Chapter 6 - THE WIFE WHO CONTROLLED THE MEDICINE
Richard was taken to a private hospital that afternoon.
Tests showed severe dehydration, malnutrition and prolonged exposure to sedatives.
His wrist had been fractured for nearly two weeks before receiving proper treatment.
Vivian told doctors he had repeatedly removed the brace.
The injury pattern suggested someone had twisted his arm.
Richard could not remember every incident.
He remembered Vivian giving him tea.
Marcus asking him to sign expense forms.
Waking with ink on his fingers.
He remembered being told Isabella had changed her number and did not want contact.
That lie hurt more than the fractured wrist.
“I thought you hated me,” he told her.
Isabella sat beside his hospital bed.
“I thought you chose them.”
Richard looked away.
“I did choose silence.”
The honesty surprised her.
He admitted Vivian had gradually convinced him that every disagreement would tear the family apart.
Whenever Isabella complained, Vivian cried.
Whenever Marcus failed, Vivian blamed the pressure of living beneath Richard’s reputation.
Richard kept sacrificing truth for peace.
Eventually, there was no peace left.
Only control.
Hospital toxicology confirmed two drugs in Richard’s system.
One caused sleep and confusion.
The other could produce weakness, poor balance and memory gaps when combined with alcohol.
Richard rarely drank.
Vivian had been adding both to his tea.
A search of the mansion found crushed tablets inside a locked kitchen drawer.
The key was in Vivian’s purse.
She claimed the medication belonged to Richard.
Prescription records proved otherwise.
The pills had been prescribed to Vivian’s former housekeeper, Rosa Delgado.
Rosa had disappeared from the mansion two months earlier.
Vivian said she quit after stealing jewelry.
Daniel found no police report.
Isabella located Rosa through an old employee contact list.
She was living with her sister in Maryland.
At first, Rosa refused to speak.
Then Isabella sent her a photograph of Richard crawling across the floor.
Rosa called immediately.
“I tried to warn him,” she said.
“What did you see?”
“Mrs. Vale putting pills in his tea. Mr. Marcus filming him after. They made him look drunk.”
“Why did you leave?”
“They threatened my son.”
Rosa had also seen Vivian force Richard’s injured hand around a pen.
Before leaving, she copied several interior-camera files onto a memory card.
She mailed it to someone she trusted.
“Who?”
Rosa began to answer.
Then a vehicle stopped outside her sister’s house.
She looked through the window and whispered, “They found me.”
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The call ended.
👉 Rosa possessed the missing footage, but Marcus had reached the only witness who could prove Richard’s humiliation had been planned for months.
