Chapter 30 - The Security Breach
The waiter panicked. He turned and tried to sprint through the dense crowd toward the service exit.
He didn't make it ten feet.
Two undercover security contractors tackled him violently to the marble floor, dragging him swiftly and silently out of the ballroom before the majority of the guests even noticed the commotion.
Reyes pulled out a small, portable chemical testing strip from his suit jacket. He dipped it into the intercepted champagne glass.
The white strip instantly turned a dark, furious black.
"Aconite,"
Reyes whispered into his concealed earpiece, reporting directly to Mateo.
"Highly concentrated wolfsbane. It causes instant, catastrophic cardiac arrest. It would have looked like a sudden, tragic heart attack."
Mateo felt his blood run entirely freezing cold. They had escalated from psychological warfare directly to assassination.
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He looked up at the balcony. He saw Sterling staring down at the scene, his face pale with the realization that the strike had failed.
Mateo did not point. He did not yell. He simply stared directly into Sterling's eyes, and gave a single, almost imperceptible nod to Reyes.
