The slap cracked through the marble foyer so loudly that the last caterer loading champagne glasses into a van outside stopped dead in his tracks and looked toward the mansion.

Hannah didn't hesitate. She turned instantly on her heel and rushed toward the master suite to intercept Nicholas before he could drink from the poisoned evening carafe.

She burst into the second-floor master bedroom.

The room was completely empty. The crystal carafe on his bedside nightstand was already half-empty, two blue tablets slowly dissolving into a hazy residue at the bottom of the water.

"No, no, no," Hannah whispered, panic surging through her veins.

She turned around and sprinted down the wide marble staircase toward the grand foyer.

When she reached the landing, she saw Nicholas.

He was sitting in his wheelchair near the main entrance doors, his face pale, his eyelids visibly heavy, his posture slouching dangerously to the left as the neuro-inhibitor rapidly took hold of his central nervous system.

Claire was standing beside him, holding his leather coat, preparing to dismiss the remaining catering staff outside.

"Nicholas," Claire said loudly enough for the two remaining caterers near the door to hear, her voice dripping with fake, exaggerated concern. "Darling, you've had far too much champagne tonight. Let me help you back up to your room."

Nicholas lifted his heavy head slowly. His vision was clearly blurring, his speech thick and slurred. "I... I didn't drink... champagne, Claire. The water... tasted like..."

"Sshhh, don't make a scene, darling," Claire hissed softly, bending down close to his ear. But as she tried to force his hand onto the armrest to push him toward the private elevator, Nicholas used every remaining ounce of his strength to shove her hand roughly away.

"Don't... touch me," Nicholas growled, his voice thick but laced with raw, instinctual fury.

Claire’s sweet, loving mask completely shattered into pure, unadulterated rage.

Believing the last caterer had already walked out the door, and that they were entirely alone in the grand foyer, Claire stepped directly in front of his wheelchair.

"You pathetic, broken cripple," Claire snarled under her breath, her eyes blazing with murderous venom. "I have spent eight months playing the devoted little bride to a man who can't even stand up! You will do exactly what I tell you to do, or I will leave you to rot in this chair!"

With a sudden, violent motion, Claire raised her right hand and struck Nicholas across the face with everything she had.

CRACK.

The sound of the slap echoed through the massive marble foyer like a gunshot.

The sheer force of the blow, combined with Nicholas’s utter lack of motor balance under the heavy drug, sent him tumbling sideways out of his wheelchair. He crashed heavily onto the hard marble floor, his wheelchair tipping sideways with a loud metallic screech.

Nicholas lay on the floor, his left palm pressed against the freezing marble, his legs completely motionless beneath him, blood welling at the corner of his swollen lip.

Claire raised her hand a second time, her face twisted in vicious satisfaction. "Get up and act like a man, Nicholas!"

Her hand never descended.

Hannah Reed caught Claire’s wrist mid-air with a grip forged from years of lifting heavy medical equipment and working grueling twelve-hour hospital shifts.

Claire spun around, shocked. "Take your hand off me."

"No," Hannah said, her voice like grinding steel as she stepped between the silver gown and the fallen man. "You will not touch him again."

Claire's eyes narrowed into venomous slits. "You work for him! You are domestic help!"

"Exactly," Hannah said, holding her ground without an ounce of fear.

Then Nicholas lifted his dark head from the floor, wiping the blood from his lip with the back of his trembling hand. He looked up at Hannah standing tall before him—a small nurse in glued sneakers protecting a man the entire city feared.