13. Gabriella
Gabriella
J ohnathon brought Dani, Damien, and me lunch from the second-floor deli to Damien’s office. As for my new space, I’d spent about thirty minutes in the office first thing this morning. At that time, the new campaign was far from my mind. However, now as the three of us ate, I was mentally questioning every member of the coalition, wondering if it would make a difference to them that Damien and I were married.
I turned toward Damien. “Shit, we didn’t ask anyone to sign an NDA.”
His blue stare looked at me filled with puzzlement.
“About our marriage,” I explained. “We didn’t want it announced.”
“You didn’t.”
“Damien, what about my family?”
He sat taller, inhaled, and exhaled. “Should probably call your parents when we get a chance.”
You think?
Moving my chicken salad around in the bowl, I tried to think about our current fires. No doubt, my parents would be a future one, but why add extra flames. There was what Gloria mentioned about the coalition. “I should pass the campaign on to Niles,” I said before taking another bite of chicken salad.
Damien shook his head. “I was clear with Mrs. Barns—you or no campaign.”
Setting my fork down, I exhaled and leaned back against the chair. “The campaign is a good idea. The coalition has agreed. You can’t unilaterally end it.” When he didn’t respond, I added, “You did that to get me here. I’m here.” I lifted my left hand. “We’re married. If Gloria wants to use our marriage against the coalition, I don’t want to be responsible for the dissolution of what Julia worked to accomplish.”
“Losing Moon Medical wouldn’t be a significant loss.”
“One seventh,” I said. “Each member contributes.”
“Moon was always my concern,” Dani said. “Technically, our propanolol is not a competitor with Moon’s anti-anxiety medication. They are two completely different formulas, working on different parts of the brain for different yet similar outcomes.”
It had been a while since I’d been in the throes of the pharmacological world. “With Sinclair’s formula,” I said, trying to remember, “the patient loses the traumatic memories that instigate their fear or anxiety.”
“Exactly,” Damien said. “The traumatic memories are gone?—”
“They are camouflaged ,” Dani said. “Think of memories as files, such as in a computer. The tricky thing is that one memory, be it body or brain, can spark another. It’s not as simple as deleting the file. The propanolol is truly groundbreaking in the way it hides the trauma. Those memories are still there, but the formula redirects the brain. It’s as if the files are renamed with different pathways.”
Damien smiled. “Yeah, that’s why you have doctor in front of your name.”
“PhD,” Dani corrected. She looked at me. “Do you want to know more?”
“Yes,” I said, genuinely interested while admitting that this was above my general understanding. “If you can keep it simple.”
Wiping her lips with her napkin, Dani readjusted in her chair. “Moon Medical’s anti-anxiety formula is a benzodiazepine, a class of depressant drugs commonly prescribed for anxiety disorders, insomnia, and seizures. The benzodiazepines enhance or increase the action of a brain chemical, GABA, by stimulating serotonin and dopamine receptors.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, that’s not simple.”
“Their medication basically ups the body’s feel-good hormones. Serotonin acts like a hormone. It is also a neurotransmitter, meaning it carries messages between nerves in the brain. Think of it like taking a pill instead of having an orgasm. Yes, you can produce the hormones from physical stimulation. The pill takes out the middleman.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw my husband’s smirk. “Nice to know,” I said, turning to Damien. “Seems you can be easily replaced.”
Dani lifted her hand. “Stop. Please. Once I’m getting my share of orgasms, we can revisit this conversation.”
“Okay,” I replied. “Moon’s medication mimics the body’s feel-good response to calm a person.”
Dani nodded.
“Sinclair’s formula eliminates the memory, so anxiety isn’t triggered.”
“Camouflages it,” Dani said. “The memory is still present but hidden.” She pressed her lips together. “The propanolol interrupts the sequence of memories, causing a favorable pairing as opposed to a negative one. It’s quite remarkable because not everyone has the same trigger. When we were conducting trials, we had military veterans who had different triggers. I remember one man who couldn’t watch fireworks. During battle, fireworks are sent up before an offensive. The different colors tell the troops what’s going to happen. We had another volunteer who suffered serious injuries in a car accident. Simply getting into a car was torture.”
“The formula worked on both of them?” I asked.
“It did. Dosages varied, but that’s part of the delivery. We need physicians and psychiatrists to feel comfortable prescribing the propanolol. It’s new, and there is always hesitation with what’s new. That’s why we’re still conducting testing. The more data we have, the better.”
