Chapter 3 - The Test Results Confirmed My Worst Fear—And I Decided To Fight Back**
I met David at his lab an hour later.
He took the samples from me, his brow furrowed with concern.
“Stay here,” he said.
“I’ll run these as fast as I can.”
I paced the hallway outside his lab for what felt like an eternity.
My mind raced.
Four months.
Four months of drinking that tea.
Four months of eating the meals she prepared.
Four months of my hearing slowly slipping away.
Four months of her holding my hand at doctor’s appointments, pretending to care while she was the one making me sick.
I thought about all the times I had told her I was scared.
All the times she had held me and told me everything would be okay.
All the lies.
All the manipulation.
And I felt a cold, quiet anger build inside me.
She thought I was weak.
She thought I was losing my mind, losing my hearing, losing everything.
She thought she could take everything from me.
My company.
My fortune.
My life.
She was wrong.
David came out of the lab an hour later, his face grim.
“Ethan,” he said, holding up the test results.
“You were right to be worried.”
He sat down beside me and showed me the report.
“The tea and the powder both contain a drug called cisplatin. It’s a chemotherapy medication. In small doses, it causes exactly the symptoms you’ve been describing: tinnitus, progressive hearing loss, fatigue, nausea. If you’d kept taking it for another few months… it would have caused permanent deafness. And eventually, organ failure. You would have died, Ethan. Slowly. And everyone would have thought it was some mysterious illness.”
I stared at the words on the page.
Cisplatin.
Chemotherapy.
She had been giving me cancer treatment to kill me.
“How is that even possible?” I whispered.
“Where would she get something like that?”
David shook his head.
“It’s not hard to get if you know the right people. Or if you have a prescription. I checked public records. Vanessa’s mother died of ovarian cancer three years ago. She had access to leftover medication. And I’d bet she’s been getting more through illegal channels since then.”
He put a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m so sorry, Ethan. I know you loved her.”
“I did,” I said quietly.
“Or at least, I loved the woman I thought she was.”
I stood up, folding the test results and putting them in my pocket.
The cold anger inside me was now solid, unshakable.
I wasn’t going to let her get away with this.
“What are you going to do?” David asked.
“I’m going to make sure she pays for what she’s done,” I said.
“And I’m going to make sure she never hurts anyone else again.”
On the drive home, I called the best criminal defense attorney in Chicago.
And I hired a private investigator with a reputation for finding the truth no matter how well it was hidden.
I didn’t tell Vanessa anything when I got home.
I pretended to be more tired than usual.
I complained about the ringing in my ears getting worse.
I let her make me that poisoned tea again that night.
And when she wasn’t looking, I poured it down the sink and replaced it with plain water from the bathroom.
I watched her face when she thought I wasn’t looking.
That cold, satisfied little smile when she saw me drinking.
The way she watched me for signs of weakness.
And I hated her with every fiber of my being.
That night, as she slept beside me, I lay awake for hours.
I thought about Lily, that brave little girl who had risked everything to warn me.
I thought about Nora, too scared to speak up but doing her best to protect her daughter.
I thought about my grandmother, who had taught me sign language all those years ago, never imagining it would one day save my life.
And I made a plan.
Vanessa thought she was winning.
She thought I was dying.
She thought she would soon have everything I owned.
May you like
She had no idea the game had just changed.
And I was going to make sure she lost everything.
