CHAPTER SEVEN #2
"You weren't crazy," Ryder stated, pacing the length of the office like a caged predator. "You were right. Someone slipped a highly concentrated, illegal substance into your system. Dr. Vance said it’s not something you can just pick up at a pharmacy. It’s black-market synthetic.
It aggressively targets the central nervous system, drastically lowering inhibitions, spiking body temperature, and clouding rational judgment.
It forces the body into a state of severe physiological demand. "
Grayson stared at the paper. The validation should have made him feel justified. It should have cemented his fury toward Kennedy. But instead, the reality of the medical report sent his mind into a chaotic, terrifying tailspin.
"An illegal synthetic," Grayson whispered, looking up at his brother, his eyes wide and haunted.
"Yes," Ryder snapped, stopping his pacing to plant his hands firmly on the edge of Grayson’s desk, leaning in close.
"And you are missing the point, Grayson.
Do you understand what this means? From a security standpoint, this is a catastrophic breach.
Someone bypassed our security detail, bypassed the catering staff, and successfully administered an illegal narcotic to the heir of the Ashford estate. "
Ryder slammed his fist against the desk, making the pens rattle in their silver cup.
"If that had been ricin, Grayson, you would be dead right now! If it had been fentanyl, you’d be in the morgue!
I don't care about the party anymore. I am launching a full-scale investigation. I’ve already pulled the estate’s CCTV footage.
I have the security logs. I am pulling the background checks on every single bartender, waiter, and valet who set foot on this property.
I will tear this staff apart until I find out who handed you that glass. "
Grayson barely heard him. The walls of the office felt as though they were rapidly closing in.
How could Kennedy have obtained a drug like this?
The question echoed violently in his mind.
He tried to picture Kennedy—the polished, aristocratic heiress who spent her days at charity galas and art auctions—navigating a black market to purchase a highly illegal, unregulated synthetic aphrodisiac.
It didn't make sense. The logistics of it were absurd.
Kennedy was bold, yes. She was arrogant, certainly.
But a calculating, premeditated criminal?
A horrifying, sickening doubt began to take root in the pit of his stomach. What if his accusation had been wrong? What if she hadn't engineered it?
"Ryder," Grayson interrupted, his voice hollow, sounding detached from his own body. "Did… did the cameras show anything?"
"Not yet," Ryder scowled, picking up his tablet and aggressively tapping the screen.
"The pavilion was crowded. There are blind spots near the floral arrangements and the bar. But I’m running facial recognition on the catering staff.
If someone was paid off to slip that into your scotch, I will find them. "
Grayson closed his eyes, the nausea returning with a vengeance. If Kennedy hadn't drugged him, then he had just destroyed the woman he grew up with for absolutely no reason. He had called her a rapist. He had looked at her with pure disgust while she sat sobbing on the floor of the study.
And if someone else had drugged him—who? And why?
"I have to tell Olivia," Grayson breathed, the realization crashing down on him with the force of a falling building. "Ryder, I have to tell her. I can't keep lying to her. If someone is targeting me, if someone is trying to hurt this family, she needs to know."
"Tell her what?" Ryder asked, his brow furrowing in confusion. "That you got sick at a party? Grayson, don't panic the girl until we have actual answers. You don't even know who did this yet."
Grayson looked at his younger brother, the sheer weight of his secrets threatening to tear him in half.
He couldn't tell Ryder what had happened in the study.
He couldn't tell him about Kennedy. But the lie of omission was suffocating him. He had no idea how he was supposed to face the woman he loved, knowing his hands were stained with the wreckage of another woman’s life, and knowing that the truth of what really happened that night was still hiding in the shadows.
***
Simultaneously, in the hushed, tense environment of the Lockhart family sitting room, Spencer was delivering a very similar set of results.
He stood by the marble fireplace, holding a printed copy of the encrypted email Dr. Aris had sent from the Boston laboratory. John and Margaret sat on the settee, their expressions unreadable. Kennedy sat in an armchair, wrapped in her gray sweater, staring blankly at the floor.
"It’s positive," Spencer said, his voice quiet but carrying the weight of certainty. He looked directly at his sister. "Kennedy, the blood panel came back. You still have trace elements of a highly concentrated, synthetic aphrodisiac in your system."
Kennedy’s breath hitched. She looked up, her hazel eyes wide, a complex myriad of emotions warring across her pale face.
"Dr. Aris said it’s a powerful substance," Spencer continued, reading the notes from the file. "It’s not pharmaceutical. It’s an unregulated chemical designed to aggressively suppress the frontal lobe—the part of your brain that controls logic, judgment, and inhibition.
It artificially spikes body temperature and forces a severe physiological response.
The traces are fading, and you won't have any long-term side effects, but for the hours it was active… you were compromised."
"I was poisoned," Kennedy whispered, the words trembling on her lips.
"Yes," Margaret said, her voice like cracking ice. She stood up, her regal posture radiating, lethal fury. "You were drugged, Kennedy. Deliberately and maliciously."
"It proves I didn't plan it," Kennedy said, looking at Spencer, a desperate, fragile hope breaking through her devastation. "If the drug was in my system, I couldn't have planned it. Grayson has to see that. If he gets tested, if he sees that we both…"
She trailed off, the hope faltering as she remembered the hatred in Grayson’s eyes.
"He will see it," Spencer assured her softly, knowing full well that Ryder was likely delivering Grayson’s results at this exact moment. "But Kennedy, you need to understand something. The fact that you didn't plan it doesn't solve our immediate problem."
John Lockhart leaned forward, his hands resting heavily on his knees. "Spencer is right. The medical proof clears your conscience, Kennedy, but it raises a much more dangerous question."
Kennedy looked between her father and her brother, her brow furrowing in confusion. "What question?"
"If you didn't drug Grayson," Spencer said slowly, his analytical mind having already worked through the terrifying permutations of the night, "and Grayson didn't drug himself… then who did?"
The room fell silent.
"Someone at that party targeted Grayson," Margaret stated, her eyes narrowing as she looked out the window toward the Ashford estate. "And by some twist of fate, you intercepted the chemical as well. Or, worse, someone targeted both of you."
Kennedy’s blood ran cold. The reality of the situation expanded far beyond her own broken heart and her fractured relationship with Grayson. There was a predator in their circle. Someone had walked into the Ashford-Wale estate, smiled at the security cameras, and deliberately poisoned them.
"What do we do?" Kennedy asked, her voice trembling slightly, the sheer magnitude of the threat finally piercing through her grief.
"We do what Lockharts always do," John said, standing up and buttoning his suit jacket, his presence commanding the room with effortless authority. "We find the people responsible, and we destroy them."