Click.
The small beam of light illuminated the room, but Julian was no longer on his knees at the foot of my bed.
He was standing right beside my head.
The pathetic, sniveling husband who had been crying over lost twins seconds ago was gone. His posture was rigid, his expression entirely devoid of remorse. In the dim beam of the penlight, I saw his hand sliding beneath his suit jacket, pulling out a small, pre-filled syringe.
“You always were too resilient, Nora,” Julian whispered, his voice dangerously low, stripped of all emotion. “Selina told me you wouldn’t die from two simple punctures. She said you were too stubborn.”
My blood ran cold. The tears, the weeping, the flowers—it had all been an act to get past the police guards outside my door. He hadn’t come to beg for forgiveness. He had come to finish what he started.
“Julian, step back!” Dr. Caleb Reed yelled, lunging forward.
Julian swerved, shoving Dr. Caleb Reed hard against the metal supply cart. The heavy tray crashed to the floor, sending medical tools scattering across the dark room. Before Dr. Caleb Reed could recover, Julian lunged toward my IV line, raising the needle to inject the clear liquid into my port.
“If you survive,” Julian hissed into my ear, “the police will listen to you. Vance Global will fall. I can’t let that happen.”
I didn’t scream. I didn’t panic.
With every ounce of strength remaining in my healing abdomen, I lifted my left wrist—the wrist wearing the smartwatch that was currently synced to the hospital’s cloud network via the local Wi-Fi—and pressed the side button.
A harsh, automated voice echoed from the smartwatch speaker, amplified across the dark room:
“Broadcasting audio stream to Chicago Police Department Emergency Dispatch… Connecting…”
Julian froze, the tip of the syringe hovering a millimeter from my IV line.
From the watch speaker, the audio recorded three days ago played at full volume, filling the pitch-black ICU:
“She’s gone. I… I did it, Selina. Just like you said. We’re free.”
“What… what is that?!” Julian panicked, his eyes widening in terror as his own voice betrayed him.
Before he could react, the backup generators finally roared to life. The overhead emergency lights flickered on, flooding the room with stark red light.
The heavy oak doors of the ICU burst open.
Four armed Chicago police officers, who had been stationed right outside my room, charged inside with weapons raised. Behind them stood the State’s Attorney.
“Drop the needle! Hands behind your head! Down on the floor now!”
Julian dropped the syringe. The plastic cylinder bounced off the linoleum, rolling harmlessly under my bed. He raised his hands, shaking violently, as the officers slammed him against the wall, snapping steel handcuffs around his wrists.
As they hauled him toward the door, Julian looked back at me, his face twisted in desperate, pathetic terror. “Nora! Please! Tell them it was an accident! Selina made me do it! It was Selina!”
I leaned back against my pillows, looking down at the smartwatch on my wrist.
“Take his phone,” I told the lead detective calmly. “Search his private messages under ‘Selina Cole.’ You’ll find the transfer of two million dollars from Vance Global accounts made forty-eight hours ago to pay off the medical examiner who falsified Selina’s injury report.”
Julian went completely pale. “How… how do you know about that?”
“Because while you were planning my murder,” I said, my voice cold as ice, “I was buying your company’s board of directors.”
FINAL: The Reckoning
Three weeks later, the sun shone brightly through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Cook County Courthouse.
I sat in the front row of the gallery, dressed in a sharp, tailored black suit, leaning lightly on a cane. Beside me sat Dr. Caleb Reed, who had agreed to serve as the chief medical expert witness for the prosecution.
At the defense table sat Julian Vance and Selina Cole.
Selina no longer looked like the delicate, innocent victim who had burst into my living room with a scratch on her arm. Her designer clothes had been replaced by an orange jumpsuit, her hair was disheveled, and her eyes darted frantically around the courtroom.
When the lead prosecutor played the complete, unedited audio file extracted from my smartwatch—paired with the ICU security footage showing Julian attempting to inject a lethal dose of potassium chloride into my IV line—the jury reached a verdict in less than forty-five minutes.
Guilty of attempted first-degree murder.
Guilty of conspiracy to commit murder.
Guilty of corporate embezzlement.
The judge slammed his gavel down, sentencing Julian Vance to forty-five years in a maximum-security state penitentiary without the possibility of parole. Selina Cole received thirty years for her role as co-conspirator and accessory to attempted murder.
