Chapter 2 - The Forced Swallow
The cut crystal clinked violently against Chloe’s porcelain veneers, the sharp sound cutting through the low murmur of strings from the orchestra. Her manicured hands clawed frantically at my wrists, but adrenaline turned my grip to vice-forged iron. I did not blink; I did not yield.
"Drink it," I hissed directly into her ear, my voice dropping to a register so cold it froze the breath in her throat. "Every single drop of your filthy concoction. Drink it, Chloe."
She let out a muffled, gurgling scream as the fizzy, poisoned champagne flooded past her parted lips. The liquid rushed down her esophagus in desperate, involuntary swallows. Her eyes bulged, bloodshot veins spidering across her whites as panic overtook her vanity. Amber splashes stained her cream-colored Balmain dress, ruined by the very venom she had intended for me. When the glass scraped empty, I shoved her backward onto the velvet banquette with enough force to knock the breath from her lungs.
She collapsed into a heap of silk and blonde extensions, gasping, coughing, and tearing at her throat with crimson fingernails.
"Victoria! What in God's name are you doing?!"
The sharp, panicked bellow came from my left. Thomas strode across the polished marble, his face pale beneath his fake corporate tan. He looked back and forth between me—composed, adjusting the diamond cuffs of my blazer—and his mistress, who was already writhing on the leather upholstery, shuddering uncontrollably.
"Call... an ambulance, Tommy!" Chloe wheezed, her vocal cords already constricting, her chest heaving as if an invisible anvil had dropped onto her ribs. "She... she made me swallow it! The drops... the drops!"
Thomas stopped dead in his tracks. The color drained completely from his face, leaving behind a grayish, sickly pallor. He knew. The flicker of guilt and unadulterated terror in his eyes confirmed every suspicion that had simmered in my chest for the past six months. He didn’t look at me with the anger of an innocent husband protecting an associate; he looked at Chloe with the dread of a co-conspirator whose murder weapon had just backfired.
"What drops, Thomas?" I asked quietly, taking a step toward him.
The nearby guests—hedge fund managers, corporate attorneys, and board members—were turning their heads, hushed whispers rippling through the ballroom like an incoming tide. Thomas stood frozen, his mouth opening and closing like a suffocating fish. Before he could snatch the evidence from the table, I slid a silk cocktail napkin over the empty champagne flute and scooped it cleanly into my clutch, along with the embroidered velvet pouch Chloe had dropped on the carpet.
"You're insane, Victoria!" Thomas snarled under his breath, stepping in front of Chloe as she began to convulse, foam collecting at the corners of her lipstick-smeared mouth. "Security! Call 911! She's having a medical emergency!"
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"Oh, it's an emergency, all right," I whispered, brushing a speck of dust off his lapel with deliberate slowness. "And you better pray she survives long enough to tell the police who bought her that poison."
***