I nodded. “Moon’s product has been around longer.”
Damien spoke, “Yes. The physicians, psychiatrists, and facilities are more comfortable with prescribing it. The problem is that their medications flood the system with” —he looked at his sister— “the feel-good hormone. Eventually, it takes more and more to feel good.”
“More orgasms,” I said.
“Bigger ones,” Dani contributed. “What makes your body tingle today won’t work in a year or two. Basically, the one glass of wine that used to calm you takes an entire bottle. This leads to serious side effects.”
“What about with propanolol?”
Dani sighed. “There have been a few symptoms similar to those of early-onset dementia. Basically, the medication is camouflaging too many memories. Backing off on the dosage has returned the lost memories, but often with the recurrence of the traumatic ones. Currently, that has occurred in less than 3.2 percent of the cases.”
“Is that low?”
“It’s higher than we want, but compared to the rate of side effects in psychiatric drugs, it is low.”
Damien began to collect our dishes. “As much as I always enjoy my sister’s pharmacological lectures, the important thing is that Sinclair and Moon are not in direct competition. The competition occurs at the prescriber level. Do the patients want a treatment plan that includes flooding the body with fake happy juice that will need to continually be increased to maintain efficacy or would the patient benefit from simply masking the trauma and rearranging the memory synapses? At this time, once a therapeutic dosage is established, there isn’t need to increase the dose.”
I sat back. “Moon isn’t the only manufacturer of psychiatric medications.”
Damien shook his head. “Hell no. Moon is relatively small in that world. That’s why Dwain agreed to join the coalition, for the bargaining power.”
My questions kept coming. “Has Sinclair received pushback from other pharmaceutical companies that make psych meds?”
“Lilly has been on the hunt to buy us out.”
“They started that before we patented our formula,” Dani said.
“Do they make the same kind of meds as Moon?” I asked.
Damien nodded. “It’s a growing industry with increased consumer revenue. Lilly, Pfizer, and Forest are the three manufacturers dominating the market.”
“How did Julia decide what companies to include in the coalition?” I asked.
“Proximity and size,” Damien answered. “Moon is smaller and located in Ohio.”
“Sinclair is the only company to market propanolol?” I asked. “Anywhere?”
“There is a small private lab in the Chicago area working on a similar formula.” Dani shrugged her shoulders. “The entire operation is shielded. It’s difficult to learn too much about it.”
I scrunched my nose. “That’s odd, isn’t it?”
Dani continued, “From what I’ve learned, the lab is totally funded by endowments. Until they take their formula to the FDA, they can keep it under wraps. There is one…” She let her words fade away.
“One what?” Damien asked.
“I read a paper written years ago by a Dr. Laurel Carlson. It was fantastic. And then she left the university where she worked and last I could find is employed by a large not-for-profit in Chicago. The center’s main objective is helping victims of sex trafficking.” She sighed. “A population that could definitely benefit from the camouflaging of memories. It’s just odd. I can’t find where the private lab and the Sparrow Center are connected, but it makes me wonder.”
“I recall that name—Carlson,” Damien said. “She used to be at a university here in Indy. Things got out of control. I think her partner was killed.” He inhaled. “That’s another story. For now, are we worried about competition from this Chicago-based lab?”
Dani shook her head. “We’re much further ahead in our development, or I think we are.”
Damien shook his head. “Fuck, Dani, don’t put another damn concern on my plate. It’s overflowing.”
Dani laid her hands on the table. “Okay, we went down a bunny trail. The point is that if our drug is prescribed, many of the psychiatric drugs become unnecessary. Moon wants to stop us. And according to your friend Van, Dwain Walsh is working with Darius. Why?”
Damien replied, “Shit, at this point, I think they want to burn Sinclair to the ground. We won’t let Darius play with our ball, so he wants to take it away from all of us.” Damien turned to me. “And no on the Niles thing unless he works with you. I want you close.” He looked at his watch. “Speaking of wanting you both close, our three o’clock appointments will be here soon. Did you have a chance to look over the résumés?”
Bodyguards.
“We’ve been preoccupied,” I said. “I’m not fighting you on this. But what are we talking…? Driving with us to work. Being here at Sinclair Corporate. Going out to dinner with us. Sleeping in the next room.” I tilted my head. “If it includes all of the above, we need to convince Duchess to move to your house. We’d be too cozy in my condo.”
“Let’s hear them out.”