Chapter 85
I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sound of that first gunshot.
It rang in my ears long after the echo had died, a violent punctuation mark tearing through what had been a night of forced glamour. The gala had started as every other one does, dresses shimmering under chandeliers, champagne flutes clinking, polite laughter bouncing against marble walls, but all of that was gone now.
We were no longer an audience of donors and doctors. We were hostages.
The masked men patrolled the stage like predators who had finally cornered their prey. The rest of us were pressed together in our seats, too afraid to move, too afraid to breathe too loudly.
I sat there, my hands trembling on my lap, my chest tight with the kind of fear that makes you cold from the inside out. Somewhere i
