CHAPTER NINE
The air inside the windowless security hub of the Ashford-Wale estate was stale, humming with the low, continuous drone of the cooling servers.
The room was illuminated only by the sterile, blue-white glow of a dozen high-definition monitors mounted against the far wall.
Ryder Ashford-Wale sat leaning forward in a rolling leather chair, his finger hovering over the polished metal dial of the playback console.
Beside him, Spencer Lockhart stood still, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his blue eyes locked onto the center screen.
"Back it up," Spencer commanded, his voice tight, the gravel in it betraying hours of silent, mounting tension. "The north corner camera, near the floral pillars. Right before Grayson walked out of the pavilion."
Ryder twisted the dial. The digital footage rewound, the figures on the screen moving backward in a jerky, frantic dance. "Here," Ryder said, pausing the video. "Look at the time stamp. This is twenty minutes before Grayson disappeared into the main house."
On the glowing screen, the high-resolution camera captured a tight, insular circle of women standing near the edge of the dance floor.
It was Olivia’s family. Linda, Chloe, Beatrice, and Brenna were huddled together, separated from the rest of the party.
Even without audio, the tension in their posture was violently apparent.
They were looking around nervously, their heads ducked close in intense, conspiratorial conversation.
"What are they doing?" Ryder muttered, leaning closer to the screen, his brow furrowing in deep confusion. "They look like they’re planning a bank heist."
"Keep watching," Spencer said softly, a cold, sickening dread beginning to pool in the pit of his stomach.
Ryder pressed play. The footage moved forward at normal speed.
On the screen, Aunt Beatrice reached into the small, beaded clutch under her arm.
She withdrew something tiny—a small, clear plastic packet.
Aunt Brenna immediately stepped forward, using her body to shield Beatrice from the view of the main room.
"Are you kidding me?" Ryder breathed, his eyes widening in horror. He zoomed in on the frame, the digital pixels sharpening to reveal Beatrice’s hands.
They watched in stunned silence as Beatrice placed the contents of the packet onto a cocktail napkin, using the handle of a silver butter knife to crush the pills into a fine powder.
She then signaled a young waiter who was passing by with a silver tray bearing several freshly poured glasses of champagne.
"Pull the audio if the mic picked it up," Spencer demanded, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his own biceps.
"The ambient noise from the orchestra is too loud," Ryder replied, his fingers flying across the keyboard to isolate the waiter’s face. "But look at the exchange."
On the screen, Beatrice slipped a thick fold of cash onto the waiter’s tray.
While the young man looked nervously around, Brenna quickly tipped the crushed powder into two specific glasses of champagne at the front of the tray, giving them a slight swirl to dissolve the substance.
Beatrice pointed directly across the room, giving the waiter explicit, unmistakable instructions.
"They drugged them," Spencer whispered, the sheer absurdity and malice of the act rendering him momentarily breathless. "Olivia’s family. They brought narcotics to a billionaire’s estate.
Why? Grayson is in love with her. He was practically ring-shopping.
He would have proposed to Olivia sooner or later.
What possible reason could they have to go to such lengths? "
"I don't know," Ryder ground out, his jaw clenched so tightly it looked as though the bone might snap. "But watch the waiter."
The camera tracked the young man in the crisp white jacket as he navigated the crowded pavilion.
He approached Grayson, who was standing with a group of international developers.
The waiter extended the tray. Unsuspecting, Grayson picked up one of the two tainted glasses of champagne.
He took a long drink, nodded to the waiter, and turned back to his conversation.
"He drank it," Ryder said, a cold sweat breaking out on the back of his neck as he watched his brother ingest the poison. "Now, where is the second glass going?"
The waiter turned away from Grayson and began weaving back across the floor, making a direct line for the corner where Olivia was standing with her sister, Chloe. But as the waiter passed the edge of the dance floor, the tragedy of the night finally unfolded in silent, damning clarity.
Kennedy Lockhart walked directly into the frame.
She was moving quickly, looking exhausted and tense, trying to exit the pavilion.
She crossed paths with the waiter, nearly colliding with him.
Without breaking her stride, Kennedy reached out, lifted the second tainted glass of champagne off the silver tray, flashed the waiter a brief, dismissive smile, and drank it down.
