Chapter 5 - Desperation in Crimson
Victoria struggled to push herself up from the ruined banquet table, her breath coming in ragged, furious wheezes.
The sticky sweetness of spilled champagne coated her skin, dripping from her platinum-blonde hair onto her bare shoulders.
Her immaculate crimson evening gown was torn at the seam, stained with dark red wine and smeared with crushed blackberries.
The humiliation of being cast down in front of Chicago’s highest echelon burned through her veins like pure poison.
She looked across the wreckage and saw her mother huddled against the shattered display shelf, trembling among broken glass.
She looked at the guests, whose faces had shifted from amused complicity to wide-eyed, judging horror.
She knew that by tomorrow morning, her standing in the city’s social registers would be completely obliterated if she did not crush Julian now.
A feral, uncontrolled rage overtook whatever rationality the woman possessed.
Victoria shoved a heavy silver platter off the table, sending it clattering across the floor as she hauled herself upright.
Her black heels were smeared with grease and wine, but she dug them into the floor with manic determination.
"You think you own this family?" she screamed, her voice cracking into a ragged, guttural shriek.
"You are a bastard child of a dead woman, Julian, and Clara is nothing more than stray trash!"
She charged straight at him, her manicured fingers curved into talons aimed at his throat.
Clara gasped from behind her brother, reaching out to pull him back in terrified anticipation.
Julian did not move until Victoria had crossed the short distance, closing the space between the table and his sister.
He did not use an open hand, nor did he allow her manicured claws anywhere near his face or Clara’s body.
With military precision, Julian shifted his weight to his rear foot and brought his right leg up in a lightning-fast defensive front kick.
The flat sole of his heavy leather dress shoe struck Victoria square in the center of her midsection.
The concussive blow drove the air straight out of her lungs in an explosive, breathless grunt.
The kinetic force stopped her dead in her tracks and launched her backward through the air.
Victoria flew back nearly four feet, crashing violently into a row of heavy, upholstered velvet dining chairs.
Three of the gilded chairs collapsed beneath her weight, their wooden legs snapping and toppling sideways with deafening cracks.
Victoria tumbled into the pile of velvet cushions and broken wood, folding over her stomach as she gasped desperately for oxygen.
Julian immediately retracted his leg and settled back into a grounded stance, refusing to advance a single inch further.
His focus snapped instantly back to his sister, his expression shifting from lethal aggression to intense, protective vigilance.
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Victoria lay tangled in the overturned chairs, her face twisted in agonizing disbelief as she realized she was completely powerless.
The silence that descended upon the ballroom was suffocating, heavy with the realization that the hierarchy of the house had fallen.
