No man is more dangerous than a king with nothing left to lose — except one terrified of losing the only thing he has left.

The underground toxicology lab smelled of stale coffee, cleaning bleach, and ozone. The night-shift technician, a rumpled guy named Leo with sleep-deprivation circles under his eyes, stared at the computer monitor as the mass-spectrometry graph populated in real-time.

Priya stood behind him, her fingernails digging into her palms. Weston stood near the heavy metal door, his arms crossed over his chest, blocking the exit like an immovable monolith.

The multicolored lines spiked, fell, and leveled out across the screen.

Leo leaned closer, adjusting his glasses, muttering under his breath as he read the chemical breakdown percentages. He clicked a few keys, pulled up the standard reference profile for a pediatric TPN compound, and overlaid it with Priya’s sample.

The two graphs didn't even remotely match.

"Well?" Weston’s voice cut through the hum of the cooling fans like a blade. "Talk, tech."

Leo swallowed hard, looking nervously from Weston’s terrifying face to Priya. "Mr... Mr. Kade. The sample isn't just missing nutrients. It's... it's been systematically degraded."

"Explain," Priya commanded.

"The amino acids and lipid emulsions have been filtered out or replaced with a basic saline and dextrose solution," Leo explained, pointing at the flat lines on the screen. "Worse than that... look at this secondary peak here. There’s a trace organic compound present. A mild metabolic suppressant. Nothing lethal on its own, but in a thirty-two-week premature infant with low baseline organ function, it acts as an appetite suppressant and metabolic slow-down agent. It keeps the baby in a state of continuous, unnatural lethargy, preventing weight gain entirely."

Priya felt the blood drain from her face. "It’s a deliberate starvation protocol. Someone is keeping him right on the edge of death without triggering immediate organ failure."

Weston didn't shout. He didn't smash anything. Instead, a terrifying, unnatural stillness washed over him. His eyes went completely dead, fixed on a point on the concrete floor. When he finally looked up, his expression was that of an executioner.

"Who has access to the compounding room formulas?" Weston asked softly.

"Only senior attending physicians and the head pharmacist," Leo whispered. "And... administrative directors with override credentials."

Priya pulled out her phone, her mind racing. "Voss. Dr. Everett Voss is the chief of neonatology. He has supreme override clearance for all NICU nutrition plans. He told me just an hour ago to stop looking into it, that Owen was a 'lost cause.'"

Weston slowly uncrossed his arms. He reached into his jacket, pulling out a heavy, dark-metal satellite phone. He dialed a single speed-dial number.

"Dante," Weston said, his voice deadly calm. "Bring Voss to the basement parking garage. Alive. I want him breathing when I get down there."

"Boss," Dante's voice crackled through the speaker. "Voss just left the hospital in his Audi sedan. We have a team tracking him on the highway toward O'Hare."

"Cut him off," Weston ordered, snapping the phone shut. He turned to Priya, his face carved from pure ice. "Come with me."

"Weston, wait," Priya said, grabbing his sleeve. "If you grab Voss off the street like a mobster, he'll lawyer up or the board will call federal authorities. We need to trap him legally and medically so he confesses before you do whatever you're going to do to him. Let me help you pull his digital audit trail from the hospital server first."