The mansion was a tomb when I returned. No savory scents from the kitchen, no soft clatter from the dining room. Just the relentless hiss of rain against the terrace glass, a sound that had become the soundtrack to my life.
My heels clicked like gunshots on the marble, the only noise in the cavernous foyer. The sitting room lights were on. Chloe was there, a viper coiled on the sofa. Her phone was discarded, her attention locked on the Financial Daily spread before her like a declaration of war.
She didn't look up. Her voice was a low, venomous slice in the silence. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
I closed the door, the heavy thud a period to her question. "Hi sister. I've been doing a great many things. You'll have to be more specific."
That got her. She snapped her head up, eyes red-rimmed but burning with a pure, undiluted hate. "Don't. Don't you dare play stupid with me." She stood, the newspaper crumpling in her white-knuckled grip. "You released that statement. You threw my mother to the wolves to make yourself look good."
"I released a statement to protect the Sterling Group from the stench of her past." My voice was calm, a flat lake to her choppy, toxic sea.
"It was at my mother's expense!" The cry was raw, echoing off the cold, hard surfaces of the room.
I didn't flinch. "A consequence of her actions, not mine."
Chloe's breath hitched, her chest heaving. "She trusted you! She welcomed you, and this is how you repay her? By making her look like a common criminal in front of the entire board?"
I took a step closer, my gaze boring into hers. "I didn't make her look like anything. The facts did that. I just stopped her from dragging our name through the mud with her."
"You think you're so high and mighty now? Sitting in that office, playing Head of PR—"
"I am protecting what father built," I cut her off, my tone final.
"And what about what she's building?" she shrieked, her composure shattering.
A cold, mirthless smile touched my lips. "That is the problem, isn't it?"
The rain filled the furious silence between us. Then her voice dropped, becoming deadly quiet. "You're going to fix this."
"Am I?"
"You will issue another statement. You will publicly exonerate my mother. You will say she was unfairly implicated."
I tilted my head, a predator considering its prey. "And if I don't?"
Her eyes glinted with a terrifying promise. "Then I will take everything from you."
I held her gaze, unblinking. "Everything? You mean Liam?"
A flicker of hesitation, there and gone, replaced by a smirk of vicious triumph. "Do you want me to take Liam?"
I closed the final distance between us until I could feel the heat of her rage. "Be very careful what you take, Chloe. Some things have teeth."
I left her there, trembling in her own impotent fury. The encounter should have felt like a victory, but a cold dread had taken root in my stomach. The game was no longer about social maneuvering. It was raw now. Personal. Chloe had started to drop her warm, nice sister act.
The next day was a blur of final preparations for the Island Residence launch. It was T-48, crunch time. It was my first big PR project, my debut, and the pressure was a vise around my temples. As I passed Diana's study, her door was ajar. Her voice, honeyed and calm, slithered out.
"—make sure she won't be a problem."
I froze, my blood running cold.
Then, her voice dropped, lower, lethal. "like an accident."
The words were an ice pick to my spine. I hurried away before she could see me, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. She couldn't mean me. She couldn't.
But the seed of terror was planted.
It bloomed later that night in the corporate parking garage. The fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered, casting long, dancing shadows. The air smelled of damp concrete and exhaust. As I reached for my car door, a presence materialized from behind a pillar—too fast, too close.
Before I could turn, a thick, chemical-soaked cloth clamped over my nose and mouth. The world swam, a nauseating vortex of sound and light, before collapsing into nothing.
Consciousness returned as a throbbing ache in my skull. My first thought was a disoriented, Where—?
Then I felt it. The bite of coarse rope around my wrists, wrenched tight behind the cold metal back of a chair. A similar burn circled my ankles.
The air was frigid, thick with the smells of rust, stale oil, and the distant, briny tang of the sea. A warehouse. Dim light filtered through grimy, high windows, illuminating vast, empty space and the hulking shadows of abandoned machinery.
I tested the ropes. They didn't give. Professional.
Heavy footsteps echoed, deliberate and unhurried. The scrape of a bolt, the groan of a metal door, and a man stepped inside. He was big, dressed in grimy work clothes, a black ski mask obscuring his face. He didn't speak. He just looked at me, his eyes flat and empty.
