The Video Hidden in the Cloud
Chapter 02 - The Video Hidden in the Cloud
Emergency lights bathed the ballroom in pale blue. Guests shouted, phones lit up, and security blocked every exit.
Adrian stayed beside Elena while Isabella searched the floor for her phone. “Give me the passcode,” he said.
Elena looked at the bride. “It won’t matter. The video already uploaded to the cloud.”
Isabella’s face changed.
When the lights returned, the ballroom screen flickered to life. Someone in the hotel’s security office had opened Elena’s backup account. The video began.
It showed Isabella standing alone at a service table. She removed a silver packet from her bouquet, poured the contents into Adrian’s drink, and stirred it with her finger. Then Victor entered the frame.
“Make sure he finishes it before the contracts are signed,” he said.
A second clip showed Victor’s men cornering Elena in the basement. They demanded her phone, pushed her against a wall, and planted a diamond bracelet in her locker.
The guests stared at the Vales.
Isabella raised her voice. “It was a sleeping powder. Adrian has panic attacks. I only wanted him calm for the ceremony.”
Adrian placed the glass on the table. “You never told me.”
Victor stepped forward. “Because you would have overreacted.”
A doctor among the guests examined the silver packet visible in the video and warned that the dosage could be dangerous when mixed with Adrian’s heart medication.
Adrian looked at Isabella. “You knew about my prescription.”
Before she could answer, Elena opened another file. Three weeks earlier, she had accidentally recorded Isabella arguing with Victor in the bridal suite.
“If Adrian becomes medically incapable after the wedding,” Isabella said in the recording, “I control his voting shares.”
Victor answered, “Only after he signs the merger documents.”
Adrian’s family owned Cole Biotech, which developed low-cost treatments for rare childhood illnesses. The marriage agreement would give Isabella temporary authority over his shares during a medical emergency.
The poisoned drink was not meant to calm him.
It was meant to make him collapse after signing.
Police sirens sounded outside, but Victor pressed a hidden switch beneath the gift table.
The ballroom doors opened.
A man in a tuxedo stepped through the fog-filled entrance.
Adrian recognized him immediately.
“Daniel?”
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Daniel Cole, Adrian’s older brother, had been missing for eleven months after allegedly stealing company funds. He looked at Victor and said, “Tell them who really emptied the research account.”
Victor’s confidence finally disappeared.
