He slowly crouched down, ignoring the chaos around him, narrowing his gaze as he examined it more closely. And then he saw it—tiny crystalline fragments dissolving in the liquid, catching the light like slivers of glass. Nearly invisible unless you were looking carefully.
Harmless at a glance.
But instinctively wrong.
His phone vibrated.
He pulled it out, his fingers suddenly unsteady, and read the message:
“The coffee was poisoned. You have 60 seconds to get to a hospital. I’m sorry I couldn’t warn you any other way. They’re watching. Run.”
The world tilted.
For a brief second, his mind tried to reject it—to frame it as a joke, a misunderstanding—but the image of the boy’s eyes flashed back. The urgency. The certainty.
This was real.
Thirty seconds were already gone.
Nathan didn’t hesitate.
He ran.
He pushed through the doors, ignoring the confusion behind him. His driver, Andre, who had worked for him for years, saw the urgency immediately and opened the car door without a word.
“Hospital,” Nathan said, his breath uneven as he dropped into the seat. “Now.”
The car sped off, weaving through traffic with precision. His phone buzzed again.