Chapter 15

Giselle bolted upright, her drowsiness gone. "What's going on?"

The clinic manager's voice crackled through the phone. "Five vaccinated dogs from our clinic just died, and the customers are rioting! They're throwing punches! You need to get here now!"

Giselle's mind went blank, a deafening buzz filling her ears. She hung up, threw herself out of bed, and grabbed the first T-shirt and jeans she found.

Within minutes, she was speeding toward the downtown veterinary clinic, phone pressed to her ear, speaking to the manager and piecing together the information. Every dog that had died had been vaccinated at her clinic in the last three days. None had pre-existing conditions; their deaths were directly linked to the vaccine.

This was massive. Giselle's heart pounded, but she forced herself to focus, her mind already racing through possible solutions. But the moment she stepped from her car, the dog owners lunged at her like a pack of wild animals.

One grabbed her hair, another kicked and punched her, while the others screamed curses or sobbed hysterically. Completely frenzied, the women unleashed their rage in a brutal assault.

It took several male staff members considerable effort to pull the furious customers away, giving Giselle enough space to breathe. Without their intervention, she might have been killed. Two female staff members quickly helped her inside and seated her.

Giselle's scalp burned, her lip was split, and her back, waist, and stomach ached from the kicks. Bruises from pinches covered her body. Every inch throbbed with pain and humiliation. But she had to remain calm. She endured the customers' rage without resisting.

As a dog owner herself, she understood. To these people, losing a pet was like losing a child. Their fury, however extreme, was understandable.

"I'm so sorry, everyone. I'm just as heartbroken as you are," Giselle said, forcing a calm, businesslike tone despite her pain. "I promise I'll make this right. You'll get every penny of compensation—"

"Do you think we want your damn money?" a customer shouted, her voice raw with grief. "Do you think a few lousy dollars can bring our dogs back? You should drop dead and rot in the ground with them!"

Giselle's target customers were high-end clients—wealthy, privileged women who wouldn't typically object to the compensation she offered. One customer goaded the others. "Go ahead. Call the police! Do it now! A shoddy clinic like this ought to be shut down for good!"

Giselle lowered her head. "Please, everyone, I promise we'll make this right. This tragedy happened because of my negligence, and I take full responsibility. To get to the truth, we'll let the police handle the investigation. Once again, I'm truly sorry. This was completely unexpected. We need time to sort this out properly."

But the customers remained enraged. After throwing punches and shouting insults, they immediately called the police. Several officers arrived and took Giselle and other staff members to the station for questioning.

Further investigation revealed the truth quickly. The clinic's original vaccine supply was fine; all doses administered were correct. The problem was that the dogs that died had been injected with substandard vaccines, privately introduced by one of the nurses, Shirley Cooper, who had vanished since the incident.

Even with the "culprit" identified, tracking her down wouldn't change anything. The customers didn't care which nurse had killed their pets. All they knew was that the clinic's standards were dangerously flawed. The brand was untrustworthy, and no one would risk bringing their pets there again.

In the following days, things spiraled. Giselle faced astronomical compensation fees, and several of her clinic branches were implicated in the scandal. The Animal Health Department shut them all down, demanding a complete operational overhaul. Her competitors capitalized on the controversy, fueling online backlash and calls for a boycott. Even her loyal customers abandoned her.

Giselle's thriving pet brand was on the brink of ruin. Everything happened so fast she couldn't react, leaving her depressed for days. She wasn't stupid; she knew who was behind this. She just hadn't expected them to act so swiftly. Then, consumed by rage, she stopped thinking and sped to the Holt residence.