Chapter 5 - The Antidote
Tessa waited in the linen closet for forty endless minutes until Julian Rossi and Dr. Lipton descended to the main floor for a press conference regarding Victor's deteriorating health.
The two hallway guards remained, looking bored and tired.
Tessa reached into her backpack, pulled out two small aerosol cans of industrial disinfectant from her cleaning kit, and sprayed them directly through the linen chute into the lower laundry intake, triggering the floor’s localized smoke and chemical hazard alarm.
A loud, piercing siren began to blare through the third-floor corridor: WARNING. CHEMICAL SPILL DETECTED IN SERVICE WING. EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY.
The two guards cursed, drawing their sidearms as thick white foam from the automatic fire suppression nozzles began to vent into the hallway. "Check the service stairwell!" one shouted, running toward the alarm panel.
The moment their backs were turned, Tessa slipped out of the closet, darted across the slippery marble, and pushed open the heavy oak doors of Victor’s bedroom.
She locked the deadbolt behind her.
The room was deathly quiet. Victor lay on the massive king-sized bed, his breathing shallow and rattling. An IV line ran into his arm, delivering a steady, cloudy drip of heavy sedatives designed to slip him into a fatal coma.
Tessa ran to the bedside. "Mr. Rossi! Victor!"
His eyelids fluttered open slowly. His eyes were milky, unfocused, his skin an ashen gray. "Tessa...?" he rasped, his voice barely a breath. "They said... you ran..."
"They lied," she said fiercely, instantly pulling the sedative IV line out of his arm and shutting off the infusion pump. "Julian is poisoning you. Dr. Lipton is in on it. They framed me."
Victor’s fingers twitched against the sheets. A faint spark of dark, dangerous fire ignited in his dying eyes. "Julian... my own blood..."
"I have the antidote," Tessa said, unzipping her backpack and pulling out a large syringe filled with the concentrated Prussian Blue solution and antitoxin Dr. Thorne had prepared. "This is going to burn, but it will save your life. Do you trust me?"
Victor looked at her, his jaw tightening despite the agony racking his frame. "Do it."
Tessa cleaned a spot on his upper arm with an alcohol swab and injected the medicine directly into his muscle tissue.
Victor let out a muffled, agonizing groan, his body arching off the mattress as the powerful compound entered his bloodstream. Sweat burst from his pores, and his heart monitor spiked wildly.
"Hold on," Tessa whispered, holding his shoulders down. "Fight it, Victor. Fight it!"
Outside the bedroom door, heavy footsteps rushed up the hallway.
A loud bang echoed through the room as someone tried the locked door handle.
"Open this door!" Dante’s booming voice roared from the hallway. "Harper, I know you’re in there! Break it down!"
The heavy wooden door shuddered under a massive shoulder strike. The lock mechanism began to crack.
Tessa grabbed a secondary bag of IV saline, mixed in the remaining chelation compound, and hooked it directly to Victor’s arm vein. "The medicine needs an hour to start binding the thallium. You have to buy us time!"
On the bed, Victor’s breathing was changing. The deep, fatal rattle was softening. The gray, deathly cast on his face was flushing into a deep, feverish red as his liver and kidneys began to fight back against the toxins.
BANG!
The top hinge of the oak door gave way with a splintering screech. A man’s hand reached through the splintered wood, searching for the internal deadbolt.
Tessa grabbed a heavy brass floor lamp from beside the bed, swung it with all her strength, and shattered the arm reaching through the door.
A scream of pain echoed from the hallway.
"Get the breaching axe!" Dante bellowed outside. "She’s armed!"
Victor slowly sat up on the bed. His hands were still trembling, but the milky haze in his eyes was disappearing, replaced by the lethal, terrifying intellect that had built an empire.
He looked at the broken door, then up at Tessa, who stood defensively in front of his bed holding a steel fire extinguisher like a club.
"Tessa," Victor said, his voice stronger than it had been in six months. "In the top drawer of the nightstand... press the silver button behind the false back."
Tessa rushed to the nightstand, pulled open the drawer, tore away the thin wooden divider, and slammed her hand against the hidden silver button.
Instantly, a heavy, solid-steel security shutter descended from the ceiling overhang above the bedroom door, slamming into the marble floor with a deafening thud—sealing the master bedroom into an impenetrable panic vault.
The shouts and pounding from Dante’s men became instantly muffled, sounding like they were underwater.
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Tessa collapsed against the foot of the bed, gasping for air, her knuckles bleeding.
Victor looked down at her, a slow, dark smile spreading across his pale face. "Now, Miss Harper... bring me a glass of water. It’s time I plan my return."
