Chapter 5 - The UnravelingThe name hung in the damp, champagne-soaked air like a toxic cloud.
Julian Mercer stopped dead in his tracks. He turned slowly toward the stairs, his dark eyes narrowing as they locked onto his fiancée.
“Damon?” Julian repeated, his voice dangerously low, stripped of all warmth. “Victoria... how do you know that man’s name?”
The ballroom erupted into a chaotic murmur. Politicians whispered behind cupped hands; investors backed away from the steps as if Victoria were radiating a physical plague.
On the floor, the assassin—Damon—groaned, clutching his shattered wrist, blood dripping from his nose where Grace had struck him earlier in the study. He glared up at Victoria with a look of absolute betrayal.
Victoria’s hands began to shake so violently that her champagne flute slipped from her fingers, shattering at the base of the stairs.
“I... I don’t know him,” Victoria stammered, her voice pitching into a brittle, frantic octave. Her perfect poise was entirely gone, replaced by a frantic panic that she couldn’t conceal. “He’s... he must be one of the catering staff! Julian, look at him! He’s a lunatic!”
“He’s not catering staff, Victoria,” Grace said clearly, stepping over a stream of spilled champagne and standing tall in the center of the room. She brushed a stray lock of hair from her forehead, her gaze unyielding. “I caught him photographing confidential corporate restructuring files in Mr. Mercer’s private study twenty minutes ago. And he didn't sneak in through the kitchen. He had an access code.”
Julian’s head whipped toward Grace. The air in his lungs felt suddenly thin.
“An access code?” Julian demanded, his voice echoing off the stone walls. “Only three people in this entire estate possess the master security override code: myself, head security, and...” He stopped. His eyes drifted back to Victoria.
“And Victoria,” Marcus the catering manager added breathlessly, stepping out from the service wing with two estate security guards behind him. “Mr. Mercer... she’s right. None of my staff know that code. But Miss Langford requested the master security logs yesterday afternoon ‘for event planning purposes.’”
The silence that followed was absolute.
Victoria backed away from the edge of the stairs, her breath hitching in her throat. “Julian, you’re not listening to them! They’re conspiring against me! The maid—she’s a criminal, she attacked an innocent guest!”
“Shut up, Victoria,” Julian said. It wasn’t a shout. It was a flat, lethal command that carried the weight of a man whose entire world had just been detonated.
He pulled out his encrypted smartphone, tapping the screen with a trembling thumb.
“Marcus, lock down the estate. Nobody leaves. Call the Connecticut State Police—tell them we have an active corporate espionage and assassination attempt at Mercer Hill.”
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Damon, realizing he had been completely abandoned, let out a harsh, bitter laugh from beneath the shattered champagne tower.
“You think you’re so smart, Mercer?” Damon spat, blood staining his teeth. “You think she wanted your ring? Ask her about the debts she inherited from her father. Ask her why she needed those shipping terminal keys by midnight tonight—or else everything she owns goes up in smoke.”
