Chapter 1 - THE TASTE OF ASHESMy mother’s smile was a jagged blade slicing through the suffocating air of the bathroom. The smell of scorched flesh—my wife’s flesh—hung thick in the room, mixing with the sharp scent of lavender soap.
"Ethan," Margaret said, her voice dropping into that soothing, maternal tone she used whenever she wanted to gaslight me into believing the sky was falling. "You’re home early, darling. I was just helping your poor wife understand the order of things."
"Get away from her," I choked out, my voice cracking under the weight of sheer horror.
Sarah was curled into a tight ball on the cold tile, shivering violently. Her bare skin was glistening with sweat, and on her right shoulder was a deep, blistering burn shaped like the barrel of the curling iron. The sight of it burned into my retinas.
"Ethan..." Sarah gasped, her lips pale, tears leaving clear tracks through the dust and sweat on her face. "The baby... she locked Maya in the nursery..."
"The baby is fine," Margaret snapped, turning the curling iron off with a soft click, though the metal still radiated waves of heat. "She’s resting. Which is what Sarah should be doing instead of trying to steal your legacy."
"Are you insane?!" I screamed, stepping over the shattered doorframe. I didn't care that she was my mother. I didn't care about the decades of obedience she had drilled into me. I grabbed her wrist—the one holding the iron—and twisted it until she dropped the tool onto the bath mat.
"Ethan! You’re hurting your mother!" she shrieked, her mask slipping for a fraction of a second to reveal pure rage.
"Don’t touch me!" I shoved her back against the sink. I knelt beside Sarah, pulling off my suit jacket to wrap around her shivering frame. When my hands brushed near her shoulder, she flinched so hard her head struck the tub.
"I've got you, baby. I've got you," I whispered, lifting her into my arms. She weighed almost nothing, drained by postpartum exhaustion and tortured by the woman who raised me.
"You think you’re a hero?" Margaret sneered, smoothing down her immaculate cashmere cardigan. "Look around this house, Ethan. Who paid for your engineering degree? Who gave you the seed money for your firm? I built you. And I will not let some gold-digging nobody strip away what belongs to the Vance bloodline."
"I bought this land. I designed every single brick of this house," I spat, my vision turning red. "And I called the police ten minutes ago."
At that, Margaret’s demeanor didn't crumble. Instead, her lips stretched into an even wider, chilling grin.
"Oh, Ethan," she sighed softly. "You always were so bright with math, but so terribly blind to people. Go ahead. Let the police come. But before you open that front door for them, check your father’s will."
Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder by the second.
"What are you talking about?" I demanded, carrying Sarah out toward the hallway.
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"You think your father died of a heart attack three years ago?" Margaret stepped up right behind me, her breath warm against my ear. "Ask yourself why your name was never put on the deed of this land. Ask yourself why your daddy's company transferred five million dollars to a blind trust the night before he took his last breath. You don't own a single inch of this fortress, Ethan. I do."
The sirens cut off outside. Heavy boots pounded up the front steps.
