"Collapsed as in how, Alim?" Jannah asked biting her lower lip hard.

Of course she had read about the symptoms and expected this just that this made everything feel and look more real.

She gulped down and patiently waited for Alim to fill her in. "Yes. I asked why he was sweating unnaturally earlier when he kept sweating but he refused to answer, dismissing me as usual."

"Bring him home, Alim. I think I know what is really wrong." She answered while reluctantly biting on her lower lip to stop the acerbic taste from spreading out all over her.

"Are you sure about that?" Alim asked from the other end filled with more reluctance while glancing down at his boss unconsciously lying on his chair.

"Yes and you should hurry up." With that, she hung up the phone and anxiously started roaming around the room looking for another ampoule and syringe.

Earlier in the morning when she woke up, she heard noise coming from the mini living room. She yawned and sat up then made her way to the hand luggage she was yet to unpack. Sleepily browsing through to check if there is something important she hasn't removed, her hand touched something weird in a nylon. Perplexed at not knowing what it was, she extricated it from the luggage and untied the spider nylon.

Inside it, she found three syringes, ampoules and a vial, it clicked right then. She ordered it the next day after Adnan had pushed her into the pool when she recovered from her fever. It felt as though she was starting to forgive his misdeeds then thought better and ordered the venom just in case, that will help her remember how he so unnicely threw her into the arctic frigid water. No forgiving.

Now she is going to use it on him so he feels how she felt all sick and weak because of his stupid principles. And at that moment, a small knock came from the door; she was quick to open it knowing it is room service bringing food for Adnan. He will eat and close the remaining, ordering excessively because he is wealthy.

She took the trolley from the door and thanked the bellboy with an anxious smile punctuating it. Her eyes darted towards the door that leads to the living room Adnan is getting dressed, still locked. She arranged everything to her wish, cracked open the ampoule and poured it's diaphanous candid content inside with shaky hands. She gripped the broken glass in her palms feeling the sharp edges almost piercing her palms.

Once everything was inside and her hand luggage rearranged back looking untouched, Jannah hastily fell back on the bed and closed her eyes pretending to be asleep. Adnan came out looking freshly showered, inelastic, ossified and stark. If he had noticed how her breath altered into a harsher ones then he didn't acknowledge it and kept walking back to the room quietly to not wake them up.

And now here is the result but she is not at all happy with what she had done. How could she? She never knew she could stoop too low to his level but she did making her feel disgusted. She should've just forgiven him and went along with her life. What if he dies? God, please no. She won't be able to live with herself, she will die too for killing her daughter's father.

The way he's been ignoring her for the past several days annoyed her to no end. Seems like he was going through the entire 'staying away' from one another thingy. She was depressed though Mariam keeps her company once in awhile when needed. Not all the time and Aisha too always calling to check up on her.

"I know Imara is interrupting you two so next time you fly somewhere I'm coming with you to help babysit." Aisha had said when she called few days ago to check how they are doing.

"Are you serious?" Jannah laughed seeing the earnestness coating her friend's face. She thought she was only kidding in that Aisha way of hers.

"I'm not and you know I am also right. So many things cannot take place because there is no one to babysit her and she cannot be seeing her parents in weird positions without clothes. She is a smart girl." Aisha laughed at the horror on Jannah's face. She misses those looks from her whenever she says something naughty.

"May Allah deliver you, Aisha. And this is all about Imara. I am doing this for her not for myself." Jannah insisted though it sounded stupid in her ears, she is trying to make herself believe that too, of course.

Aisha raised one of her brows in are you shitting me or yourself? kind of way. "Do let me know whenever you get your head far away from your ass."

Jannah thought about it later on and realize she is absolutely right. It is not about her daughter anymore but herself too. Maybe it was all along and she was messing with her own head for the sake of her heart which she is now sure is going to break and freeze by the time Adnan is done with her. It's a feeling she's got from the beginning.

At first everything was running smoothly but she's got to spice things up a little bit. Now that she's added that chili spice with sprinkled sauce atop, so red and scarlet that she could feel her head spinning. Something is going to happen and might not be exactly pleasant.

Rounds of knocks on the door yanked her away from her reverie not so eminently. Her eyes widened and the beat of her heart heightened another notch almost eliciting a genuflect from her but she managed to wobble her way to the door. If anyone sees her expression they had think she was worried sick but the truth is, she is dead guilty of what she had done to her husband.

Opening the door with shaky hands of a criminal caught, she poked her dandelion veil clad head outside to see Alim and two other men beside him pushing a very hibernated and dormant and haggard looking Adnan on a wheelchair. Where did they get that? Abort, irrelevant.

She pushed open the door wider so they could enter but the other two men stayed outside, they were orange overall wearing uniforms construction workers and boots wear so they shook their heads with a smile. They know how Muslims love and value their privacy especially married woman and the reluctance written on her face is clear. They'll make her uncomfortable in her own home but out of generosity, she invited them in.

"Do come in." She smiled, it was restrained with other parts of excuses not this.

"It's alright. We just hope he recovers fast. Have a good evening, Ma'am." They tipped their hats with a small smile and disappeared down the long hallway.

She is now too concerned to care so she turned around forcing herself not to regurgitate her lunch, she literally had to push it down her throat because the guilt started inculcating itself in her head then. She made her way to the bed where Alim struggled to lie her husband on. She offered her little help by orchestrating his upper body, cushioning his head while Alim struggled with the rest of the body.

