Chapter 6 - The Sister Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Isabella Wolf walked into Gideon’s study carrying no weapon.
She carried the silver necklace.
Gideon did not embrace her.
He could barely look at her.
Twenty-two years stood between them.
Isabella was forty-one now.
Her dark hair contained a few silver strands. A faint scar ran from her left temple toward her ear. Her eyes were the same eyes in the photograph.
Gideon’s eyes.
She placed the necklace on the table.
“You’ve been looking for this.”
Gideon’s voice was rough.
“Where have you been?”
“Surviving.”
“For twenty-two years?”
“Yes.”
“You could have called.”
“No.”
One word.
No apology.
Gideon turned away.
Norah saw pain cross Isabella’s face.
Then disappear.
“My father told me you were dead,” Gideon said.
“Our father told me you chose him.”
Gideon looked back.
“What?”
Isabella explained.
Victor had told her Gideon knew she planned to expose the family.
He said Gideon had betrayed her.
He showed her forged letters.
Records.
A statement supposedly signed by Gideon.
“I believed you wanted me gone,” Isabella said.
“I was twenty-three.”
“And I was nineteen.”
Silence.
Their father had poisoned them against each other decades before someone poisoned Gideon’s body.
Norah wondered whether cruelty ever truly disappeared.
Maybe it simply changed forms.
“Did you enter my medical corridor?” Gideon asked.
“No.”
“Your necklace did.”
“I lost it six months ago.”
“How?”
“Adrian had access to it.”
Gideon’s expression hardened.
“Your husband.”
Isabella nodded.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he poison me?”
“I think so.”
“Think?”
“I discovered financial files three days ago. Adrian has been moving company assets through subsidiaries. If you died, he expected to gain temporary control through the trust.”
“Why come here now?”
“Because he knows you’re recovering.”
Gideon stared at her.
“And?”
“And desperate men accelerate plans.”
Marcus immediately doubled security.
Isabella explained Adrian’s history.
He had met her fifteen years earlier while she was living quietly under an assumed name.
He knew nothing about her real identity at first.
Or so she had believed.
Years later, he encouraged her to reconnect with Gideon.
She refused.
Then six months ago, the necklace disappeared.
Adrian claimed it had probably been lost during a move.
Now Isabella understood.
He had known who she was long before he admitted it.
Perhaps from the beginning.
“He married you to get close to me,” Gideon said.
Isabella’s face tightened.
“Maybe.”
For the first time, Norah saw her composure crack.
Gideon saw it too.
His anger shifted.
Not gone.
Redirected.
Adrian had not merely targeted Gideon.
He had spent years manipulating Isabella.
Marcus’s team traced Adrian to a private property outside the city.
By the time they arrived, he was gone.
But he had left records.
Photographs of the estate.
Staff schedules.
Medical information.
Copies of Norah’s employment file.
Pictures of her mother’s house.
Norah felt nauseated.
Gideon found her alone afterward.
“I’m moving your family.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
“Then the answer is still no.”
“Adrian has photographs of your mother.”
“I know.”
“He knows where your brother studies.”
Norah’s face changed.
Gideon lowered his voice.
“I’m not trying to control you.”
“You’re very bad at sounding like it.”
“I’m trying to keep them alive.”
That stopped her.
She called her mother.
This time, she accepted Gideon’s help.
Her mother and brother were moved temporarily to a guarded property.
Norah hated every second of it.
But fear and pride were poor partners.
That evening, Gideon found her sitting outside the kitchen.
“You’re angry.”
“I’m tired.”
“Different thing.”
“Both.”
He sat beside her.
A week earlier, the idea of Gideon Wolf sitting on a staff hallway bench beside a maid would have seemed absurd.
Now neither mentioned it.
“I spent my life believing control meant safety,” he said.
Norah looked at him.
“Did it?”
“No.”
He stared at his hands.
“My father controlled everyone. He died surrounded by people who hated him.”
“And you?”
“I thought fear was cleaner than love.”
Norah said nothing.
“Fear has rules,” Gideon continued. “People obey. You reward loyalty. Punish betrayal. Simple.”
“Sounds lonely.”
“It is.”
The admission surprised her.
Norah leaned back.
“You trust Marcus.”
“Yes.”
“Dr. Shah.”
“Now.”
“Your sister?”
Gideon took longer.
“I want to.”
“And me?”
He looked at her.
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
Norah felt something shift inside her.
She had expected a clever answer.
Instead he gave her the truth.
“Why?”
“Because when you thought I was dying, you looked at what everyone else ignored.”
“That isn’t trust.”
“No.”
He paused.
“When they accused you, you still helped me.”
Norah looked away.
“That might just mean I’m stupid.”
Gideon smiled.
“Possibly.”
She nudged his shoulder.
It was the first time anyone on the estate had touched Gideon casually in years.
Marcus appeared at the end of the hallway.
His expression erased the moment.
“We have a problem.”
Adrian had sent a message.
Not to Gideon.
To Norah.
A photograph appeared on her phone.
Her brother stood outside a campus building.
The photograph had been taken that morning.
Before he was moved.
Under it were six words.
YOU FOUND THE FIRST MISTAKE.
Then another message arrived.
LET’S SEE IF YOU FIND THE SECOND.
Attached was a photograph of Gideon’s current medication chart.
Norah stared at it.
“What does he mean?”
Gideon called Dr. Shah.
They examined every drug.
Every dosage.
Everything had been replaced since the poisoning.
Nothing obvious.
Norah looked at the chart.
Then at Gideon.
The second mistake.
She thought about breakfast.
The first mistake had not been the medicine alone.
It had been the combination.
Two individually ordinary things becoming dangerous together.
“Not the medicine,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Check what you’re combining it with.”
Dr. Shah began reviewing everything.
Supplements.
Meals.
IV fluids.
Water.
Then she stopped.
One mineral supplement had been introduced after Gideon’s initial hospitalization.
Combined with another medication, it could interfere with absorption.
Not lethal.
But enough to slow recovery.
“Adrian wants us to know he can still reach the medical system,” Marcus said.
Gideon’s face darkened.
“No.”
Norah looked at him.
“He wants us frightened.”
Her phone vibrated again.
This time it was a live video.
A dark room.
A chair.
Someone sitting in it.
Evan Pike.
Alive.
Terrified.
Adrian’s voice came through the recording.
“You want the truth, Norah?”
Evan looked toward someone off camera.
Then the image shifted.
Another person stepped into view.
May you like
Norah’s blood went cold.
It was someone standing inside Gideon’s estate at that very moment.
