Chapter 4 - The Toxicology Report
The ambulance ride to Northwestern Memorial Hospital took eleven grueling minutes through the congested Chicago traffic, though to Julian, it felt like an eternity.
He rode inside the back of the screaming vehicle, his long frame hunched over the stretcher, one hand locked in a death grip around Cassandra’s ice-cold fingers. Paramedics worked with frantic efficiency, slamming intravenous lines into her arms, pumping adrenaline, and monitoring a cardiac rhythm that danced across the monitor like a jagged mountain range—climbing dangerously high, crashing downward, and spiking again.
The lead paramedic looked up from the equipment, his forehead slick with sweat. "We're losing her baseline. Her heart is fighting an aggressive neurotoxin. Possible cardiac glycoside or synthetic alkaloid. We need the ER toxicology team waiting the second those doors open."
Julian didn't blink. His obsidian eyes were fixed entirely on Cassandra’s face, watching the woman who had stood beside him like an iron pillar slip rapidly toward the edge of an abyss.
"Save her," Julian said. It wasn't a request; it was a lethal decree. "If she dies, I want every port, every flight, and every border in this state locked down before midnight."
When the ambulance slammed to a halt outside the emergency bay, medical personnel swarmed the stretcher, wheeling Cassandra through the automatic double doors into the sterile, fluorescent glare of Trauma Room 3.
Julian was blocked at the threshold by a pair of burly security guards and an ER resident holding a clipboard.
"Mr. DeLuca, you have to wait outside—"
"I don't wait," Julian cut him off with a voice so low and lethal that the resident stepped back instinctively. "Get the head of toxicology. Tell him Julian DeLuca is standing outside this door, and I want answers within the hour."
He turned on his heel, his tailored suit jacket flaring behind him, and paced the length of the private family waiting lounge like a caged panther. His mind raced, connecting dots with terrifying speed.
Cassandra didn't have allergies. She didn't take illicit substances. She had eaten nothing of consequence all evening except a single bite of canapé hours earlier.
The poison hadn't been in the food.
It had been in the champagne flute.
The glass Nora had carried on the silver tray.
A cold, heavy dread settled in Julian’s gut. Someone inside his own house—someone who knew the seating arrangements, the menu, and the exact rotation of the service staff—had attempted to assassinate his fiancée during a public gala. Or worse... the glass hadn't been meant for Cassandra at all.
It had been meant for him.
Julian stopped pacing. His gaze dropped to his own right hand, which had reached for the second champagne flute from that exact same tray just before the toast. If Cassandra hadn't spoken first, if he had lifted that glass to his own lips...
The thought was cut short by the heavy oak door of the lounge swinging open.
Dr. Arthur Vance, the chief of emergency toxicology at Northwestern, stepped into the room, holding a sealed manila folder. His expression was grim, tight-around-the-eyes serious.
"Mr. DeLuca," the doctor said quietly. "The blood panels are back."
Julian stepped forward, his massive frame looming over the physician. "Is she going to make it?"
"Her heart stabilized ten minutes ago thanks to the atropine drip, but it was a razor-thin margin," Dr. Vance said, pulling a lab report from the folder. "She ingested a heavy dose of aconitine—commonly known as wolfsbane or queen's poison. It attacks the nervous system and triggers immediate cardiac arrest within sixty seconds."
Aconitine. An ancient, highly targeted poison that required specialized extraction. Not something a common street thug carried in his pocket.
"Who had access to the glasses?" Julian demanded, his voice dropping into a deadly whisper.
"That's the other thing, Mr. DeLuca," the doctor hesitated, handing him a secondary printout. "We ran a trace analysis on the residue found inside the rim of the glass Ms. Vale drank from, compared against the drops left in the second glass from the tray."
Julian scanned the paper. "Speak, Doctor."
"The poison wasn't spread across the entire tray, and it wasn't in the bottle," Dr. Vance said carefully. "It was swabbed heavily along the right rim of the second glass—the one you reached for. Ms. Vale only drank from her flute because she grabbed the tray from the left side and rotated it."
Julian’s blood turned to ice water.
The poison had been meant for him. Cassandra’s life had been saved purely by a matter of inches and how she happened to lift the tray.
"Find out who handled those glasses between the service pantry and the head table," Julian commanded, his voice trembling with suppressed fury. "Every security camera, every kitchen log, every fingerprint."
"Mr. DeLuca," Dr. Vance added quietly before turning to leave. "There's one more thing you need to know. The lab technicians processing the glass fragments also recovered something else from the bottom of the tray lining—a microscopic fiber and a partial print that was lifted off the stem before the glass shattered."
May you like
Julian’s jaw tightened. "Whose print?"
"That's the problem," the doctor replied grimly. "It doesn't belong to any catering staff, and it’s not in the state criminal database. But according to the estate’s internal security registry, it matches the employee clearance badge of your head butler... Thomas Bell."
