caterers had cleared the debris, Adeline slipped up the grand staircase. She didn't go to her designated quarters in the west wing. Instead, she walked down the silent, carpeted corridor of the third floor, past the locked oak doors of the master suites, toward the old service stairwell.
She needed to check the specimen bag hidden in the toe of her old shoe in the nurse's locker room. The pills she had found earlier that evening—the ones meant for Nico’s evening regimen—weren't muscle relaxers.
They were barbiturates. Double the fatal dose for someone with a compromised spinal system.
As she reached the landing, a floorboard creaked behind her.
Adeline spun around, her flashlight cutting through the darkness. The hallway was empty, save for a single piece of paper sliding out from under the door of the guest study.
May you like
She walked over slowly, picked it up, and unfolded it.
It was a printed medical chart bearing Nico’s name, dated three months ago—the exact week of his accident. But scribbled across the bottom in hurried, frantic handwriting was a message that made the blood freeze in her veins: The brakes didn't fail. He was poisoned before the crash.
