There was a pause. A soft clink, like a glass being set down.
Marcus stared through the crack as the two silhouettes drifted into view in the hallway outside the closet. He couldn’t see their faces clearly, only the shape of Ryan’s shoulders, the line of Veronica’s arm. But he didn’t need a close-up.
Their voices were intimate. Familiar. Too comfortable.
Marcus’s throat went dry.
Ryan leaned against the wall like this was his house. “So what now? We keep waiting? He’s still standing.”
Veronica’s tone shifted, impatience sharpening it. “I already doubled the dose in his morning green juice.”
Marcus felt his blood go cold.
Not metaphorically. Not poetically.
Cold like he’d been pushed into winter water fully clothed.
Every dizzy spell.
Every sudden nausea after breakfast.
Every time his hands had trembled around a pen in the boardroom and he’d blamed the long hours.
It wasn’t stress. It wasn’t age. It wasn’t burnout.
It was poison served with a smile at his own table.
Ryan exhaled, almost amused. “Good. Because I’m tired of pretending to love him.”
Veronica made a sound like someone discussing spoiled groceries. “Just be patient. Once he’s gone, everything falls into place.”
Marcus’s thoughts tried to sprint in twelve directions at once and kept colliding with the same wall:
My wife is trying to kill me. My brother is helping her.
The footsteps moved again, drifting down the hall.
Aisha didn’t release him until the voices faded.
When she finally spoke, her whisper was so quiet it barely existed.
“They’re not alone,” she said. “If they hear you, you’ll die.”
Marcus tried to speak. His tongue felt like paper.
“Aisha… what—”
Aisha’s gaze snapped to the crack of light again. “Not now.”
She opened the closet door just enough to slip out. Marcus followed, heart slamming inside his ribs like it wanted out.
The hall looked the same as it always did. Cream-colored walls, framed art Marcus had bought because it matched the furniture, not because it meant anything. A floral arrangement on the table. The quiet wealth of a house designed to impress.
Nothing looked like murder.
Aisha moved fast, her steps sure. She didn’t head toward the main staircase. She led him down the servant corridor, past the linen closet, past the pantry, past the back kitchen that always smelled faintly of lemons.
Marcus’s mind kept trying to grab for order.
Call security. Call the police. Call Captain Reed.
He reached for his phone, and Aisha caught his hand.
“Leave it,” she hissed.
“What are you doing?” Marcus whispered. “Aisha, I can—”
She cut him off with one look. Not anger. Not disrespect.
The look of someone who’d learned, long ago, that power didn’t always protect.
“Your phone tells them where you are,” she said. “And your security? Your captain friend?” Her mouth tightened. “Bought.”
Marcus stared at her like she’d spoken another language. “Reed is loyal to me.”
Aisha’s laugh was short, bitter. “He’s loyal to whoever pays. Your brother didn’t just poison you, Marcus. He bought the exits too.”
They reached the back door.
Outside, the sky hung low and gray. Rain threatened in the distance. The air smelled like wet stone and trimmed hedges.
Aisha didn’t let him stop to think. She grabbed a baseball cap from a hook, jammed it into his hands, and shoved it onto his head.
“Put your hood up,” she ordered.
“I’m not wearing a—”
“Do you want to live?” she snapped, and Marcus fell silent.
They stepped into the driveway like criminals escaping their own home.
Aisha’s car sat near the garage, a battered sedan with faded paint and a dent in the rear bumper. Marcus had seen it a hundred times and never once cared.
Now it looked like a lifeboat.
They slid inside. The ignition coughed, stubborn, then caught.
Aisha drove.
No dramatic music, no cinematic slow motion.
Just a woman gripping a steering wheel hard enough to make her knuckles pale, and a billionaire sitting in the passenger seat in a hoodie that smelled faintly of laundry detergent and survival.
Marcus watched the gates of his estate shrink behind them.
For the first time in his life, he didn’t feel like a man leaving home.
He felt like a man escaping a trap.
1. The Life That Wanted Him Dead
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