“I’m bringing him back,” she promised.
Then she vanished into the smoke.
Upstairs, flames devoured the west wing.
Adrian shoved Vivienne away as the burning beam crashed between them. She coughed violently, trapped near the wall, her gown catching sparks at the hem.
For one instant, true terror replaced the madness in her eyes.
She saw what she had done.
The fire.
The destruction.
The death.
“I… I didn’t…”
The ceiling groaned again.
Adrian grabbed her arm.
“We have to move!”
She stared at him.
“You’re trying to save me?”
His face was hard as stone.
“I’m not letting Milo watch another person die.”
An explosion thundered downstairs.
Adrian dragged her down the smoke-filled corridor.
Halfway along, she stopped.
He turned furiously.
“What are you doing?”
Vivienne’s face crumpled.
Soot and tears streaked her cheeks.
“I killed her,” she whispered.
Adrian froze.
“That night,” she said, shaking. “The brakes on Isabelle’s car.”
The world seemed to stop.
Vivienne sobbed.
“I only wanted to scare her. I swear. I didn’t think the crash would be that bad.”
For two years Adrian had blamed fate.
But fate had not taken his wife.
Vivienne had.
“You killed her,” he said quietly.
“She survived!”
“You left my son without a mother!”
His voice thundered through the burning hall.
“You stood beside me at her funeral.”
Vivienne collapsed to her knees.
“I loved you!”
“That isn’t love.”
His words cut clean through her.
“That is obsession.”
Then a voice rang through the smoke.
“Adrian!”
Mara stood at the far end of the corridor.
Her eyes widened at the flames surrounding them.
“Get back!” Adrian shouted.
But she ran toward him.
A burning chandelier tore loose above her.
Adrian lunged.
He grabbed her and pulled her back just as it crashed where she had stood.
The impact knocked them down.
A piece of flaming debris struck Vivienne’s leg, pinning her beneath burning wood.
She screamed.
Adrian tried to reach her, but Vivienne looked past him.
At Mara.
At the woman she had tried to erase.
Something in her broke.
Not rage.
Not jealousy.
Defeat.
“He never stopped loving you,” Vivienne whispered.
Mara said nothing.
Vivienne gave a bitter little laugh through her tears.
“Even when he thought you were dead.”
Flames blocked the hall behind them now.
The mansion was becoming an inferno.
Adrian tried to lift the burning beam from Vivienne’s leg.
It would not move.
Mara grabbed him.
“We have to go now!”
“I can’t leave her!”
“You’ll die!”
Vivienne clutched Adrian’s sleeve.
For the first time all night, she sounded small.
Human.
Broken.
“Take her,” she whispered. “Take Isabelle.”
Adrian stared at her.
Vivienne looked at Mara one final time.
“I hated you because you had everything I wanted.”
Mara’s eyes filled, despite herself.
Vivienne’s mouth trembled.
“But Milo…”
Her voice broke.
“That little boy deserved better than me.”
The ceiling cracked overhead.
Mara screamed, “Adrian!”
He knew.
If they stayed another second, they would all die.
Vivienne released his sleeve.
“Go.”
Adrian hesitated.
Then he grabbed Mara’s hand and ran.
Behind them, Vivienne remained trapped in the flames.
The last thing Mara heard before the corridor collapsed was Vivienne crying.
Not screaming.
Not raging.
Just crying.
Then the fire swallowed everything.
The west wing exploded behind them.
A wall of heat chased Adrian and Mara through the collapsing hall. Smoke curled over the ceiling like black waves.
Mara could barely breathe.
Every breath burned.
Adrian held her tightly, forcing them forward.
“Stay with me!”
Then the floor beneath him split.
“Adrian!”
The marble cracked open under his feet. He caught the edge at the last second as part of the hallway collapsed into the burning room below.
Mara dropped beside him and grabbed his arm.
Flames twisted beneath him.
“Don’t let go!” she cried.
His hand slipped.
Her heart stopped.
Then another hand seized his wrist.
A security guard.
“Pull!”
Together, they dragged Adrian back just as the floor gave way.
They staggered downstairs into chaos.
Guests wept near the front doors. Servants carried injured staff through smoke. Rain blew into the entrance hall as firefighters stormed inside.
And there, near the staircase, stood Milo.
He broke free from the maids and ran.
“Mommy! Daddy!”
Mara dropped to her knees.
Milo crashed into her arms, sobbing.
Adrian knelt beside them and wrapped both of them against his chest.
For a moment, they said nothing.
They simply held on while the mansion burned around them.
A firefighter approached Adrian.
“Sir,” he said gently, “the west wing collapsed completely.”
Adrian looked up.
“We couldn’t reach the woman trapped inside.”
Mara lowered her eyes.
Milo looked from one face to another.
“Where’s Vivienne?” he asked softly.
No one answered.
Outside, thunder shook the sky.
Fire climbed through the upper floors of Blackwell Manor, turning the rain-filled night orange and red.
Police cars filled the drive.
Ambulance lights flashed over the soaked gravel.
Vivienne was gone.
The woman who had destroyed their lives was gone forever.