"You said he was sweating profusely?" She cleared her throat and asked the same question in a not so squeaky voice that is making her ears bleed.

"Yes and he wouldn't say anything about it." Alim heaved a sigh of exhaustion and pulled away from the bed to assess the room.

He looks exhausted too with his expression slackened, he appears to be so fragile. He was rolling his shoulders, bouncing on both his feet. Is he that worried over his heartless boss?

The guy needs to leave now before she could work her magic. Seeing Adnan lying their comatose, the guilt started melting away like ice in hot water, not fast enough but slowly getting there. She won't inject him with the antidote now, she is going to go with her initial plan. Consequences be damned because she would've died too when he pushed her into the pool. He didn't think about it, she'll force the heartlessness in her.

She turned around to face Alim not knowing how to send him away without sounding rude but isn't he supposed to leave after aiding her with Dracs on the bed? As her lips parted ready to tell him off, he passed a brief look at his boss then suspired.

"I have never seen him weak in my entire life." He muttered to himself his brows coming together then to her he said, "I'll be on my way. Call me when you need anything."

Gratefully, she let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. "Thank you very much, Alim. I'll let you know if we need anything."

He was out of the suite in record time. Jannah stood nonplussed and in autopilot for a minute. Her husband looks quintessential to everything he resented right now. The vulnerability, powerlessness, feebleness, renouncement, you name it...

She made her way to the ensuite to get some water in a bowl, she sprinkled a little on his face but he didn't move. Slightly swayed off her bravado, she sprinkled surfeit of it three times before he moved. She intentionally refused to touch his pulse, it is weak. She doesn't need anymore evidence for her cruelty, this is enough. Seeing him in her position.

His eyes lethargically opened with slothfulness she would've grimaced at seeing it on him but she is the cause of it and knows what he is going through. Well, only what she had read about the illegal poison she purchased using bribe. He made her rich but she is using that against him. Isn't that great though? Just going through her promise of tit for tat.

"Welcome there, Dracs!" She exclaimed with a gargantuan smile dripping sacks of aspartame that shouldn't be found in any human.

Adnan groaned, attempted to lift his torpid arms but couldn't. He blinked open his eyes and tried seeing pass the haziness, it wasn't easy. The smile of Jannah's told him everything he needed to know. He was poisoned by no one but his own wife. She made a face looking sympathetic but the glee in her eyes for having this power over him is there as enormous as life itself.

Why would she do that to him when he thought she was innocent?

She made him emaciated as her form of revenge? Poisoning him with Lord knows what? Who is this woman in front of him? She is not the lass he got married to. Maybe a duplicate in real sense?

Standing over him, she placed the water bowl gently on the bedside table then went to her hand luggage to get something from there. A vial and syringe. She went back to him beaming like heaven had been promised to her just a few minutes ago and she is yet to finish rejoicing. Who knows? Seeing him like this filled her with eerie, bone-chilling vindication, bliss and satiety.

The astonishment on his face made her more vitalized. She had shocked him! Step one, checked. She feels like a ditz, wanting her husband to grovel and bend his rules in this kind of way. He left her with no other choice or alternative. If he's got the right to throw her into the pool without an atom of remorse, why shouldn't she?

She sat down beside him on the bed, cleared her throat loudly. "Don't even start blaming me, you left me no choice!"

Despite his dilatory, Adnan raised that single left brow of his arrogantly. He let out a cough, his entire body lackadaisical and debilitated, the poison must be strong. It started few hours ago, it was slow process but those kinds of venom are more malignant. He should've went to the hospital! He had hypochondria.

She gave him a secret smile filled with knowledge and superiority. Is this how being humble feels like? Because all he wanted to do right now is rip her away from his home and do everything necessary so she could stay far away from him as possible. He despised the sight of her in front of him right now. He wants her spurious, phony smile and pulchritude beauty to recede en masse.

"Hospital or your wealth won't save you fast, my Dracs. I got this poison from the end of the world and only I have the antidote." She gave him an alluring smirk, filled with monstrousness.

Damn that presumptuousness of hers! She looks too confident that he had no other choice but believe her words. She knows about his connections if that won't help then she did her assignment well. She's browsed so much about this venom of hers.

With nauseating inability, he murmured in cacophony that stammered and stumbled. "What do you want?"

Definitely not money, she wouldn't do this for it after everything he had given her. Is there anything more she require of him? For all he could recall, he's given her everything lately, even himself though that is the last thing he'd wanted to do.

He has capitulated!

Jannah stretched her arms and purred like a cat, lie her head on his chest while looking up at him from beneath her lashes, her jaw on her hands that are lying supine on his chest. She then frowned at the feel of too much clothing on him. She wont talk to him while he is cloaked in many layers of clothes. She's got many wicked things in mind.

"This is so boring, you know? You should be talking and spitting rancor with that spiteful grunts. But there is no other way, we must do it like this." She sucked her lips, wetting them in process. His eyes drifted to the lush kiss-inspired lips then drilled into her eyes.

She sat up on her knees on the bed and started removing his neck tie with utmost care, boldness and confidence. "They are not up to five and I have a contract you must sign before I give you this antidote."