Chapter 4 - The Hidden Threat
My heart hammered against my ribs as the figure slowly emerged from behind the heavy velvet curtains.
It was Dr. Harris, holding his medical bag in front of him like a fragile shield.
Dominic did not lower his weapon.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't put a bullet between your eyes, Doctor," he threatened coldly.
Dr. Harris raised his trembling hands in complete surrender.
"I swear to God, Dominic, I came up here to get Ethan's secondary asthma medication from your private safe," the doctor stuttered.
"I saw someone leaving the study just as I arrived, so I hid behind the curtains."
Dominic narrowed his eyes, clearly debating whether to believe the man who had served his family for over a decade.
"Who did you see leaving my office?" Dominic demanded.
Dr. Harris swallowed hard, sweat dripping down his pale forehead.
"It was your brother, Vincent," he confessed quietly.
The silence that followed was so absolute that I could hear my own pulse thumping in my ears.
Vincent was Dominic's right-hand man and the only person he trusted implicitly with his life.
Before Dominic could process this devastating betrayal, Ethan suddenly started gasping for air on the leather sofa.
I spun around to see the eight-year-old boy clutching his chest, his lips turning a terrifying shade of blue.
"He's having another reaction!" I screamed, rushing over to him.
Dr. Harris sprinted to the boy's side, tearing open his medical bag to grab a syringe of epinephrine.
Dominic dropped to his knees, holding his son's trembling hands.
"You said the poison didn't get into his system!" Dominic yelled at the doctor.
"It didn't," Dr. Harris frantically replied while injecting the medicine into Ethan's thigh.
"Someone tampered with his emergency inhaler while we were moving upstairs."
My blood ran completely cold as I realized the killer was actively hunting the boy in real-time.
Ethan's breathing stabilized slightly, but he was still dangerously weak and unconscious.
"We have to get him to a real hospital immediately," Dr. Harris insisted.
Dominic grabbed the doctor by the collar, pulling him close.
"If we leave this room, my brother's men will ambush us in the hallways," he snarled.
Suddenly, the lights in the study flickered and died, plunging us into total darkness.
The heavy magnetic lock on the titanium door clicked open with a mechanical hiss.
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The security system had just been disabled from the outside.
We were entirely trapped in the dark, and the door was now wide open.
