The note feels like ice in my hand.
The words are a poison, and I can see it spreading through Theo's veins.
His face, which was a mask of cold fury just moments ago, has crumpled.
The control is gone.
The CEO is gone.
All that's left is the haunted, broken man from my case files.
The man who lost the love of his life and blamed himself for it every single day.
He stumbles back, away from me, away from the note, and sinks onto the edge of the white sofa.
He puts his head in his hands.
His shoulders are shaking.
My clinical brain kicks in, a cold, familiar reflex.
Subject is exhibiting a severe trauma response. Catastrophic thinking. Potential for emotional dysregulation.
But the contract I signed flashes in my mind.
Party A will not, under any circumstances, attempt to analyze, diagnose, or treat Party B.
I am not his therapist.
I cannot help him.
Not in the way I know how.
So what am I?
What am I supposed to do?
I walk over and sit next to him.
Not too close.
A respectable, professional distance.
"Theo," I say softly.
He doesn't look up.
"It's a lie," he whispers into his hands. "It was a suicide. The police report… the note she left… it was a suicide."
He's trying to convince himself.
To hold onto the narrative that, while tragic, was at least resolved.
This new threat unravels it all.
It suggests something more sinister.
Something he can be blamed for.
"I know," I say. "This isn't about the truth, Theo. This is about leverage. It's a threat, designed to destabilize you. To terrorize you. And it's from the same person who did this to us."
He finally looks up, his eyes red-rimmed and raw.
"How do you know?"
"Because it's a pattern," I say, my voice gaining strength as I slip into the familiar logic of analysis. "They target our biggest vulnerabilities. For me, it's my career. My license. My professional ethics. For you…"
I trail off.
For him, it's Sarah.
It's always been Sarah.
"This person, whoever they are, knows both of us," I continue. "They know our pressure points. The blackmail note and the call to the medical board are two sides of the same attack."
He listens, the frantic, wounded look in his eyes slowly being replaced by a cold, familiar anger.
The anger is better.
I can work with the anger.
"They want to destroy us," he says, his voice low.
"Then we have to find them first," I reply.
A new, fragile alliance is forged between us in that moment.
Not one of a contract.
But one of mutual survival.
An hour later, the living room looks like a war room.
Theo has a massive tablet propped up on the coffee table, a digital whiteboard app open.
He's pacing back and forth in front of it, a restless, furious energy radiating from him.
"Okay," he says, stopping to point a finger at the screen. "Enemies. Let's start there. Who benefits from my public implosion?"
He starts to list them.
The names appear on the screen as he speaks.
"Winston and Beverly Croft. Obvious. They've been trying to force a hostile takeover for a year."
"The board of directors at OmniCorp. They think I'm too reckless. A scandal would give them grounds to oust me."
"Peter Chen. My former CTO. I fired him for selling secrets. He'd love to see me burn."
The list grows.
It's a long, depressing testament to a life of corporate warfare.
"Okay," he says, turning to me. "Your turn. Who wants to kneecap your career?"
I hesitate.
My world is smaller. More contained.
"I don't have enemies like you do," I say.
"Everyone has enemies, Elara. Who are you up against for the Atherton directorship?"
"Dr. Julian Croft," I say, and then stop. "Wait. Croft? Any relation to your Winston and Beverly?"
Theo's eyes narrow. "He's their son."
My blood runs cold.
"Julian is a narcissist, but I didn't think he was capable of something this… complex," I say.
"What about patients?" Theo asks. "Anyone with a grudge?"
"My patients sign extensive NDAs. A breach would ruin them financially. And ethically… it's a line very few would cross."
We stare at the list.
Two separate worlds of suspects.
Two separate sets of motives.
"It doesn't make sense," I say, shaking my head. "The person who knows about your business rivals is not the same person who knows the specific ethical regulations of the medical board. The person who knows Julian Croft is my professional rival is not the same person who knows about Sarah."
"So it's two different enemies?"
"No," I say, the pieces starting to form a terrifying picture. "It's one. One enemy who has done their research. On both of us. Someone who knows exactly how to hurt each of us in the most effective way possible."
The thought is chilling.
We're not just being attacked.
We're being studied.
We hit a wall.
The list of suspects is too broad.
The motives are too tangled.
"We're looking at this wrong," I say, standing up. I need to move. To think.
"We're focused on the 'why.' We need to focus on the 'how.'"
"What do you mean?"
"The drug," I say. "The one they used on us. In Vegas, and last night. The method is the key."
I start pacing, my mind racing.
"The symptoms were specific. Euphoria. Disinhibition. Suggestibility. Followed by significant, targeted memory loss. And a hangover that felt… synthetic."
"A party drug," Theo says. "GHB. Rohypnol."
"No," I shake my head. "The effects were different. Cleaner. There was no loss of consciousness. No sluggishness during the event itself. We were lucid. Happy. Compliant. It felt more like a trust serum from a spy movie than a date rape drug."
My mind is racing, flipping through years of psychopharmacology research.
I pull out my phone, my fingers flying across the screen, searching secure medical databases.
"There are experimental compounds," I murmur, thinking out loud. "Off-market nootropics. Things being tested in closed pharmaceutical trials."
I type in a string of keywords.
Amnesia. Euphoria. Suggestibility. Nootropic.
A single result pops up.
A research paper from a Swiss pharmaceutical company.
I read the abstract.
My heart starts to pound.
"Here it is," I whisper.
Theo comes to look over my shoulder.
"Zetabind," I read. "An experimental benzodiazepine derivative designed to treat severe social anxiety and PTSD by temporarily suppressing the amygdala's fear response while increasing oxytocin levels."
"In English, Doc."
"It's a drug that makes you trusting, happy, and compliant," I explain. "And one of its known side effects, the one that's keeping it from getting FDA approval, is 'fragmented anterograde amnesia.' It creates clean, surgical gaps in your memory."
"It's our drug," he says, his voice grim.
"Yes," I say. "And here's the important part. It's not available to the public. It's not on the black market. According to this paper, it is only available in two places: the pharmaceutical company's headquarters in Geneva, and the research institutions they've partnered with for clinical trials."
This is it.
The lead we needed.
Our enemy isn't just some corporate shark or jealous doctor.
They have to have access.
Access to a high-level, experimental drug.
Access to the worlds of big pharma or institutional medical research.
The suspect list just got a lot shorter.
And a lot more powerful.
The breakthrough leaves me feeling energized.
Purposeful.
I'm not just a victim anymore.
I'm a consultant on my own kidnapping.
"I need to go to the clinic," I say. "There's a book in my office. A pharmaceutical compendium. I want to see which institutions were part of the Zetabind trial."
"Elara, you're on leave," Theo reminds me.
"I'm picking up a book," I say. "I'm not seeing patients."
I need to be in my own space.
To feel competent again.
The drive to the clinic is different this time.
The dread is still there, but it's mixed with a cold, clear anger.
I use my key card to get in through the back.
The hallways are quiet. It's after hours.
I walk toward my office, the familiar path a small comfort in the chaos.
And then I see him.
He's standing outside my office door.
Just standing there.
As if he was waiting for me.
He's an older man.
Distinguished.
Wearing a tweed jacket that I remember from a dozen faculty meetings.
His hair is gray, his face lined with a look of paternal wisdom.
A wisdom I once revered.
A wisdom I once trusted more than my own.
My feet stop moving.
The air leaves my lungs.
It's a ghost from a past I thought I'd left behind.
Dr. Alistair Harrison.
My first mentor.
The man who taught me everything I know about trauma.
And his unannounced appearance, right here, right now, feels like a violation.
It feels like a threat.
It feels impossibly, terrifyingly wrong.