Chapter 4
474 Words
Check-mate," I mouthed.
The air in the ballroom didn't just chill; it shattered. My father’s hand didn't make it to his holster. A single, muffled thing from the gallery—Charlotte’s silencer—sent a bullet through the champagne glass in his hand. The crystal exploded, and with it, the appearance of the gala.
The music died in a discordant screech of violins. Then came the screams.
"Vera, you little—" Smart didn't finish. His personal guards, "the clenched fists in tuxedos", lunged forward. I didn't wait. I kicked the heavy oak table between us, sending silver platters into their midst.
I hid behind a marble pillar just as the first real volley of gunfire turned the Sias Lounge into a shooting gallery. Dust from the plaster choked the air. I reached for the revolver on my thigh, my heart pounding against my ribs.
"Move, Ria!" a voice barked in my ear. It was one of Charlotte’s extraction teams, disguised as a waiter. He shoved a smoke grenade toward the center of the dance floor.
BOOM.
The whole atmosphere vanished into thick smoke and dust . I stayed low, moving by muscle memory toward the extraction routes I’d mapped out weeks ago. I wasn't the "bastard daughter" anymore; I was a ghost in the machine.
I burst through the kitchen doors, the heat of the stoves a sharp contrast to the air-conditioned chaos behind me. A cook tried to block my path; I didn't shoot, just used the butt of the revolver to clear my way. I scrambled toward the service elevator, but the doors were already sliding shut.
A hand reached out—not to help, but to grab. It was smart. Blood from the glass shards had mapped red rivers down his face, making him look like the devil himself.
"You think she'll keep you?" he hissed, his grip like a vice on my throat. "She's using you to get me, Vera. Once I'm gone, you're just a witness she doesn't need."
The elevator hummed, the floor numbers ticking down toward the garage. I looked at the man who had ignored me for twenty years and felt nothing but the cold weight of survival. I slammed my forehead into his nose—a sickening crunch—and as he recoiled, I shoved him back into the smoke-filled hallway.
The doors clicked shut. I was alone in the vibrating silence of the lift. When the doors opened to the rainy alleyway, a black sedan was waiting, its engine a low, predatory growl.
Charlotte was in the back seat, tapping a cigarette. "He's still breathing, isn't he?"
"For now," I said, climbing in, my gown ruined and my hands shaking. "But the 'god' is bleeding. That's a start."
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