Victor's journey through the manor's shadowed corridors was a solitary procession, each step a testament to his inner turmoil.
The scotch-induced haze was beginning to lift, leaving behind a pounding headache and a bitter taste—both physical reminders of his uncharacteristic outburst.
Yet, as the alcohol's grip weakened, his legendary resilience began to reassert itself.
"A moment of weakness," he muttered, steadying himself against the cool stone wall.
"Nothing more. They saw me falter, but they'll soon learn: even a wounded Valtor is more formidable than most men at their zenith."
The corridor, lined with ancestral portraits and antique sconces, seemed to twist and elongate in his compromised state.
Each Valtor patriarch gazed down at him—some with stoic pride, others with what he perceived as silent judgment.
Had any of them faced such a profound betrayal? Such a direct assault on their legacy's very foundations?
Victor finally reached the heavy oak doors of his private chamber—a sanctuary within his domain, where even his closest advisors rarely ventured.
Here, surrounded by the trappings of his hard-won success, he could regroup, recalibrate, and plan his dynasty's defence.
With a weary sigh, he pushed open the door, eager to shed his dishevelled attire and immerse himself in the comforting rituals of his nightly routine.
But as he stepped into the darkened room, his battle-honed instincts suddenly screamed a warning—a split second before searing, white-hot agony erupted in his back.
The blade that pierced Victor's back was no common dagger. It was a stiletto, favoured by Renaissance assassins for its slender profile and devastating precision.
Eight inches of cold, Damascus steel sliced through his tailored shirt with surgical ease, parting muscle and sinew as if they were gossamer curtains.
"Wha—" Victor barely had time to register the intrusion before the stiletto found its mark, driving deep between his ribs with a sickening thunk.
The blade's tip, honed to a microscopic point, punctured the pleural cavity surrounding his left lung, releasing a hiss of air as the organ began to collapse.
"AARGHH!" Victor's cry was primal, a sound he hadn't uttered since his brutal early days climbing from the industrial wastes of Detroit.
The pain was unlike anything he'd experienced—not a dull ache or sharp sting, but a searing, white-hot nova that seemed to detonate from his spine and radiate through every nerve ending.
His body instinctively jerked forward, trying to escape the foreign object that had so violently breached its defences.
But this movement only caused the stiletto to twist slightly, its razor-sharp edge sawing against the raw, hypersensitive tissue.
A fresh wave of agony surged through Victor, so intense that his vision blurred and his knees threatened to buckle.
Before he could even attempt to turn, to confront his assailant, a strong arm encircled his neck from behind. The grip was precise, applying pressure to the carotid arteries on either side of his throat—a technique used in certain martial arts to quickly subdue an opponent.
Victor felt his blood flow constrict, adding a nauseating dizziness to his already overwhelming pain.
Then, with chilling efficiency, a cloth was pressed firmly against his mouth and nose.
The fabric was high-quality, possibly Egyptian cotton, but it was not the material that caught Victor's attention.
It was the overpowering aroma emanating from it—a complex bouquet that was simultaneously earthy, sweet, and disturbingly pungent.
In that critical moment, as the scent invaded his nostrils, Victor's encyclopedic knowledge of global commerce became his unlikely saviour.
Years ago, during a hostile takeover of a giant, he had been briefed on their most controversial research: the weaponization of ancient botanical agents.
One compound, in particular, stood out in his memory—an extract derived from the roots of the mandrake plant.
Prized by alchemists and occultists for millennia, mandrake was notorious for its potent psychoactive and sedative properties.
In high concentrations, its active compounds could induce a state of near-catatonic unconsciousness, often accompanied by vivid, nightmarish hallucinations.
The realization that this arcane substance was now being used against him sent a chill through Victor's very core.
Victor's mind, still razor-sharp despite the trauma, understood the existential threat he faced. Unlike modern anaesthetics with their predictable effects, mandrake extract was capricious and profoundly dangerous.
In his compromised state—a punctured lung, restricted blood flow—he estimated he had even less resilience against its archaic potency.
In a burst of desperation, he tried to scream, to summon his security detail or any passing servant. But the cloth, now acting as both an alchemical weapon and a gag, muffled his cries with ruthless efficiency.
His attempts to shout emerged as nothing more than muted gurgles, pathetic sounds that seemed to mock his legendary authority.
The cloth's pressure was unyielding, forcing him to inhale through his nose in rapid, panicked bursts—each desperate breath drawing more of the debilitating vapour into his system.
The assailant, clearly versed in such covert tactics, maintained a vice-like grip. One arm remained locked around Victor's neck, applying just enough pressure to keep him dizzy without cutting off the air supply completely.
