Chapter 4 - The Bitter Medicine
Silence fell over the East Wing—a silence so heavy you could hear the frantic, shallow breathing of Arthur Vance as Marcus pinned him against the wall.
Thiago slowly lowered his head, staring down at his useless, numb legs.
Every afternoon at two o'clock, Arthur Vance personally brought Thiago a small silver tray containing a glass of water and a dark glass vial of nerve medication prescribed by a top private physician—a physician hired and paid directly by Julian Almeida.
"My medicine..." Thiago rasped.
"It’s not medicine, Uncle Thiago," Samuel spoke up quietly from beside me.
Everyone turned to look at the six-year-old boy.
Samuel walked over to the small marble table near the doorway where an unopened glass vial from yesterday's dose sat on a silver tray. He picked up the tiny bottle and held it up to the light.
"It smells like the weed killer Gus uses near the stone wall," Samuel said simply. "I smelled it on your desk yesterday when I dropped my toy car."
Arthur Vance made a desperate, animalistic sound and tried to twist out of Marcus's grip, but Marcus drove a heavy knee into Arthur's ribs, pinning him effortlessly.
"Get the estate physician," Thiago ordered, his voice dropping an octave into a register of pure, lethal fury. "Not Dr. Evans. Call Chief Reynolds at the University Hospital. Tell him to bring a toxicology unit. Now."
"Yes, Mr. Almeida," Marcus replied, pulling out his radio.
Thiago turned his wheelchair around, facing Arthur Vance. The broken, weeping man who had sat beneath the jacaranda tree twenty minutes ago was gone. In his place stood the ruthless titan who had built a ten-billion-dollar empire from nothing.
"Where is my brother, Arthur?" Thiago asked softly.
Arthur spit blood onto the carpet, glaring with terrified, desperate eyes. "You're too late, Thiago. Julian is already at the shareholder summit in downtown Chicago. By three o'clock, the board will vote to declare you permanently incapacitated due to your deteriorating neurological health. Julian will be named sole CEO and trustee of the Almeida estate."
Thiago looked at the antique grandfather clock in the hallway.
It was 1:15 PM.
"Forty-five minutes," Thiago said quietly.
He looked over at Isabella, who was now sitting on the floor, holding Samuel's small hand as if it were an anchor to reality. Then he looked up at me—the maid who had scrubbed his floors for three years while his family stole my husband's life.
"Maya," Thiago said, his voice trembling with profound shame. "Your husband was an honest man. A hero. And my family ruined your life."
"Mr. Almeida..." I stammered, my cheeks still wet with tears.
"I promised to leave my fortune to your son," Thiago said, leaning forward in his chair. "I thought I was giving him a gift. But now I realize... I need to give him justice first."
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He looked at Marcus.
"Prepare the armored Suburban. We're going to the board meeting."
