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The silence in the room wasn't just quiet; it was heavy, suffocation-level pressure. Carmen’s face drained of every ounce of color, her bright red dress suddenly looking like a crimson shroud. The nineteen high-society women around the dining tables sat frozen, half-filled glasses of wine suspended in mid-air. / Chapter 18 / 20

Chapter 18 - Face-to-Face in the Dark

I slammed my shoulder against the reinforced fire door, but the electronic lock was completely jammed.

"Carmen! Stop!" I screamed through the thick glass, punching the surface until my knuckles bled. "It's over! The police are everywhere! You'll never get out of this building!"

"I don't want to get out, Zayden!" Carmen shrieked, her eyes wide, yellowed, and completely devoid of sanity. "If I can't live like a queen in this tower, nobody will! You gave away my life! You gave my home to her!"

She pointed the crowbar directly at Jessica, who was trying desperately to shield Olivia with her own body.

"You ruined my son!" Carmen screamed at Jessica. "He was obedient! He gave me everything I asked for until you came along! You weakened him!"

Carmen uncapped the glass bottle in her hand—the distinct, pungent smell of industrial lye and concentrated sulfuric acid seeped through the ventilation slit. She was going to throw it right into Jessica’s face.

"Jessica, get down!" I yelled, lifting the heavy metal fire extinguisher off the stairwell wall.

With every ounce of strength left in my body, I swung the heavy steel cylinder like a sledgehammer, smashing it directly into the reinforced glass window of the door.

CRASH!

Spiderweb cracks burst across the glass. I swung again.

CRASH!

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The heavy brass key felt impossibly cold against my palm, yet the metal hummed with a quiet, persistent gravity. I stared down at the simple platinum band on my left ring finger—the same ring Mara had slipped onto my hand twelve years ago in a quiet ceremony by the coast. She had always joked that my fingerprints would eventually wear the metal down to a thread.

The heavy brass key felt impossibly cold against my palm, yet the metal...

I didn’t wipe the blood from my nose. I let it drip onto the pristine white bodice of my ten-thousand-dollar wedding gown, watching the crimson bloom against the silk like ink on parchment.

I didn’t wipe the blood from my nose. I let it drip onto the pristine wh...

The shards of crystal caught the cold light of the recessed kitchen ceiling, scattering tiny prisms across the imported Italian marble. I didn’t move immediately. I stayed crouched on the floor, the blood humming faintly in my ears, while Claudia’s sharp heels clicked away toward the foyer, her displeasure radiating like a physical chill.

The shards of crystal caught the cold light of the recessed kitchen ceil...

The glass shattered into thousands of tiny safety crystals. I reached through the broken frame, grabbed the manual override lever on the inside, and yanked it down with a heavy metallic clunk.

The heavy steel door swung open.

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