Chapter 32 Ella
ELLA
“It’s nice to see your eyes open, Ms. Hale,” Asher says, brushing my hair back from my forehead.
I blink and stretch, trying to put my thoughts in order. My brain is mush. Asher is shirtless and in bed with me, but it’s light in the room. Definitely too light to be morning.
“What time is it?” I croak.
“Five-thirty. You’ve been sleeping for almost forty-eight hours.”
“What? Why?”
“Do you remember what happened in the security room at work?”
I think back. It takes a minute, but memories click into place. “Emily fainted. And then maybe I fainted too? I’m not sure.”
“You did. The stalker letter you received had been tampered with,” he says, and quiet anger bleeds through his tone. “It was laced with poison.”
It takes a minute to understand his words. Then they hit me. “Laced with poison? Is Emily okay?” She held onto the letter much longer than I did.
“You were both rushed to the hospital, and I made sure you both had the best care available. Her case was more severe than yours, but she has fully recovered as well.”
“Thank god,” I say through a sigh.
“How is your head? I’m supposed to ask about your pain per Alec’s orders. You hit your head pretty hard when you fainted.”
“I don’t feel anything.” But as I notice the IV in my hand, I realize I’m probably on some heavy pain meds. No wonder I’ve been sleeping constantly. “Wait, Alec? Like, Zahra’s Alec?”
“He’s your resident doctor.”
“Oh god. I wasn’t stripped down or anything, was I?”
Asher chuckles. “Yes, you were, to get you in a hospital gown. But Alec is a professional.”
I groan. “And my old roommate.”
“Who knows if he was even there when you were stripped down. Doctors are usually the last people in the room.”
“That’s true. Let’s hope so.”
“Let’s focus on what matters: you.”
“Me.”
“You gave me quite the scare, Ms. Hale.”
“How did this all happen? I can’t believe the stalker letter was laced with poison. That sounds like a bad movie. And how did it get through the vetting process?”
Asher’s jaw ticks and his eyes flash with anger. “The letter came from the stalker, but the poison didn’t. It was tampered with after it arrived in the mail.”
“I don’t understand.” My mind is still slushy. “If the letter was tampered with after it arrived at Langford Holdings, does that mean someone inside the company did this?”
“Very good, Ms. Hale. Your mind is not as slurry as your words.”
I try to smack his arm, but with how weak I am, it’s barely a tap. He snorts.
“Do you know who it was?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“You don’t need to worry about it. I’m taking care of it. You just worry about getting better.”
“Nope. I was poisoned, Asher. I deserve to know who did it.”
He sighs. “I guess you’re right about that.
It was Alan from the board, but he didn’t work alone.
We’ve learned through surveillance that he and Daphne have been having an affair for about a month now, at least that’s what we’ve been able to catch on the cameras. It could have been going on longer.”
“Ew. He’s, like, twice her age.”
“Par for the fucking course in my line of work.”
My brows rise to my hairline. “She helped him?” Holy shit, I knew Daphne didn’t like me, but I never would have suspected that she would do anything like that.
“What was their goal? Were they trying to . . . kill me?”
Asher brushes his thumb down my cheek. “No. We don’t think so, but we’re still trying to put the puzzle pieces together. Alan didn’t give much away as far as information, but Daphne is distraught and spilling everything. Though, she doesn’t know much, so it still hasn’t given us a lot to go on.”
“So, what do you know?”
“We know that someone within Langford Holdings has been secretly working with TDC to sabotage Greenspan, and it’s been going on for about thirty years. And we know that person must someone high up in the company. Alan certainly fits the bill.”
“So, he’s the person on the board who’s been betraying you and Greenspan?”
“Yes, but I don’t think he’s the only one. Janet has also had it out for me for years.”
“He’s always trailing her like a faithful dog.”
“So far I can’t find anything on Janet, but that doesn’t mean she’s innocent.”
“Okay, so all that aside, why poison me?”
“Because Alan got a call from Sergei. I hurt Dimitri, so Sergei wanted to hurt me, but he can’t kill me until I give him what he wants, so he went after the thing that would hurt me the most. You.”
He brushes a kiss to my temple.
