A Woman Worth Billions Dated the Wrong Brother novel Chapter 423

The Third Toxin

Jason POV

Pamela and Marcus arrived several hours later with Clara and the baby.

They didn’t come to the hospital. Mr. Stait had already decided that bringing Clara anywhere near Amber’s room would be an unnecessary risk. Instead, they went directly to the castle, where security could control every entrance and Clara could disappear behind walls that had protected my family for generations.

Marcus called long enough to tell us they’d arrived safely.

“She’s exhausted,” he said. “The baby slept most of the drive, thankfully. Mrs.Sun is having rooms prepared for them now.”

“How is Clara?”

“Scared. Trying not to show it.”

I understood that better than I wanted to.

“Has she heard from Adrian?”

“No.”

That single word carried more weight than anything else he could have said.

“Stay with her.”

“We will.”

I ended the call and looked toward Amber.

Emory had been in and out of her room constantly since her condition turned critical. She hadn’t deteriorated further, which everyone insisted was good, but nobody was celebrating. Her body had already been poisoned twice as far as we knew: the powerful sedative hidden in her food and the botulinum toxin that had weakened her breathing badly enough that a ventilator now did most of the work for her.

I had started measuring time by the sound of that machine.

Inhale.

Pause.

Exhale.

Then my phone rang again.

Noah.

I answered immediately. “What did you find?”

I put Noah on speaker.

His voice was low. “We heard something.”

That was enough to make Mr. Stait look up from across the room. Mr. Asher was beside him, still working through everything connected to his sister’s branch of the family.

1/6

this the Town

+15 Bonus Bonus

“Jasmine and I are still listening to the room,” he explained. “Different people have been moving in and out. We haven’t identified everyone yet, so we’re not making assumptions about who’s actually in charge.”

“What did they say?”

There was a brief pause.

“Amber’s food contained a third toxin.”

I stopped breathing.

Emory, who had been standing near Amber’s bed reviewing her latest results, turned around immediately. 1

“What?”

“That’s what we heard,” Noah repeated. “One of them asked whether there was any chance the hospital would find it. Another person said no. They sounded very confident.”

Emory walked toward the phone. “Exact words, Noah. As close as you can remember.”

Noah repeated the exchange carefully. There had apparently been concern that the sedative and botulinum toxin had already been identified, but someone in the room dismissed it. According to what Noah and Jasmine

overheard, those two substances weren’t the entire plan.

There had been something else in Amber’s food.

Something they believed the hospital couldn’t find.

“Did they name it?” Emory asked.

“No.”

“Describe it?”

“No. They only called it the third one.”

Emory’s expression changed.

“What else?”

“They said it was too difficult to detect. One of them was certain that even if the doctors knew to look for another toxin, they wouldn’t find it.”

The room went silent.

I looked through the glass at Amber.

Her condition had turned critical despite the antitoxin and everything the doctors were doing.

We had assumed that was because her body was struggling with the botulinum toxin, the sedative, pregnancy, emergency surgery and everything else she’d endured.

But what if it wasn’t?

“What if that’s why she’s getting worse?” I asked.

Emory didn’t answer immediately.

“Emory.”

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“It’s possible,” he said. “It is also possible they’re lying, exaggerating or discussing something that never actually reached her. We don’t change treatment based solely on an intercepted conversation.”

“Then prove they’re lying.”

His eyes met mine.

“I intend to.”

Emory was moving before Noah had even finished the call. He contacted toxicology, requested every remaining blood sample collected from Amber since admission and ordered the original food evidence preserved for additional testing. He wanted the timeline reconstructed from the first sample onward, because if a third substance metabolized quickly, an earlier specimen might matter more than anything they could collect now.

The hospital laboratory reran the toxicology panel.

Nothing. 1

They expanded it.

Nothing. 1

Emory ordered another analysis using a different method.

Still nothing.

Hours disappeared.

I stayed beside Amber while Emory moved between the laboratory, toxicology and critical care. Every time he returned, I searched his face before he spoke.

Every time, I received the same answer.

“We haven’t found it.”

“Again.”

“Jason-”

“Again.”

He did it again.

Nothing.

The known sedative remained consistent with the original findings. The botulinum toxin was already confirmed. There were expected medications from the surgery and intensive-care treatment, but nothing Emory could point to and tell me was the mysterious third toxin Noah and Jasmine had overheard.

Mr. Stait eventually stepped into the room while Emory studied another report.

“Could they have been bluffing?”

“Yes,” Emory said.

“Could the substance already be gone?”

“Possibly.”

3/6

The Third Foun

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“Could you be looking for the wrong thing?”

Emory lowered the report.

“Absolutely.”

That answer made my stomach twist.

He came closer to Amber’s bed and looked at the monitors before continuing. “Toxicology isn’t magic. You find what a test is capable of detecting. If I don’t know what I’m looking for, and the substance isn’t covered by the panels we’re running, a negative result doesn’t prove nothing was there.”

Mr. Asher frowned. “Then how do you find something when you don’t know what it is?”