Chapter 119. Poison Shadow

Chapter 119. Poison Shadow
The boardroom was silent, heavily with the weight of the divided loyalty. The once clapping face for Vera now looked at her with suspicion, while the other whispers were whispered about the sudden growth of Juliet. The empire was no longer complete - it was cut in half, as if a body was bleeding from the middle.

Vera stood long on the head of the long glass table, although her heart came inside her chest. She could feel Juliet's eyes on her, faster as a blade, smuggled with the knowledge that half the empire bowed on her side. The loyalty of the board was divided. The lines were drawn, but no one dared to tell the truth - that this fight was no longer about the empire of Francis. It was about blood, heritage and existence.

Raymond, Pale but still sitting towards him, put his hand on him. His grip was firm, as if anchoring him. Nevertheless, Vera could see the tiredness written in her skin, the way her eyes became dark with each passing. She was ignoring it, telling herself that she only needed rest. But as soon as Juliet smiled on the table, Vera's fear crawled her backbone like snow.

"You can't run an empire with a stomach filled with excuses," Juliet said smoothly, bending back to his chair. His voice used to walk through the room. "Vera may be pregnant, but she does not fit her to lead. Francis needed strength, not feeling."

Whispering through board members. Some nodded their heads. Others avoid Vera's eyes.

Vera opened her mouth to respond, but before a word could leave her lips, she realized that Raymond had a slip with her. She turned rapidly - just to see her body in time, her face was the opposite in pain.

"Raymond!" She shouted, her chair was scraping against the polished floor because she went to her. His skin , his breath turned shallow, and then he fell to the ground.

Nervousness erupted. Board members shouted to help, jumped on their feet. Juliet was standing frozen, his lips entered into an unconscious, unprecedented smile.

"Call an ambulance!" Vera shouted, her voice broke. He kneeled next to him, pressing his hand against his chest as if he could make his heart to maintain the heartbeat.

Raymond's eyes remained open for a moment. He started panting, her lips were making silent words which she could not understand. Then his body became lame.

"No, no, no ..." Tears blurred his vision, but he did not stop pressing his hand against him. He refused to let him go.

When Medics finally came in, he pushed Vera aside. She looked in terror because she worked on it, taking her to a stretcher, slipping the needles in her veins. The room blurred with noise - the order shouted, rolling the wheels, the heavy hood of its own heart.

Vera chased her in the hall, clicking against her heel floor, her body was trembling so hard that she could barely walk straight. His child moved inside her stomach, and for the first time, fear for her child and fear for ramond crashed into an unbearable pain.

By the time she reached the hospital, Vera was moving uncontrollably. Doctors tilted Raymond's body. Vera pressed against the glass wall outside the operating room, her hand on the cold surface. She could not breathe. She could not think.

A nurse finally came out, his face turned yellow. "Poison," he whispered. "This is in their system."

The word knife in the chest of Vera. poison.

"How?" He demanded, his voice became angry. "What to do? Who?"

The nurse nodded her head and disappeared back inside, causing Vera to stand there, numb.

Hours later, when tiredness forced her to her office, she slipped on her chair. His eyes caught something shining inside his drawer. Horrific, he pulled it open - and froze.

A small glass vial inside, half-khali, lay down with dark remains at the bottom. He fainted the same smell on Raymond's lips when he fell.

His blood cooled down. His breath went around his neck.

The poison was in his desk.

His hands were so violently shaken that he dropped the vial back into the drawer. His mind shouted in panic. Somebody had put him there. But for everyone else - it would seem that she tried to kill her husband.

The office door opened. Vera revolves around her heart race. It was one of the board members, a person loyal to Juliet. Her eyes fell with her hands, then she did not stop completely to the drawer.

His lips turned curved. "Mrs. Vera," he said softly. "What are you hiding?"

Vera forced the drawer to shut down, her voice was trembling. "Go."

But his smile deepened. "You will regret it."

And with him, he left, at his footsteps, echoing like a death sentence like the echo of the hall.

Vera held her stomach, and felt like kicking the child. She knew what would happen next. Juliet will yet twist it into its biggest weapon. She will portray Vera as a killer.

And as soon as its weight drowned, Vera whispered to herself, "They did not take her to me. Not her. Not my child. Not everything."

But deeply, she knew that the war had become fatal.