Chapter 3

I didn't sleep that night. Instead, I sat in the narrow room they'd assigned me—a former servant's quarters with a single window facing the garden wall—and spread Dominic's medical records across the bed.

The tampering was subtle. Brilliant, even. Whoever altered his prescriptions understood pharmacology well enough to make each dosage look like a reasonable clinical decision. But stacked together, the pattern was unmistakable: accelerated cardiac decline disguised as natural disease progression.

In my previous life, I'd been too focused on saving Dominic to notice who was killing him. I'd simply assumed his condition was deteriorating despite my efforts. It wasn't until I developed my serum that his health reversed—and by then, I was too dead to ask questions.

Now I had questions. And I intended to get answers.

The next morning, I went to the Kingston private pharmacy. The pharmacist, a thin man named Gerald, looked up from his computer with visible irritation.

"Mrs. Kingston. Patients aren't permitted in the dispensary."

"I'm not a patient. I'm reviewing my husband's prescriptions."

"That's Dr. Mercer's purview—"

"Dr. Mercer prescribed 0.25 milligrams of digoxin alongside amiodarone without adjusting the interaction protocol. That's not medicine. That's negligence."

Gerald's face went white.

I pressed on. "Who authorized the dosage change on February 12th? The original chart shows 0.125. Someone doubled it."

"I—I'd have to check the logs—"

"Check them now."

Gerald's hands trembled as he pulled the records. When he found the entry, he turned the screen toward me reluctantly.

The authorization signature read: Dr. Audra Price, Consulting Physician.

My blood ran cold, then hot.

Audra. Of course. She'd positioned herself as a medical consultant to the Kingston family months before the wedding arrangement. In my first life, I hadn't known this. I'd been kept completely in the dark about her involvement with Dominic's care.

She wasn't just stealing my identity and my husband. She was killing him—slowly—to trigger the inheritance clause before anyone could challenge it.

I photographed the records with the phone I'd bought that morning using the small allowance Mr. Haywood had grudgingly provided.

"Mrs. Kingston," Gerald stammered, "please don't tell Dr. Mercer I showed you this—"

"Gerald." I looked him directly in the eye. "If you altered any prescriptions on someone else's orders, now is the time to tell me. Before it becomes a murder investigation instead of a malpractice case."

The color drained completely from his face.

"I—I only did what Dr. Mercer instructed. He said the consulting physician approved the changes. I didn't question it."

"Who pays Dr. Mercer?"

Gerald swallowed hard. "Mrs. Vivienne Kingston."

The floor seemed to shift beneath me. Not just Audra. Vivienne—Dominic's own mother—was involved.

I walked back to the east wing in a daze, my mind racing through the implications. If Vivienne wanted her own son dead, the inheritance wouldn't go to his wife. It would revert to...

I stopped in the hallway, recalling the Kingston family charter Ronan had mentioned during the contract signing.

If Dominic died without a direct heir, control of Kingston Pharmaceuticals would transfer to his younger brother, Callum Kingston—Vivienne's favorite, the son she'd always preferred.

Everything clicked into place.

Vivienne never wanted Dominic to be cured. She wanted him married—to satisfy the board's requirement for succession planning—and then dead. The bride was meant to be a scapegoat, someone disposable who could be blamed when things went wrong.

That's why they'd accepted Audra's switch. That's why no one fought to get the "right" bride. They didn't care which Price daughter walked through the door. They just needed a body to pin it on.

In my first life, that body had been mine—found in a bathtub, labeled a suicide, case closed.

My hands were shaking as I reached Dominic's room. He was sitting up today, slightly more color in his face. He noticed my expression immediately.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," he said.

"Worse." I closed the door behind me and locked it. "Your mother is trying to kill you."

Dominic didn't flinch. Didn't blink. He simply stared at me for five long seconds, then said, "I know."

The room fell silent except for the steady beep of his heart monitor.

"You know?" I repeated, stunned.

"I've known for two years," he said calmly. "Why do you think I agreed to this marriage? I needed someone inside this house who isn't on her payroll."

He looked at me with those sharp gray eyes. "The question is—why do you care whether I live or die?"

Before I could answer, his monitor spiked. A sharp, irregular rhythm flashed across the screen—ventricular tachycardia. His hand gripped the bedrail, knuckles white.

"Dominic—"

"Don't," he gasped, "call Mercer."

I was already moving. I grabbed the emergency cart from the corner, hands steady from years of muscle memory that technically hadn't happened yet.

"I'm not calling Mercer," I said, ripping open a vial. "I'm saving your life. Try not to die before I'm finished."

As I administered the corrected dosage, his rhythm stabilized—but barely. His body was weaker than I'd calculated. The poisoned prescriptions had done more damage than I'd anticipated.

I needed my serum. The one I'd spent three years developing in my past life. The one currently locked inside my own brain, unwritten, unpatented, and nonexistent in this timeline.

I had the formula. I had the knowledge. But synthesizing it required lab equipment, rare compounds, and at least two weeks I wasn't sure Dominic had.

As his breathing evened out and his eyes closed, I made my decision.

I would save Dominic Kingston. Not out of love—not this time. But because a living, grateful billionaire was the most powerful weapon I could wield against every person who had destroyed me.

And then I heard it—heels clicking down the hallway. The door handle rattled.

"Dominic?" Vivienne's voice, sharp with false concern. "The monitors alerted the staff. Open this door immediately."

I looked at Dominic. His eyes were open again, watching me.

"Trust me," I mouthed.

He gave the faintest nod.

I unlocked the door. Vivienne swept in, flanked by Dr. Mercer and two nurses. Her gaze locked onto the emergency cart, the opened vials, my hands still gloved.

"What," she said, ice in every syllable, "have you done to my son?"