Chapter 4 - The Syringe
Willa reacted purely on explosive instinct, honed by years of surviving chaotic, violent emergency room shifts.
She stood up incredibly quickly, intentionally knocking her heavy metal chair backward onto the hardwood floor.
The loud, violent crash echoed like a gunshot in the desperately quiet mansion.
The young maid gasped sharply, dropping the syringe onto the blankets as she spun around in pure terror.
Willa absolutely didn't hesitate.
She lunged forward, brutally grabbing the maid’s wrist and pinning her hard against the wall, securely out of the hidden camera's view.
"Who exactly sent you?" Willa hissed violently, pressing her forearm directly against the girl's delicate collarbone.
The maid's eyes were massive with panic, her breath coming in ragged, terrified gasps.
"Please, they explicitly told me to do it!" she sobbed quietly, struggling weakly against Willa's surprisingly strong, desperate grip.
"The Moretti family promised me fifty thousand dollars in cash if I made sure he never woke up."
Willa's blood instantly turned to solid ice in her veins.
Sterling wasn't the only lethal threat hovering over her helpless, comatose husband.
Rival, bloodthirsty crime families were now actively infiltrating the heavily guarded Kane estate.
"Get out of here right now," Willa whispered harshly, shoving the weeping girl toward the open door.
"Tell them you couldn't get close, or I swear to God I will hand you over to Sterling myself."
The terrified maid didn't need to be told twice, fleeing desperately into the dark hallway and leaving the door slightly ajar.
Willa quickly snatched the heavy syringe from the bed, slipping it securely into her pocket before the camera could register the weapon.
She looked down at the needle, noticing the thick, suspiciously dark liquid resting inside the glass barrel.
It was undiluted potassium chloride, a lethal dose high enough to stop a large man's heart instantly.
She turned back to the bed, her heart violently hammering against her aching ribs.
"You have vastly more enemies than I thought," she whispered sadly to the sleeping man.
Suddenly, the rhythmic, steady beep of the expensive heart monitor spiked wildly.
Willa watched in absolute, stunned silence as Everett Kane slowly, agonizingly, opened his eyes for the first time in eight months.
They were a piercing, stormy gray, filled with a dangerous, overwhelming intelligence that stole her breath away.
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But he absolutely wasn't looking at her.
His intense, violent gaze was fixed tightly on the dark hallway, where a tall silhouette had just stepped silently into the doorway.
