I distill emotion into scent.
1 capsule of a girl's first crush. Sold for $3,000.
1 capsule of the satisfaction of closing a Series B. Sold for $20,000.
Then a CEO named Soren Ashby — gastroparesis, 6'1", 132 pounds the morning I met him — stayed alive on my capsules for 3 years.
Everyone said he loved me down to the bone.
Until I was charged with poisoning him. He walked the evidence into the 19th Precinct himself and watched the door close behind me at Bedford Hills.
I died 2 times in custody.
The 3rd time I came back, I opened my eyes on the morning Soren Ashby looked at me like I was something tracked in on a shoe.
He said, flat: "Get out. Don't come near me again."
But inside the matte-black ring on his right hand, I heard him scream:
【Why won't she come hold me. If she doesn't hold me soon I'm going to lose it.】
【My tie is crooked today. Why won't she fix it. Doesn't she love me anymore.】
I stared at the ring on his finger.
In my first life, that ring is what put me in Bedford Hills. They pulled an audio file off it — me, in my own voice, saying "once Vivienne Ashby-Vance is dead, Soren is mine."
I never said that.
This time, the ring isn't only carrying Soren's voice.
I open my eyes and Soren Ashby is standing 4 feet in front of me.
Black suit. Hair still damp at the temples from the shower. The look on his face is the one he'll wear at my sentencing in 11 months.
This is the second day after I sold him a capsule for the 1st time.
It is also, in another life, the morning I started loving him.
In my hand: a footed glass apothecary jar with a ground-glass stopper. Three pale-gold capsules inside, lined up like teeth. Wax-sealed. Each one carries 30 seconds of borrowed joy. To a regular client, they're a novelty — $3,000 for a hit of someone else's good day.
To Soren they're food.
His gastric system rejects almost everything solid. The aromatic compound in my capsules bypasses the stomach entirely — soft palate, neural uptake, stabilization. Project Threshold has been trying to engineer a version for 4 years. They can't.
In my first life, my capsules kept him alive. In my first life, my capsules also put me in Bedford Hills.
"Iris."
He's looking down at me. No temperature in it.
"Last night was a transaction. My assistant will wire the balance. Get out. Don't come near me again."
I look up at him.
I've stared at this face for 2 lifetimes inside a 6-by-9 cell.
I've thought about why he could stand at a podium in a courtroom and say, "She had motive," without his voice cracking.
I've thought about why he could watch them read the sentence and not move a single muscle in his jaw.
I'm a half-second from throwing the jar at his face.
And then a voice cuts through the room.
【Get out, what the hell is wrong with my mouth.】
【Her hand was cold last night. Did she sleep.】
I stop moving.
Soren's face has not changed. The disgust is still there, polished, neutral.
But the voice keeps going.
【Why isn't she coming over here.】
【If she doesn't come over here in 5 more seconds I am going to walk into that desk.】
I stare at him.
He frowns. "What."
【Look at me. Look at me. Please look at me for 2 more seconds.】
Me: "..."
I think dying in prison too many times broke my brain.
The office door opens and Wesley Vance walks in.
Three-piece charcoal. Horn-rimmed glasses. Soren's Chief of Staff and, formally, his mother's nephew. The kind of polite that costs money to maintain.
His eyes land on the glass jar in my hand. They light up for half a second, then go neutral.
"Soren. Mount Sinai called about your follow-up scan. They've been waiting 20 minutes."
Soren doesn't look at him. He puts a hand out, palm up, in my direction.
"Leave the capsules."
I almost laugh.
This is the part of the loop I've memorized.
In my first life, he despised me out loud and bought me anyway. Then his mother collapsed at her own birthday dinner at the Carlyle, and within 6 hours I was a poisoner.
Soren produced the lab report himself. Trace synthetic opioid in the wax seal of a pale-gold capsule he said came from my jar.
I told him it wasn't me.
He said, "The evidence is right here."
That was the day I learned that a corpse can still hate hard enough to bruise.
I close my hand around the jar.
"Not selling."
Soren's expression goes a degree colder. Wesley's voice gets ahead of him.
"Miss Marchetti. We have an agreement from last night. Mr. Ashby's condition is medically delicate. A last-minute walk-back is not appropriate."
I look at Wesley.
He's smiling the way he smiles in every memory I have of him. Politely. Patiently. Glass between us and the truth.
In my first life, the man who walked me into the interrogation room was Soren.
The man who first told the prosecutor I had switched the jars was Wesley.
He testified that he watched me do it. He testified that I was a jilted lover. He testified, looked into the bench camera, and on the way out of the courtroom, in a hallway with no one in it, he leaned over and said:
"Miss Marchetti. Your joy was always too expensive for one man to keep to himself."
My grip tightens.
Soren says, low, "Name a number."
【She's angry.】
【Don't growl at her.】
【Apologize, Soren. Apologize right now.】
His mouth moves.
"Don't be greedy."
