Sold To The Shadow King: Reborn Revenge
My husband, Hansford Burris, told me tonight was the most important night of his campaign. He handed me a glass of champagne, his face a perfect mask of concern, telling me to drink up so I could relax before meeting the "Shadow King" of D.C. who could secure his political future.
I didn't know the golden liquid was laced with a high-dose sedative and hallucinogens. He hadn't brought me to this luxury hotel to celebrate; he had brought me here to be sold, trading my body to a stranger in exchange for a seat of power.
In my past life, I trusted him. I drank the poison, woke up shattered, and spent the next five years being tormented by his abusive mother and publicly replaced by his mistress. I was eventually cornered and murdered by the very man I had supported with my family’s fortune, my death staged as a tragic accident to gain him sympathy votes.
To him, I wasn't a wife or a partner. I was just an "asset" with a shelf life, a merchant’s good to be traded away. As the life left my body, I couldn't understand how the man who promised to love me forever could watch me choke without a hint of regret.
Opening my eyes again, I was back in the St. Regis Hotel on October 14th, exactly five years ago. Hansford was standing there in his polished Armani suit, extending the same glass of drugged champagne toward me.
"Gina, darling? Are you alright? Here. Drink this. It will help you relax."
Looking at his handsome, lying face, I felt a cold clarity wash over me. I wasn't the naive rabbit he remembered. I took the glass, but I didn't swallow a single drop. This time, I was going to burn his world to the ground.
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Chapter 9
That night, the atmosphere in the master bedroom was suffocating.
Hansford came in carrying a tray. On it was a bag of yellow fluid and an IV line.
"Dr. Sayer thinks you need a boost," Hansford said, his voice dripping with fake concern. "Vitamins. For the stress."
Gina looked at the bag. It wasn't vitamins. She recognized the chemical signature from the research she'd done in her past life. It was a cocktail of sedatives and a synthetic hormone that caused long-term sterility. He wanted to keep her docile and barren. A cold, triumphant fury settled in her heart. He was so predictable. She had anticipated this move weeks ago, in another lifetime, and just yesterday had Vesper swap the vial in the locked medical cabinet with a simple saline solution mixed with a mild, harmless sedative. The real poison was now safe in her possession, waiting for a more deserving recipient.
"I hate needles, Hansford," she whispered, shrinking back against the pillows.
"It's for your own good, Gina." He sat on the edge of the bed. "Don't make me call Miller to hold you down."
The threat was naked.
Gina extended her arm. "Okay. Just... hold my hand?"
Hansford smiled, satisfied with her submission. The nurse he had hired-a silent woman who asked no questions-inserted the needle.
"Good girl," Hansford said. He watched the drip start. Drip. Drip. Drip.
He sat there for ten minutes, reading a file, waiting for her eyes to droop.
Gina slowed her breathing. She relaxed her facial muscles. She let her eyelids flutter and close.
"Gina?" Hansford whispered.
She didn't answer. She let her jaw go slack.
"Out like a light," Hansford muttered. He stood up, stretched, and walked toward the bathroom. "I'm going to shower. Don't disturb me," he told the nurse. "You can go."
The nurse left. The bathroom door closed. The shower turned on.
Gina's eyes snapped open.
She reached under her sleeve, not to her arm, but to the IV line itself. With a surgeon's precision, she used a tiny connector she'd hidden under her pillow to attach a micro-catheter, a tube as fine as a fishing line. She fed the other end of the tube into a slit in the plush velvet headboard, where Vesper had earlier installed a concealed, high-capacity absorbent medical pouch. The fluid continued to drip, but now it was being silently siphoned away, not into her bloodstream.
She adjusted her sleeve to hide the connection.
Vesper slid into the room from the balcony door like a shadow.
"He's in the shower," Vesper whispered. "You have fifteen minutes."
Gina threw off the covers. She was dressed in black leggings and a tight shirt.
"Watch the door," Gina ordered. "If he comes out, kill the power."
"Understood."
Gina moved. She slipped out of the bedroom, her bare feet silent on the carpet. She knew the hallway cameras had a blind spot every thirty seconds. She timed her run.
She reached the study door. Locked.
She pulled out the keycard she had "confiscated" from Zoe. She pressed her thumb against the biometric scanner beside the keypad. It glowed green. Her access was still valid. Then she swiped the card.
Beep. A second green light.
She slipped inside. The room smelled of cigars and corruption.
She went straight to the large oil painting of Hansford's grandfather. She swung it aside.
There was the safe.
She pulled out a small electronic decoder Brandon had given her. She attached it to the keypad.
Red numbers raced across the screen.
Calculating...