The other hand held the chloroform-soaked cloth in place with surgical precision, covering both mouth and nose to maximize exposure.
With the stiletto still embedded in his back, Victor's physical options were severely limited. Any significant movement risked jostling the blade, potentially turning a critical injury into a fatal one.
Yet, driven by the primal instinct for survival, he still attempted to resist.
His hands, those instruments that had signed billion-dollar deals and reshaped corporate landscapes, now flailed in a pitiful attempt to break free.
He tried to pry the cloth from his face, to gouge at his attacker's eyes, to reach back and dislodge the stiletto—anything to disrupt this meticulously orchestrated assault.
But his movements were uncoordinated, weakened by blood loss and the stiletto's agonizing presence.
As the chloroform began to take hold, Victor's perceptions started to warp. The grand chamber, a testament to his life's achievements, seemed to undulate and twist like a living painting.
The portraits of stern-faced Valtor ancestors appeared to watch him with a mixture of disappointment and grim fascination as if witnessing the downfall of their most ambitious descendant.
His limbs grew leaden, responding sluggishly to his brain's increasingly muddled commands.
The pain from the stiletto wound, so sharp and all-consuming moments ago, now felt distant, as if it were happening to someone else.
This dissociation was perhaps the most terrifying aspect—a sign that his legendary willpower, the very core of his being, was being chemically subverted.
Through the encroaching haze, Victor became acutely aware of his own vulnerability. Here he was, the titan who had built a global empire through sheer force of will, now reduced to a helpless figure in his own sanctum.
The stiletto on his back and the cloth on his face were not just physical weapons but symbolic ones, representing a calculated dismantling of his power and autonomy.
As consciousness began to slip away, Victor's senses heightened in a last-ditch effort to gather information.
He felt the steady trickle of blood down his back and heard its rhythmic drip-drip on the Persian rug—a macabre metronome counting down his remaining moments of awareness.
He smelled the chloroform's sweet aroma mingling with the metallic tang of his own blood, creating a grotesque olfactory signature for this pivotal moment.
In those fleeting seconds, he also registered subtler details about his assailant. The hand holding the cloth was smooth, lacking the calluses of manual labour—suggesting someone from a privileged background.
Most chillingly, there was no hesitation in the movements, no tremor of doubt or remorse. This was no impulsive act but a coldly calculated operation.
With the blade still embedded in his back, likely piercing a lung given his difficulty breathing, Victor was manhandled toward his opulent four-poster bed.
Blood flowed freely from the wound, staining his white shirt a deep crimson. Each movement sent fresh waves of agony through his body, and he could feel his strength—that indomitable Valtor fortitude—rapidly ebbing away.
Through a haze of suffering and encroaching darkness, he managed to turn his head as he was thrown onto the bed.
What he saw in that moment, illuminated by a shaft of cold moonlight, would haunt him even in the depths of his chemically induced oblivion.
Standing at the bedside, holding the blood-stained stiletto in one hand and the chloroform-soaked cloth in the other, was Adrian.
Gone was the urbane charm and calculated composure. In its place was a chilling, predatory focus—the look of a man who had just struck a decisive blow in some grand, malevolent design.
A...Adrian?" Victor managed to gasp, the name muffled by the chloroform-laden cloth.
His mind, even in its compromised state, raced to comprehend this horrific twist. He had anticipated many forms of retaliation—legal challenges, corporate sabotage, and even public smear campaigns.
But this... this cold-blooded assassination attempt? It shattered every conception he'd held about the nature of their conflict.
Adrian, observing Victor's shock with clinical detachment, finally spoke. His voice was devoid of its earlier warmth, replaced by a tone as sharp and cold as the blade he'd used.
"You moved the game forward prematurely, Victor," he stated as if discussing a minor change in business strategy.
"The original plan was elegant in its simplicity. You were to sit silently, watching as I systematically dismantled your legacy piece by piece.
Your daughter, Elara, was scheduled to be the only casualty—her death, meticulously staged, would have signalled the beginning of the Valtor dynasty's collapse."
Victor's eyes widened in horror. Not just at the revelation of this monstrous plot, but at the casual, almost bored manner in which Adrian outlined it.
This was no impulsive act of revenge or heated power grab. It was a strategic operation, planned with the same meticulous care Victor himself applied to his most complex corporate manoeuvres.
Adrian continued, pacing slowly around the bed, his polished shoes leaving bloody footprints on the Persian rug. "But you, in your scotch-fueled bravado, decided to confront us. To openly challenge our narrative. It was... inconvenient."
He sighed as if lamenting a minor logistical hiccup. "Now, instead of a controlled, staged decline, we're forced to accelerate our timetable. You have to die tonight, Victor."
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VICTOR