Chapter 2 - Venom Behind White Silk
"Catch her!" Adrian bellowed to the security team standing stunned near the glass doors. "Lock down the gates! Don't let her leave the property!"
Three guards tore off across the lawn after Vivian, but she had already anticipated the perimeter locks. A slick black SUV was idling outside the service gate. Vivian burst through the latch, threw herself into the passenger seat, and the vehicle tore away down the winding driveway, tires screaming against the asphalt.
Inside the garden, the chaos left behind was deafening. Guests inside the mansion were pressing against the glass, whispering frantically and recording with their phones.
Adrian stood frozen, the tablet clutched so tightly in his grip that the glass screen began to spiderweb under his fingers. Slowly, he turned back toward the edge of the pool.
Grace was still on her knees in the pool of water, her uniform drenched, her body shaking involuntarily from the cold and the shock. Her left cheek was already burning red and beginning to swell where Adrian’s hand had struck her moments before. She kept her arm tightly around Leo, who was hiccuping softly, his tiny head resting against her soaked collarbone.
Adrian walked toward her, every step looking heavier than the last. The monstrous rage that had filled him moments ago collapsed into a hollow, sickening horror. He stared at his hand—the same hand that had struck the innocent woman who had just saved his son's life.
He dropped to his knees in the puddle right in front of Grace, uncaring that his thousand-dollar suit was absorbing the dirty pool water.
"Grace..." his voice broke completely, choked with a sound of pure agony. "Oh God, Grace..."
He reached out toward Leo, but Grace instinctively pulled the child closer to her chest, flinching away from Adrian.
The flinch hit Adrian harder than any physical blow. He buried his face in his hands, his broad shoulders shaking violently as tears spilled past his knuckles.
"I'm sorry," Adrian sobbed, kneeling in the water before his employee. "I'm so sorry. What have I done?"
Grace looked at the powerful billionaire reduced to a broken man at her feet. The pain in her cheek throbbed, but her heart burned with something much deeper.
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"We need to get Leo inside," Grace said quietly, her voice trembling but steady. "He's freezing."
As Adrian looked up, his eyes bloodshot, Leo suddenly let out a faint, unnatural gasp. The baby’s skin, which had been red from crying, was rapidly turning a sickening, pale blue.
