Prologue
Prologue
Jazel
CRASH!
The sound of breaking glass tore through the silence of the mansion.
"Please..." A woman's trembling voice came from the master wing.
"Please, just leave me alone."
"You are such a foolish woman!" a man roared.
Another crash echoed through the hallway.
"How dare you defy me?" he snarled. "After everything I've done for you?"
"Please..." she sobbed. "You're hurting me."
"I'm going to f*****g kill you today!"
Fourteen-year-old Jazel Martins slowly lifted her eyes from her book.
Normal kids would have panicked. They would have cried or called the cops. But this wasn't the first time. It wasn't even the twentieth.
For years, Jazel had fallen asleep to the sound of shattered glass and her mother's muted cries. She had spent countless nights staring at her ceiling, mapping out exactly what she would do if the screams ever got too loud. If he ever went too far.
And tonight, he went too far.
She stood up and stepped out into the pitch-black hallway. Her hands were trembling and her heart was hammering against her ribs-but this was not fear.
With that dangerously calm expression on her face, it was pure adrenaline, wrapped in a cold, familiar numbness. Her body was reacting to the danger, but her mind had already checked out, leaving behind only the icy instinct to survive.
Passing the hallway closet, her fingers wrapped around the grip of a heavy baseball bat and she slipped into the study just in time to see him.
"What did you think? I’d allow you to come into my life so you can mess me up?!" he grunted, his massive hands locked around her mother's throat. Her beloved mother was pinned to the desk, struggling for oxygen in the shadows, her nose bleeding as her eyes slowly began to roll back into her head.
He tightened his grip, a sadistic grin spreading across his face. "You are going to hear it from-"
CRACK.
The heavy wood collided ruthlessly with the side of his skull. The impact was deafening in the quiet house. The man's eyes went wide with shock as he lost his balance, collapsing instantly onto the floor.
Jazel didn't pause. She didn't even breathe. She lifted the bat and brought it down again. And again. And again. She hit the exact same spot with ruthless precision, turning his aggressive shouts into pathetic groans, then low, muffled gurgles, until finally-complete silence.
Panting heavily, her chest heaving from the sheer physical exertion, Jazel dropped the stained bat. She knelt down in the dark, pressing two steady fingers against his neck, then his chest, then his wrist. Nothing. He was entirely lifeless, a dark pool of blood slowly expanding across the contrasting tiles, barely visible in the dim light.
She looked around the room, her young mind clicking into overdrive. Panic was a luxury she couldn't afford.
Spotting a pair of thick black leather gloves on the side table-his gloves-she pulled them onto her hands. Then she grabbed his heavy ankles, dragging his dead body across the room, out onto the master balcony into the cool night air.
Directly below the railing sat the mansion's automated garbage truck-parked there overnight after its late-evening run, positioned perfectly under the custom disposal site meant to channel the estate's heavy waste.
With one final, massive heave, she lifted his weight over the iron rails and let him drop. He fell silently into the deep, dark bed of the truck.
Stepping swiftly back inside, she walked over to the smart-home intercom terminal glowing faintly on the wall. Then she pressed the button to wake the overnight courtyard staff as she smoothed her voice out, perfectly mimicking her mother's sharp, authoritative tone.
"Why is that hideous garbage truck still parked directly under my balcony at this hour?" she snapped into the receiver, her voice dripping with irritation. "The fumes are entering my room. Take it away and dump the load immediately!"
"A-apologies, ma'am! I didn't realize it hadn't been moved yet," the sleepy driver's voice crackled back, completely fooled. "Moving it right now."
Within seconds, the headlights cut through the darkness, the engine roared to life, and the truck drove away into the night, carrying the evidence into the void.
Jazel didn't stop to check on her unconscious mother yet. She had to be smart. She ran to the kitchen, grabbed heavy-duty cleaning agents and a mask, and spent the next ten minutes in the dark meticulously erasing every single blood stain and trail from the tiles.
Once the floor was clear, she walked straight over to the master control unit mounted right there on the study wall. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, hacking into the local network. With a few quick clicks, she wiped the CCTV footage of the entire night, erasing every single digital footprint. Every single frame.
Only when the system wiped clean did Jazel finally let out a massive, ragged sigh of relief. It was like a sudden tap on the shoulder snapped her back to reality-the icy facade shattered instantly, leaving behind a terrified fourteen-year-old girl. She rushed over to the desk, dropping to her knees beside her mother.
"Mom! Mom, wake up!" she cried, her voice cracking. Her mom's pulse was dangerously faint. Jazel tilted her head back and frantically started administering CPR, forcing air into her lungs until, finally, her mother gasped for breath.
"Jazel..." her mother whispered weakly, her eyes fluttering open.
"Oh Mother!!" Jazel cried helplessly as she hugged the woman.
"What happened? W-where's..."
"I sent him to hell..."
Her mother froze. In the dim light of the study, her bruised throat strained as her eyes went wide, locked onto her daughter. There was no horror, no scolding-only a heavy, suffocating silence as she looked into Jazel's dangerously calm eyes and realized her innocent little girl she knew was gone forever.