"No," Spencer choked out, the word tearing from his throat. "No, Kennedy, don't."
On the screen, Kennedy handed the empty glass back to the stunned waiter. Even without audio, they could read her lips as she casually told him to put it on her father’s tab. Then, she turned and disappeared out the glass doors, walking straight into the nightmare that would destroy her life.
It was nothing more than a cruel, devastating trick of fate.
Kennedy was never supposed to receive that drink.
She had never been part of the Winters family’s plan.
She had simply intercepted the glass by accident, a random casualty caught in the crossfire of a deeply misguided plot intended for Olivia.
The moment Ryder saw Kennedy drink the champagne, the missing pieces of the puzzle violently snapped into place. He turned his chair around, looking up at Spencer, finally understanding the vibrating agitation his best friend had been carrying for days.
"She was caught in the middle," Ryder whispered, the horror dawning in his eyes.
He looked back at the frozen frame of Kennedy on the screen, then back to Spencer.
"Spencer, the drug was an extreme aphrodisiac.
Grayson went into the study. Kennedy went into the house right after him.
Did… did something happen between them after they were drugged? "
Spencer’s eyes were blazing with a volatile, dangerous fire, but he refused to answer. He turned away from the monitors. "We have the footage. Now we need the verbal confirmation. What is that waiter’s name?"
Ryder hesitated, sensing the unspoken devastation hiding behind Spencer’s silence, but he knew better than to push. He turned back to the console, pulling up the staff registry. "Julian Hayes. He’s a seasonal hire through the catering agency."
"Find him," Spencer said, his voice dropping into a lethal, freezing register. "I want every single fact confirmed before I tear this place apart."
Thirty minutes later, Julian Hayes was sitting in a stiff wooden chair inside one of the estate’s secondary offices. The young waiter was visibly terrified, his hands trembling in his lap as he looked between the two towering, formidable men standing over him.
"I didn't know!" Julian stammered, his eyes darting frantically toward the door. "I swear to God, Mr. Ashford-Wale, I had no idea what was in those glasses! I just thought it was a special vintage or something!"
"Stop lying, Julian," Ryder said, his voice devoid of its usual warmth.
He leaned over the desk, bracing his hands on the polished wood.
"We have the security footage. We watched the older woman hand you a bribe.
We watched the other woman put a crushed powder into two specific glasses of champagne. You knew exactly what you were doing."
"No!" Julian pleaded, beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead.
"They just gave me five hundred dollars and told me to make sure those two specific glasses went to Mr. Grayson and Miss Winters.
That was it! The older blonde woman—she said it was a family tradition, a special toast they wanted to make sure the couple drank at the same time.
I didn't question it. I just did what I was paid to do! "
Spencer stood by the door, perfectly still, his blue eyes fixed on the young man. "You delivered the first glass to Grayson. Then what happened?"
"I was walking over to Miss Winters," Julian explained, his voice shaking violently.
"But before I could get to her, the tall woman in the velvet dress—Miss Lockhart—she just stepped right in front of me and took the glass off the tray.
I tried to stop her, I swear I did, but she just smiled, drank the whole thing, and told me to charge it to her father's tab.
I didn't know what to do. The women who paid me were staring at me, so I just walked back to the kitchen.
I didn't know it was drugs! Please, you have to believe me! "
Spencer closed his eyes. The verbal confirmation was the final nail in the coffin. They had undeniable proof.
"Get him out of here," Spencer said to Ryder, his voice dangerously soft. "Before I break his neck for taking that bribe."
Ryder signaled the two private security guards standing outside the door. They stepped in, hauling the sobbing waiter to his feet and escorting him out of the room to await the police.
Ryder turned to Spencer, raising his hands in a placating gesture. "Spencer, listen to me. We have the proof. We know it was Olivia’s family. Let’s take a breath, sit down, and figure out exactly how we are going to handle this."
"There is nothing to handle," Spencer replied, turning on his heel and marching out into the opulent corridor. "Where is your brother?"
"Spencer, wait!" Ryder called out, jogging to keep up with his friend’s long, furious strides. "You need to calm down! Grayson didn't know! He was a victim in this too!"