【That's not it.】
【She's going to be angrier.】
I drop the jar into my bag.
"$10 million. Per capsule."
Wesley's face actually shifts. "Miss Marchetti. That is theft."
I keep my eyes on Soren.
He goes quiet for 2 seconds.
"Done."
Wesley turns to him. "Soren —"
Soren is buttoning his cuff. The expression hasn't moved.
"She's worth the number."
【Not exactly. She's worth whatever she charges.】
I walk out of the Ashby-Vance tower with $30 million confirmed in my business account.
My phone goes off on the Park Avenue sidewalk.
Mom.
I pick up.
"Iris Marie. Are you sleeping with Soren Ashby again."
"Yes."
The other end of the line stalls.
In my first life, I explained myself to her every week for 8 months. We're a transaction. The capsules are a legitimate product, registered with the FDA. I did not steal Paige's fiancé.
No one believed any of it.
Because Paige cried more photogenically than I ever could.
My mother gets her air back. "Paige is presenting tonight at the Ashby-Vance press dinner. Do not embarrass her. And we need you to assign the formula to the family LLC. I'll have the paperwork drawn up. We'll manage it while you focus on getting well."
"Manage it. Or hand it to Paige."
"Iris Marie, what is wrong with you. Your sister is sick. You're the older one. Would it kill you to let her have something for once."
I laugh.
"How about a prison sentence. Is that enough."
The line goes quiet for one second.
She says, "You're insane," and hangs up.
I'm raising my hand for a cab when I hear heels.
Paige is walking up Park, in a white wrap dress, eyes already pink at the lash line.
She still looks exactly the way I remember her at the visitation glass. Soft. Trembling. Wounded by the entire world.
"Iris. Why are you doing this to him. He's not yours."
I look at her.
In my first life, she visited me at Bedford Hills on the day I lost the appeal. She sat across the glass and smiled.
"Iris. Did you know — the capsules he's taking now aren't yours anymore."
"Your joy is too thin. My jealousy. My panic. My grief. They make a better product than your joy ever did."
That was the day I understood what the trace opioid had really been. She had stolen my distillation rig. She had been crushing her own ugliness into the wax. The capsules were poisoned with her, not with a drug.
I look Paige in the eye now.
"You want to buy a capsule, Paige."
Her face stiffens for one beat.
"Iris. How can you think that of me. I'm worried about you."
I open the jar. I pull out a chalk-white capsule and hold it out, level with her mouth.
"Then try this one. It's free."
Paige takes a half step back without meaning to.
I smile.
"What are you afraid of. I labeled this one truth."
Paige doesn't take it.
The girl behind her does. Lacey Brennan — Sacred Heart class of '17, 60k followers, Paige's permanent shadow. She slaps the capsule out of my hand.
"You absolute psycho. Paige is trying to help you and you're trying to drug her on the street."
The capsule hits the sidewalk and rolls toward a planter.
Three different people have already pulled out their phones.
Lacey gets louder.
"Everyone. Everyone — this is the Tribeca capsule girl. She's been selling unregulated drugs to a sick CEO for months and now she's trying to force-feed her own sister on a Manhattan sidewalk."
Her voice has the cadence of someone who has rehearsed it in a mirror.
The familiar feeling presses in on my chest from underneath.
In my first life, this is exactly how it started. A 12-second TikTok of me, shot from below, with a caption that already had a verdict in it. By that evening I was capsule witch. By the next morning the police had a warrant.
I crouch and pick up the capsule.
Lacey lifts her foot to bring it down on my hand.
I catch her ankle, twist, and pull.
She goes down on her tailbone on the concrete and screams loud enough to attract two more cameras.
Paige's color drops. "Iris. You can't — you can't hit her."
I push the capsule between Lacey's lips.
She bucks and tries to spit. The wax is already softening on her tongue.
3 seconds.
Then her face changes. Her pupils dilate. Her mouth opens by itself.
"Paige told me to do it. She said if we got it on camera the Ashbys would dump you."
The sidewalk goes still.
Paige's face is a sheet of paper.
Lacey claps her hands over her mouth and starts crying. The tears are real. So is the confession.
I stand up.
"Truth capsule. 30 seconds. Non-toxic, before anyone asks."
A phone swings to Paige's face.
"Is it true. Did you set her up. Look at the camera."
Paige starts crying. "No. No. I don't know what she gave her. Iris is sick, she's been sick for years —"
Before she can finish, a matte-black Range Rover pulls up to the curb.
The window comes down.
Soren is in the back. He's not looking at Paige.
"Get in."
I don't move.
"Iris. I won't say it twice."
【Please get in.】
【There are 11 phones on you. I'm going to lose my mind.】
【Why is Paige still standing there.】
Paige's eyes light up and she takes a step toward the car. "Soren — Soren, my sister —"
Soren finally looks at her.
"Shut up."
【Don't scare Iris.】
【Scratch that. Scaring Paige is fine.】