Chapter 1
The heavy silence inside the grand Manhattan mansion was shattered only by the ragged, shallow breathing of twenty-eight-year-old Sarah.
She lay half-submerged in the glittering remnants of the shattered glass coffee table, her navy blue silk dress stained with crimson blood.
Thirty-two-year-old Lucas stood frozen in the doorway, his charcoal gray suit jacket shifting slightly as his dark eyes locked onto the horrific scene.
The white silk of his shirt and the dark blue bow tie seemed to tighten around his throat as cold terror gripped his chest.
Thirty-year-old Chloe stood over Sarah in her emerald green knee-length dress and nude high heels, her posture rigid with calculated malice.
The immediate shift in Chloe’s facial expression was nothing short of theatrical mastery as she noticed Lucas standing in the entryway.
Her aggressive stance melted instantly into a mask of feigned innocence, her hands flying to her mouth with trembling exaggeration.
"Lucas... she just attacked me," Chloe whimpered, her voice cracking with manufactured vulnerability as she pointed a shaking finger at the floor.
May you like
Lucas did not flinch, his gaze slowly tracking upward from the broken glass toward the ceiling corner.
There, a white dome security camera blinked with a steady, rhythmic red LED light, recording every single frame of the atrocity.
