“He knew me,” she whispered. “The moment he saw me.”
Adrian’s chest tightened.
“Of course he did.”
Milo stirred in his sleep.
“Mommy…”
Mara’s eyes filled at once.
Adrian looked away, because the sight nearly destroyed him.
Then a crash shattered the quiet upstairs.
Both of them froze.
Another bang followed.
Adrian stood.
“What was that?”
Before Mara could answer, the mansion lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Milo woke with a frightened cry.
“Daddy?”
Red emergency lights flickered across the walls.
Then the security alarm began to scream.
A terrified maid burst into the library.
“Mr. Blackwell! The back gate has been forced open!”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
Vivienne.
She had not gone quietly.
Mara stood, clutching Milo against her.
“Adrian—”
“Lock the library doors,” he ordered. “Open them for no one but me.”
But before anyone could move, a gunshot exploded somewhere upstairs.
Milo screamed.
Servants cried out.
Guests panicked in the halls.
Another gunshot rang through the mansion.
Then Vivienne’s voice burst through the house speakers.
Wild.
Broken.
“If I can’t have this family, nobody will.”
Mara’s blood turned to ice.
Adrian’s face became deadly calm.
He looked at her one last time.
“I’m ending this tonight.”
Then he disappeared into the dark mansion.
The alarms shrieked as Adrian moved through the hallways.
Red emergency lights painted the walls like blood.
Another gunshot exploded upstairs.
Somewhere in the east wing, guests screamed.
A chandelier shattered, raining glass across marble.
“Everyone stay down!” security guards shouted.
But Adrian barely heard them.
All he could hear was Vivienne’s voice crackling through the speakers.
“You ruined everything!”
Static.
Then laughter.
Thin.
Mad.
At the foot of the grand staircase, Adrian grabbed a guard by the arm.
“Where is she?”
“We lost camera access when the power went out,” the guard said. “Motion sensors show movement near the west wing.”
The west wing.
Milo’s old nursery.
Adrian’s blood went cold.
Vivienne knew every inch of the mansion.
She knew exactly where to wound them.
He raced up the stairs as thunder shook the windows.
At the end of the corridor, a maid stumbled around the corner, sobbing.
“She locked Mr. Crane in the study!” she cried. “She fired at the door!”
“Get downstairs,” Adrian ordered.
The maid fled.
He turned the corner carefully.
At the far end of the hall stood Vivienne.
Her golden hair hung wild around her face. Mascara streaked her cheeks like black tears.
In one hand she held a pistol.
In the other, a small silver lighter.
Beside her sat open cans of gasoline.
Adrian froze.
Vivienne smiled.
There was nothing sane left in her eyes.
“You came,” she said.
“It’s over, Vivienne.”
“No,” she whispered. “It’s just beginning.”
She flicked the lighter open.
A small flame trembled in the darkness.
“You destroyed my future for her.”
“You destroyed your own future.”
Her face twisted.
“Don’t say that!”
She pointed the gun at him.
“You were supposed to love me!”
Adrian did not move.
“I loved my wife.”
The words struck her like a slap.
For one moment, she looked shattered.
Then rage swallowed her again.
“She was dead!”
“She is alive.”
Vivienne’s breathing turned fast and uneven.
“You know the worst part?” she whispered. “That little boy…”
Adrian’s eyes darkened.
“Don’t.”
“He never loved me.”
The gun shook in her hand.
“No matter what I did, he cried for her.”
Adrian took one slow step forward.
“This ends now.”
Vivienne laughed weakly.
“You still don’t understand.”
Her thumb tightened on the lighter.
“If I lose this family…”
The flame shook.
“…nobody gets it.”
“Vivienne—”
She dropped the lighter.
The gasoline ignited.
Flames burst across the hallway with a roar.
Heat slammed into Adrian like a wall.
Curtains caught fire. Paintings blackened. Smoke rushed upward.
Vivienne backed away, laughing and crying.
Then she fired.
The bullet struck the wall beside Adrian’s shoulder, bursting plaster into the air.
He lunged through the heat.
He slammed into her, knocking the pistol across the floor.
They hit the burning carpet hard.
Vivienne clawed at him.
“You ruined everything!”
“You need help!”
“I needed you!”
She reached for a jagged shard of glass.
Adrian caught her wrist just in time.
Above them, the ceiling groaned.
Crack.
He looked up.
Too late.
A burning beam crashed down between them.
Downstairs, Mara heard the explosion.
The mansion shook.
Milo screamed and buried his face against her chest.
“Mommy! Daddy’s upstairs!”
Smoke began seeping beneath the library doors.
Servants shouted in the hall.
“The west wing is on fire!”
Mara stood.
“No.”
A maid grabbed her arm.
“Ma’am, you can’t go up there!”
But Mara was already moving.
She had lost him once.
She would not lose him again.
Smoke swallowed the grand staircase as she ran upward.
The heat hit her in the face.
Thick.
Suffocating.
Cruel.
Behind her, people shouted, “Mrs. Blackwell, stop!”
Milo cried from the library doorway while two maids held him back.
“Mommy! Daddy!”
Mara turned only once.