Chapter 82
That afternoon, Chloe used her family connections to get in touch with a distant relative who worked in the hospital's logistics department. Through him, she got hold of personnel files on the nurses working in the VIP ward.
After a quick look through them, she zeroed in on her target.
A young nurse named Lydia. Fresh out of school, barely on the job, and in serious financial trouble. Her mother had kidney failure and needed dialysis every week, which cost a fortune.
After reading through Lydia's file carefully, Chloe curved her lips into a smile and called her right away, asking to meet at the café behind the hospital.
When Chloe arrived, Lydia was already there, sitting by the window and staring blankly at the table in front of her, looking exhausted and worn down.
Chloe stood at the door and looked her over, then smiled and sat down across from her.
"Been waiting long?"
Lydia could tell right away that the woman in front of her was seriously wealthy. She felt a little nervous.
"No, I just got here. What would you like to drink, Ms. Johnson? My treat."
"Don't bother."
Chloe waved her off. She had no interest in cheap café coffee.
She reached into her bag, pulled out a manila envelope, and slid it across the table to Lydia.
"There's two hundred thousand in there. Once it's done, you get another three hundred thousand."
Chloe got straight to the point, crossing her arms with an air of cool arrogance. "I just need you to do one thing for me."
The moment Lydia saw the envelope, her eyes went wide and her fingertips started to tremble.
To her, five hundred thousand was no small amount. With that kind of money, her mother could get better treatment, and it would be enough to cover the medical bills for the next few years.
Lydia swallowed hard, her voice shaking.
"What... what do you need?"
Seeing her reaction, Chloe narrowed her eyes and spoke quietly. "It won't be complicated for you."
"You're on shift tonight, covering room 1201. At one in the morning, when you go in to change her IV, swap out the glucose drip for this."
She reached into her bag again and placed a small vial on the table, sliding it toward Lydia.
"It's a powerful sedative. Within ten seconds of injection, she'll be completely unconscious and out cold for six hours."
"That's all you have to do. Everything else is taken care of."
Lydia's face changed instantly.
She drew a sharp breath, looking alarmed. "That's illegal!"
"Illegal?"
Chloe let out a short laugh, as if she'd just heard something ridiculous. "Relax. The compounds in this are similar to standard surgical anesthetics. Even a blood test won't pick up anything unusual."
"All you're doing is swapping out a bag and walking away. That's it."
"Think about it — I'm asking for one small favor, and you walk away with five hundred thousand. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me."
At that, Lydia's eyes flickered. Her hands, resting on the table, pressed down harder without her even noticing.
Chloe could see she was torn, so she pushed a little harder.
"Of course, you can say no."
"But from what I hear, your mother's condition doesn't leave much room for delays. If treatment stops, she probably won't last much longer, will she?"
"And how long can a fresh-out-of-school nurse stretch that paycheck of yours?"
After that mix of pressure and temptation, Lydia's face cycled through shades of pale and green, her hesitation growing by the second.
The woman was right.
If she did this, her mother's life could be extended, and she wouldn't have to keep struggling so hard.
But her professional ethics...
And what if it all went wrong? She could end up...
After turning it over in her mind for a while, Lydia decided to take the risk. She gave a firm nod.
"Okay. I'll do it."
Watching Lydia tuck the envelope and the vial into her bag, Chloe smiled with satisfaction.
That night, just after eleven, Charlotte was propped up in bed reading when Alexander called with the test results.
"It's a complex psychoactive compound with a very unusual chemical structure — nothing in any standard pharmaceutical database matches it."
"Its main effect is disrupting the balance of neurotransmitters, causing hallucinations, disorganized thinking, memory loss, and similar symptoms."
"Most importantly, it breaks down extremely fast. It clears the body completely within twenty-four hours and leaves no trace."
Alexander's voice was more serious than usual. "Bottom line — this isn't something an ordinary person could get their hands on."
Charlotte listened calmly. "Got it."
"So you're going to—"
"I know what I'm doing."
Alexander sighed. "Alright. Let me know the moment anything happens."
After she hung up, Charlotte glanced at her phone. It was almost midnight. The hospital had gone completely quiet.
She stared out through the observation window at the still corridor, her mind turning things over.
She didn't know exactly what Chloe had been trying to do by drugging her.
But she was certain of one thing — a woman that ruthless wouldn't give up this easily.
Charlotte took a slow breath and lay back down.
She wanted to see exactly what Chloe was planning.
At one in the morning, the door to the room was pushed open without a sound.
Lydia came in pushing a medical cart. She kept her head down, unable to look at the person in the bed, her nerves completely shot. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.
"Ms. Johnson, time to change your IV."
The person in the bed seemed to stir, murmured a vague response, and rolled over.
Lydia stared at her back, heart pounding so loud it felt deafening.
She looked around the room and noticed that the security camera was partially blocked by a potted plant. She let out a small breath of relief, then pulled the small vial and a fresh syringe from her pocket and began preparing the injection with shaking hands.
Maybe because it was her first time doing something like this, her hands trembled badly. Several times she nearly knocked the vial over.
What she didn't know was that everything she was doing was reflected clearly in the polished metal bed rail — and was being watched by Charlotte, who was lying there with her eyes wide open.
Charlotte's gaze turned ice cold.
After fumbling through her preparations, Lydia moved to the bedside, picked up the IV line, and was just about to push the needle in and inject the sedative when a flat, emotionless voice cut through the silence.
"What are you doing?"
The voice wasn't loud, but to Lydia's already frayed nerves, it hit like a thunderclap. She let out a shriek, and the vial slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor.