James had done the deed.
Yeah, he'd poisoned one of his colleagues.
But he'd done it without understanding the full consequences. Without recognizing what "non-lethal" meant in Valdris's operational vocabulary.
It was just a non-lethal poison, he'd thought. Temporary illness. The target would recover in a week, feel terrible for a few days, and James's family would remain financially secure.
Well, he was wrong.
Drastically so.
The poison didn't act as fast as James had expected—there was no immediate collapse, no obvious symptoms that would have triggered an emergency medical response. That had been a deliberate design on Valdris's part. Slow onset meant the contamination source would be harder to trace.
But it did the work just as splendidly as promised.
