Chapter 2 - The Fall of the MistressUpstairs, the party was still in full swing.
Bass thudded through the ceiling joists, muffled laughter echoed down the stairwell, and the clinking of expensive crystal glassware signaled that Marcus’s mistress, Chloe, was currently hosting a toast to celebrate my impending "legal disappearance."
Two of my father’s men slipped upstairs like ghosts. Within thirty seconds, the music cut off abruptly, replaced by a sharp, collective gasp from the guests, followed by the terrifying sound of heavy boots sweeping through the luxury living room.
A moment later, Chloe was shoved down the basement stairs, stumbling and tripping over her high heels. She was draped in one of my favorite silk dresses—the emerald one Marcus had bought me for our anniversary—her face flushed with alcohol and triumph.
"What the hell is going on?!" Chloe shrieked, catching her balance at the bottom of the stairs and glaring furiously at the intruders. "Who do you people think you are? I’m calling the—"
She stopped dead in her tracks.
Her eyes landed on Viktor, then on the two pale, sweating local detectives standing awkwardly near the door, too terrified to intervene, and finally upon my father. But most horrifying of all, Chloe’s gaze drifted to the steel cage beneath the stairs, where I lay bleeding out on the concrete, cradled by the very man she thought she had outsmarted.
Color drained entirely from Chloe’s face. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out—only a pathetic, squeaking gasp.
"Do you like the dress?" my father asked, his voice chillingly calm as he stepped toward her. He didn't raise his voice, yet Chloe shrank back instinctively, hitting the chest of one of the black-suited guards who blocked her escape.
"I... I don't know who you are," Chloe stammered, her knees trembling visibly. "Marcus! Tell them! Tell them she’s crazy!"
Marcus was still pinned against the wall by Viktor, gasping for air, his face turning a deep, dangerous shade of purple. He couldn't speak, let alone save her.
My father walked right up to Chloe, stopping just inches away. He reached out with two fingers and grazed the diamond necklace resting on her collarbone—my diamond necklace, the heirloom my mother had left me on her deathbed.
"This necklace," my father murmured, his eyes locking onto hers with a predator's focus, "was worn by a woman who commanded respect. You are wearing the trinkets of a corpse. And very soon, you will find out what it truly feels like to vanish."
"Dad..." I groaned, a fresh contraction tearing through me, so violent that I arched off the floor. "The baby... I can't..."
My father’s head snapped back toward me. All thoughts of vengeance were instantly eclipsed by the primal terror of losing his only child and grandchild. He dropped to his knees beside the cage once more.
"Tear it open," my father roared, pointing at the welded steel door. "Now!"
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Viktor dropped Marcus like a sack of garbage. Marcus crumpled to the floor, coughing violently, but he didn't dare move. Viktor drew a heavy-duty plasma cutter from a tactical bag brought in by one of the arriving specialists. With a blinding flash of white-hot sparks and a deafening roar, the industrial torch began slicing through the steel bars that had been my prison.
Outside, the thunderous rotors of a heavy transport helicopter began to shake the foundations of the house, signaling the arrival of salvation—or perhaps, something much darker.
