My Executor Tried To Poison Me — He Had No Idea Who Was Standing Next To Me
Part 1
The air inside the grand ballroom of the Grand Wellington Hotel was suffocatingly thick.
It smelled heavily of imported orchids, expensive French perfumes, and the quiet, venomous whispers of London’s high society.
It was a frigid November evening, and the city outside was veiled in a choking, sulfurous fog that seemed to seep through the glass.
Inside, however, the crystal chandeliers blazed like captured stars.
They illuminated the wealthiest, most powerful families in the country, all of whom had gathered for the charity gala.
I stood near a towering column of Italian marble, desperately wishing I were anywhere else.
At twenty-eight, I had inherited a title I never truly wanted.
I was now Daniel Miller, the sole heir to a sprawling coastal estate I barely understood and an immense fortune managed by men I didn’t trust.
My father had died unexpectedly just three weeks prior.
The physicians officially declared it heart failure.
The suddenness of it still kept me awake at night, staring at the ceiling and listening to the silence of my massive, empty house.
Tonight was my very first public appearance since the funeral.
The gala was hosted by Arthur Robinson, my father’s oldest confidant and the chief executor of our estate.
I dragged a gloved hand through my dark hair, my jaw tight with unspoken grief.
Around me, aristocrats and politicians milled about in their finery.
They offered their shallow condolences to my face while calculating the monetary value of my vulnerability behind my back.
It was a room filled entirely with predators.
I felt distinctly like prey, bleeding out in the open.
“Champagne, sir.”
I turned to see a waiter standing perfectly still beside me.
He was offering a silver tray that bore a single crystal flute of vintage champagne.
The man’s face was entirely unremarkable, pale and drawn, his eyes cast downward in appropriate deference.
I murmured a quiet thanks and reached for the delicate glass.
My throat was terribly parched.
The oppressive heat of the crowded room was making me feel light-headed and nauseous.
I lifted the glass to my lips, closing my eyes for just a second.
Before the liquid could even touch my mouth, a sharp, violent force slammed into my ribs.
The champagne flute flew from my hand.
It shattered spectacularly against the polished mahogany floorboards.
The golden liquid hissed loudly.
It literally hissed as it pooled upon the wood, a faint trail of acrid white smoke rising from the spilled beverage.
I barked in fury, turning to face whoever had dared assault me.
Standing there was a young woman I had never seen before.
She was dressed plainly, wearing a high-collared gown of slate-blue silk that lacked the ostentatious lace of the debutantes.
Her dark hair was pinned up elegantly, but several strands had fallen loose.
They framed a face dominated by piercing, highly intelligent hazel eyes.
She offered her deepest apologies, her voice intentionally loud enough to draw the immediate, scandalized attention of the nearby guests.
She blamed her own clumsiness.
But her eyes didn’t match her apologetic tone at all.
They were wide, frantic, and locked onto mine with a terrifying intensity.
Before I could summon any appropriate aristocratic rage, her delicate hand shot out.
Her fingers wrapped into the lapel of my tailored evening jacket with astonishing strength.
She yanked me sharply behind the heavy crimson velvet draperies that framed the grand terrace doors.
The heavy fabric swallowed the noise of the orchestra, plunging us into a shadowed, intimate alcove.
I demanded she unhand me immediately.
She pressed a single finger to her lips, her gaze utterly terrifying in its absolute calm.
She whispered for me to stay close and trust her.
I opened my mouth to call for the hotel guards, thoroughly convinced the girl was a lunatic.
She grabbed my jaw, turning my head slightly so I could look back into the ballroom through a narrow slit in the velvet curtains.
She ordered me to look at the floor.
I squinted through the tiny gap in the fabric.
The spilled champagne was no longer just hissing.
It had eaten entirely through the thick layer of floor wax and was actively corroding the solid oak beneath it.
A drop of the liquid had splashed onto the waiter’s pristine white glove.
The fabric was actively burning, dissolving into a charred black hole right before my eyes.
My breath hitched in my chest.
It was prussic acid combined with something far more volatile.
A single sip would have paralyzed my heart in seconds.
I looked up from the ruined floor, frantically searching for the waiter.
The man was retreating toward the kitchens, his unremarkable face now twisted in a snarl of pure panic.
He plunged a hand deep into his waistcoat.
He was reaching for a weapon.
The girl beside me let out a slow, steady breath.
Before I could process the reality of an assassination attempt in the middle of a ballroom, she moved.
She didn’t scream or cower.
Instead, she reached beneath the folds of her modest silk skirt.
She produced a compact, gleaming steel revolver.
I was utterly speechless.
With blinding speed, she pushed the curtain aside just enough to raise her arm.
She didn’t fire.
The noise would have caused a massive, deadly stampede.
Instead, with a flick of her wrist, she hurled a heavy, lead-weighted reticule straight through the gap.
It struck the waiter squarely in the temple just as he drew a short-barreled pistol.
The man collapsed in a heap, the gun clattering harmlessly under a nearby buffet table.
Guests gasped and ladies shrieked as chaos erupted in the center of the room.
The girl calmly holstered her revolver back beneath her skirt.
She grabbed my wrist, her grip like iron.
She dragged me through the terrace doors, out into the freezing London night, and down a spiraling iron servant’s staircase.
We hit the cobblestones of a dark alleyway behind the hotel.
The fog here was dense, a thick, yellow soup that smelled of coal dust and rotting brine.
I leaned against the cold brick wall, my chest heaving as I struggled to process what had just occurred.
I gasped out a demand to know who she was.
She didn’t look back at me, her eyes scanning the shadows.
She introduced herself as Megan Hayes.
Then she informed me that my father had been murdered, and that I was currently a dead man walking.
I felt the cobblestones vanish beneath my feet.
My father had been beloved.
She let out a short, humorless laugh.
She told me everyone with a fortune my size had enemies, and that the men who killed my father were coming for me tonight.
As if on cue, the sharp clatter of heavy boots echoed at the far end of the alley.
Two men silhouetted against the fog were advancing rapidly toward us.
The metallic glint in the gaslight revealed the walking sticks in their hands were actually sword canes, their blades already drawn.