He pulled out a cheap burner phone. "Yeah," he grunted into it. "She's up."
He listened for a moment, his eyes never leaving me. Then he ended the call and took a step closer. His fist connected with my stomach without warning.
The air exploded from my lungs in a sickening gasp. Pain, white-hot and blinding, radiated through my core. I doubled over as much as the ropes would allow, choking, my eyes streaming.
He stood back, watching me struggle for breath with detached interest.
"Now we wait," he said, his voice a gravelly monotone. "Try anything, and the next one breaks something."
The air wouldn't come. I hung in the ropes, my body convulsing, desperately trying to drag oxygen into my paralyzed lungs. A high, wheezing sound was the only thing that escaped me. Tears of pure, physiological agony streamed from my eyes, blurring the hulking shape of the man standing over me.
Finally, a ragged gasp tore through me, followed by a coughing fit that sent fresh jolts of pain through my abdomen. I spat, trying to clear the taste of bile, and instead tasted something else—a sharp, metallic tang. Iron. Blood. I'd bitten the inside of my cheek when he hit me.
He watched the whole performance with the bored patience of a man waiting for a bus. There was no malice in his eyes, no sadistic pleasure. That was the most terrifying part. This was just a job.
"Now," he said, his voice still that same flat, gravelly monotone. "Listen good."
He took a single step closer, the sole of his work boot scraping against the concrete. He didn't yell. The quiet was worse.
"You're gonna stay out of things that don't concern you." He leaned down slightly, his masked face inches from mine. I could smell the stale tobacco on his clothes. "You're gonna stop digging where you don't belong. You're gonna forget names you never shoulda heard."
He paused, letting the words sink in, each one a stone dropped into the dark well of my fear.
"And most of all," he whispered, the sound horribly intimate in the vast, empty space, "you are not gonna cross people you can't afford to cross. You understand?"
He didn't wait for an answer. His gloved hand shot out, not to hit me, but to grip my chin, forcing my head up. His fingers dug into my jawbone with brutal strength.
"I said," he repeated, slow and clear, "do you understand?"
My heart was a trapped bird beating itself to death against my ribs. Pride was a luxury for people who weren't tied to chairs in abandoned warehouses. Survival was the only currency here.
I managed a single, jerky nod.
He held my gaze for a moment longer, his own eyes empty pits, verifying my capitulation. Then he released my face with a shove that made the chair legs screech against the floor.
"Smart girl," he grunted, straightening up. He turned and walked back towards the door, a silhouette against the sliver of outside light. "Remember this feeling. Next time, we don't have a conversation."
The door groaned shut, the bolt sliding home with a final, deafening thud that seemed to seal my fate.
Silence. Thick, smothering, and complete.
The performance was over. The man was gone. And the terror that flooded in to take its place was utterly, paralyzingly real. It was a cold sweat that had nothing to do with the damp air. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, trapped thing. The coppery taste of blood in my mouth was no longer a symbol of defiance; it was just the taste of my own helplessness.
This is really happening.
The thought was a splash of ice water. My mind flashed to Diana's voice, so calm and elegant, saying those exact words - "make sure she won't be a problem". A spike of pure, white-hot anger lanced through the fear—It was her. It had to be. But the anger was fleeting, quickly drowned by the rising tide of panic. I knew what she was capable of. I've been through her tactics. I wasn't a worthy opponent then, and it's starting to feel like I'm still not.
My wrists burned from the ropes. Every small shift sent a fresh jolt of pain from my stomach. I was completely at their mercy. The sheer, brutal vulnerability of my situation pressed down on me, making it hard to breathe.
Someone will notice. Someone has to. I have meetings about the Island Residence lined up today. I was expected to be at the launch tomorrow.
The desperate thought was a lifeline.
At this point, I wasn't plotting revenge. I wasn't feeling powerful. I was just a woman, tied to a chair in the dark, praying that someone, anyone, would realize she was missing before it was too late. The only thing stronger than the fear was the desperate, silent scream echoing in my mind: Find me. Please, find me.