“Unfortunately, Ms. Hale, you are very much my weakness, and my enemies and my board are now very aware of that. Alan decided to try to use you against me to see if it would work, but he couldn’t get close to you without it being noted as strange, so he’s been using Daphne.
He kept his eyes on the PR team and quickly figured out that Daphne was jealous and held a great deal of animosity toward you, so he exploited that.
He introduced himself to her and flattered her—made her feel special—and because he’s rich and powerful, it worked.
It didn’t take much convincing for her to spy on you and report to him.
“When he got his orders from Sergei to find a way to hurt you, he came up with the plan to use the stalker letters so that it couldn’t be traced back to him, and he used Daphne to deliver the letter.
The last thing we caught on camera is Daphne picking up the pile of fan mail from her desk and delivering it to you.
But surprisingly, there’s no footage of how it ended up on her desk.
The cameras have had an ironic number of glitches from the day and time the mail was initially sifted through to when it ended up on Daphne’s desk. ”
“Did she know it was poisoned?”
“She denies it. She admitted that she knew there was a stalker letter in the stack of mail, but she insists that she had no idea it was poisoned and that Alan didn’t divulge that part to her.
She said that he told her it would scare you—and scare me—like it had the first time.
She was feeling angry and petty after the disastrous meeting beforehand, so she gave you the mail earlier than planned.
She was supposed to give it to you later that day. ”
“Why?”
“There was another meeting scheduled for the afternoon, and I think Alan wanted a spectacle. He wanted you to faint where everyone would see you and it would show the board that I am susceptible to threats which would undermine my power and leverage. He wants to sow more discord between the board and me. He had Sergei’s orders, so he decided to use them to his advantage.
But he won’t be a problem moving forward. ”
The finality in his tone makes me freeze.
“He won’t?”
“No.”
I stay still as I process the words Asher isn’t saying. “And why is that?”
He leans down and kisses my forehead again. “You know why.”
I nod, swallowing hard. The enormity of the situation with Asher and his board, and the threats from TDC, hits me like a ton of bricks.
And so does the reality of Asher’s ability to be one person with me and another person when he’s dealing with his enemies.
It’s a bit of a mind fuck, and yet it doesn’t change the way I feel about him.
I still wonder if that makes me a bad person.
But whether it does or doesn’t, I know that Asher isn’t left with many choices in this situation.
If he was able to handle these people and these threats like a normal person, I have no doubt he would.
But he’s not afforded that luxury. Not when his world works with its own set of rules.
You either work within those rules or you fail.
Simple as that. Such is the way of cutthroat savagery wrapped in the glittering glamor of high society.
“What does this mean moving forward?” I ask, knowing full well that Asher will not risk something like this again.
“Well, first off, I have something for you. It’s been in the works since the beginning, but it’s finally done.”
He reaches across me and grabs something off the nightstand. He holds a red velvet jewelry box toward me.
“Jewelry?” I quirk my brow. This isn’t exactly a romantic moment.
“Just open it.”
The box opens smoothly and silently, so different from the creaking and groaning of his antique jewelry boxes. A gold watch is inside. “It’s beautiful,” I say, admiring the delicate band and diamond-encrusted watch face.
“It’s not just a watch.” He lifts it from the box.
“See this button?” He points to a button I probably wouldn’t have noticed on the side of the face opposite the crown.
“This is a panic button. If you press this and hold it for three seconds, it alerts the entire security team. Or you can hit it three times in quick succession if you can’t hold the button down.
There’s also a feature like my watch has, where you can use it to create a small explosion.
But that’s to be used only if you need to get away, like I did in Singapore. ”
I blink at him. “Like a bomb? Is it safe to wear?”
“It is. The propellant is safely housed inside and can only be ignited by clicking the crown with a very specific pattern.”
“But it’s so small, I can’t imagine it doing much damage.”
“It will do enough. It looks delicate, but it’s damn near indestructible and waterproof.
I know this all sounds crazy, but our enemies are not a small matter.
Which means you’re to wear this watch at all times.
I don’t care if you’re in the shower, at home, or somewhere you think is safe. You will wear this watch.”
“So demanding,” I tease as he fastens the watch around my left wrist then presses a kiss to the sensitive skin there.
“I’m serious, Ella. I can’t . . . what happened to you . . .”
“This watch wouldn’t have changed that.”