Chapter 17 The Grandmother's Arrival
Brittany's POV
Sophia sat in my armchair like she had been sitting in it her whole life, her cane across her knees, her pearls catching the low light, her eyes on my face with an attention that made me feel like every thought I had ever had was visible from the outside.
I closed the door quietly and turned to face her.
"Sit down, child," she said. "We have a great deal of work to do and very little time to do it."
I sat on the edge of the bed, facing her. The small glass bottle sat on the table between us. I looked at it and kept my expression neutral, the same way I had looked at David an hour ago when everything inside me was running at full speed.
"You recognize it," Sophia said. It wasn't a question.
"The color is familiar," I said carefully.
Sophia's mouth moved in something that wasn't quite a smile. "Good answer. You're careful. That's good. Careful is what keeps people alive in this house." She folded both hands over the top of her cane. "Elena showed me the syringe she found in your cabinet. She brought it to me the same morning she removed it from your bathroom."
I went still. "Elena reports to you?"
"Elena has reported to me for fifteen years," Sophia said. "She is the only person in this entire mansion, including my own grandson, whom I trust without reservation. She has been my eyes and ears in this house since before David installed his cameras."
I thought about the pharmacy account registered in Elena's name—the false trail. Someone knew about Elena's connection to Sophia and had tried to use it.
"Someone set her up," I said. "The pharmacy account with her name on it."
Sophia's eyes sharpened. "How do you know about that?"
"I have my own sources," I said.
Sophia looked at me for a long moment. Then she nodded, once, with what looked like genuine approval. "Yes. Someone registered that account in her name eight months ago. We discovered it six months ago. We have been careful not to let them know we found it."
"Because if they knew you found it, they would create a new trail," I said.
"Exactly." Sophia tilted her head slightly. "You think fast."
"I've had to," I said.
The room was quiet for a moment. Outside the window, the gardens were dark and still. The clock on the mantle showed twenty minutes past three.
"The bottle," I said, looking at it again. "What is it?"
Sophia reached forward and picked it up, holding it between two fingers so the light caught the liquid inside. "This took me two years to develop," she said. "Two years and a very expensive private chemist in Switzerland who asked no questions and signed a great many documents." She set it back down. "It is a compound antidote. Specifically formulated to counter the poison being administered to David."
I looked up from the bottle to her face. "You know about the poison."
"I have known for fourteen months," Sophia said. "I identified the compound in his bloodstream through a private blood analysis I arranged without his knowledge. I have been developing this antidote ever since." Her voice was steady and matter-of-fact, but something moved behind her eyes that was much older and much heavier than her tone suggested. "David is my grandson. He is the only one of this generation worth a single thing. I will not watch him die in his own house while his brothers drink his wine and wait for the funeral."
I felt the weight of that land in the room.
"Why haven't you given it to him already?" I asked.
"Because the antidote is not complete," Sophia said. "It requires one final component that I cannot synthesize in a laboratory. It must come from a natural source." She looked at me directly. "A specific blood enzyme. It occurs naturally in only one blood type."
Something cold moved through me slowly.
"Which blood type?" I asked.
"AB negative," Sophia said.
The cold feeling spread all the way to my hands.
"It is extremely rare," Sophia continued, watching my face. "Less than one percent of the population carries it. I have spent fourteen months trying to locate a compatible donor through channels that would not raise suspicion." She paused. "And then David married you."
I stared at her.
"I had your medical records pulled the week after the wedding," Sophia said, without any apology in her voice. "Your hospital registration from when your grandmother was admitted. Your blood type was on the intake form."
The room felt very quiet.
"What is your blood type, Brittany?" Sophia asked.
I already knew what I was going to say. I had known since she said AB negative, had felt the answer sitting in my chest like something that had been waiting for exactly this moment to become relevant.
"AB negative," I said.
Sophia smiled.
It was the first time she had smiled since walking into my room, and it transformed her face completely. Not into something soft, but into something fierce and certain, the smile of a woman who had been playing a very long and very difficult game and had just watched the most important piece move into position.
It looked exactly like David's smile. The same shape. The same quality of controlled fire underneath it.
"The procedure is simple," Sophia said, her voice returning to its practical tone immediately. "A small blood donation. Standard volume. Safe for a woman in your condition."
I went completely still.
Sophia met my eyes calmly. "Yes," she said. "I know about the child."
I waited. I waited for the calculation to show on her face, the cold assessment of how a pregnancy complicated things, the way everyone in my life eventually looked at me and found me inconvenient.
Sophia said: "That baby is a Blackwell heir. Which makes you the most important person in this mansion." She paused. "And the most dangerous target in it."
"You're not concerned about the pregnancy?" I asked carefully.
"I am extremely concerned about the pregnancy," Sophia said. "Which is precisely why we need to move quickly. A healthy David is the only reliable protection you and that child have in this house." She leaned forward slightly. "The donation is safe. I have confirmed it with the Swiss chemist. The volume required will not affect you or the baby. But it must be done soon."
"How soon?"
"Within the week."
I looked at the bottle on the table. "And then what? You give it to him directly?"
"No," Sophia said firmly. "That is the most critical part. David cannot know. Not yet." She held my gaze. "If whoever is poisoning him discovers that an antidote is being administered, they will simply increase the dose to compensate. We must administer it secretly, hidden in his food, over several weeks, until his system has recovered enough to withstand a direct confrontation with the truth."
"You want me to hide medicine in my husband's food without telling him," I said.
"I want you to save his life," Sophia said simply. "The method is a detail."
I looked at the bottle for a long time.
"One more thing," Sophia said. She reached into the pocket of her robe again and this time produced a folded piece of paper. She held it out to me. "I know who is administering the poison to David. I have known for three months. I have been waiting for the right moment and the right ally before acting on it."
I took the paper from her hand.
I unfolded it.
I read the single name written on it in Sophia's precise and elegant handwriting.
The name was Marcus.