DON’T EAT THE CAKE!” I screamed as the billionaire raised the silver server. His bride had already planted a vial in the frosting, millions were vanishing through secret accounts, and security was dragging me toward the exit. I had seconds before Adrian took the first bite. So I broke free, ran back into the ballroom—and what happened next left three hundred guests staring at the poisoned cake....

Back in the present moment inside the ruined ballroom, the tension was so thick it was suffocating.

Adrian looked down at Eleanor, who was frantically wiping buttercream from her face while sobbing hysterically.

“Adrian! Are you really going to listen to a maid over your own wife?!” Eleanor shrieked, her hands trembling. “She’s lying! She’s mentally unstable! Call the police immediately!”

Adrian ignored her. He looked at his chief head of security, Mark Vance, who had just rushed over from the front entrance.

“Vance,” Adrian said coldly. “Lockdown all exits. Nobody enters or leaves this ballroom.”

“Adrian, this is ridiculous!” Richard Vale, Eleanor’s father, stepped forward from the crowd, his face flushed with anger. “You’re insulting my daughter! You’re ruining her reputation in front of the entire city because of an unhinged servant!”

“If she’s unhinged, Richard, then testing the cake won’t hurt anyone, will it?” Adrian replied smoothly, his eyes narrowing.

Adrian turned to Clara. “Where is the bottle?”

“In her purse,” Clara said immediately, pointing at Eleanor’s designer clutch lying on a nearby table. “Or in her pocket. She poured it over the upper tier, right under the sugar roses.”

Eleanor made a sudden, frantic move toward her purse.

Vance stepped in front of her smoothly, blocking her path, and picked up the clutch. He opened it, unzipping the inner compartment.

He pulled out a small, empty dark blue glass bottle.

The ballroom gasped in unison.

“That’s... that’s not mine!” Eleanor stammered, her face turning ghost white beneath the lingering smears of frosting. “Someone planted that! Clara planted it!”

“You were wearing that clutch all evening, Eleanor,” Adrian said softly, his voice dripping with dangerous precision. “Clara hasn’t been within ten feet of you until thirty seconds ago.”

Adrian turned to one of his personal medical attendants who was present at the wedding. “Take a sample of the frosting from that top tier. Have it tested immediately at our private lab down the street.”

The private lab technician, who was already on standby for event safety, stepped forward with a sterile container, taking a heavy scrape of the cake where Clara had pointed.

Richard Vale grabbed Eleanor’s arm. “We are leaving. This circus is absurd.”

“Nobody leaves,” Vance said, as four large Whitmore security guards stepped up, physically blocking the father and daughter.

Ten minutes passed in painful, excruciating silence. Nobody in the room dared to drink, eat, or even speak above a whisper.

Then, Vance’s phone buzzed. He answered it, listened for five seconds, and looked up at Adrian with a grim expression.

“The lab results just came back, Mr. Whitmore,” Vance said clearly, ensuring his voice carried across the room. “Concentrated odorless tasteless paralytic compound. Combined with alcohol, it causes cardiac arrest within thirty minutes, leaving almost no trace in a standard autopsy.”

A collective shriek echoed through the room.

Adrian stood frozen. He looked at the cake server he had been holding moments before. If Clara hadn't tackled Eleanor into the cake, he would be dying on the ballroom floor right now.