By 9:00 PM, the record-breaking New York heatwave had pushed the city’s power grid to its absolute breaking point. Inside the penthouse, the air was still cool, but the atmosphere was thick with the electric tension of a storm that refused to break.
Elena stood in the center of her private guest suite, staring at the canvas she had set up near the window. Painting was her only escape, the only place where she wasn't Elena Blackburn, the billionaire’s contract bride. Her brush moved in sharp, aggressive strokes of deep crimson and storm-gray—colors that had entirely consumed her mind since the night in the hallway.
Suddenly, a loud, metallic pop echoed from the streets below, followed instantly by a deafening, absolute silence.
The lights flickered once, twice, and then died completely.
