Chapter 241
Chapter 241:
“She is an idiot… a useless waste of payroll… just a dog I’ve gotten used to using, and I don’t have the patience to train a new one p>
The color flooded Abbie’s face in an instant. Her eyes filled with tears of humiliation and rage. Her chest rose and fell in sharp, ragged bursts as she stared at the recorder.
Alycia leaned forward, elbows on the table, voice dropping to a low, hypnotic murmur.
“Do you hear that, Abbie? You think you’re her loyal assistant. To her, you aren’t even a person. You’re a dog she kicks when she’s stressed p>
Abbie looked down at her hands. Her lower lip trembled.
“I’m offering you a way out,” Alycia pressed, sensing the moment. “Three drops in her morning coffee — that’s all. It’s completely tasteless. Do this, and I will permanently delete every photograph I have of you. And I will personally place you in a six-figure executive role at the Compton Group p>
She tapped a manicured fingernail against the vial.
“Do you want to be her abused dog forever?” Alycia asked quietly. “Or do you want to watch the woman who humiliated you lose everything p>
Abbie stared at the black bottle. Her breathing was ragged, the internal war playing out across her face in a series of agonizing, involuntary twitches. Then her expression hardened into a mask of cold, desperate resolve.
𝖢𝗁𝗂𝗇𝖾𝗌𝖾 𝗇𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗅𝗌 𝗍𝗋𝖺𝗇𝗌𝗅𝖺𝗍𝖾𝖽 𝗈𝗇
She reached out and closed her fingers around the vial. She pulled it off the table and shoved it deep into her coat pocket.
“I’ll do it,” she said through clenched teeth.
Alycia’s smile stretched into something predatory and triumphant. She stood, straightened her coat, and walked out of the café without a backward glance.
Abbie sat perfectly still in the booth for exactly sixty seconds, watching through the dirty window until Alycia’s red Porsche disappeared down the street.
The moment the car was gone, Abbie let out a long, slow breath.
And the terrified, humiliated expression on her face vanished completely.
Her tears dried. Her hands, which had been shaking moments before, were now perfectly steady. Her eyes were sharp and calm and entirely clear.
She reached into her pocket and set the black vial back on the table. Then she pulled out her smartphone and opened a heavily encrypted, untraceable messaging application.
She held the phone steady and photographed the bottle where it sat against the café table.
She selected a contact saved only as J.E.
She attached the photo and typed quickly.
The fish took the bait. I have the poison. Awaiting your final instructions.
She hit send. The message encrypted and dissolved into the digital ether.
The trap was perfectly set. Alycia Beasley had just walked directly into her own grave.
The sterile, blindingly white top-floor laboratory at Apex Bio hung in dead, heavy silence.
June stood in the center of the decontamination zone, her encrypted backup phone buzzing sharply against the stainless steel counter. She picked it up. The screen lit with a high-definition photograph of a small, unmarked black glass vial resting on a scuffed café table.