vained

-- The rain had no mercy that night. It slashed down against the windshield of the black Rolls Royce, hammering its polished surface like it was trying to strip away what was left of her family’s legacy. Elena Vaine didn’t flinch. She stood motionless outside the car, in a pair of blood-red heels that had once stepped over red carpets, now soaked in muddy water. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, but not from the cold. It was the silence. The emptiness. The kind that made your soul echo. Behind her, the hospital lights flickered like they were trying to die with her mother. They had called her an hour ago. No soft apologies. No gentle voices. Just a nurse on the phone with zero emotion in her tone, informing Elena that her mother had passed from a heart attack in the ICU. But Elena knew better. Her mother didn’t die from a heart attack. She died from betrayal. Elena took a slow breath, her lips trembling as she tried not to cry. Not here. Not in front of the vultures waiting with cameras behind the hospital gates. A voice called from behind her. “Miss Vaine...?” She turned slowly. A uniformed officer stood under the hospital's entrance archway, holding his cap in his hands, face soaked with rain but careful with his words. “You can come inside now. The body’s ready for release.” The body. Not her mother. Not Mrs. Evelyn Vaine. Just “the body.” “Has my father been contacted?” Elena asked, her voice sharp, almost icy. The officer hesitated. “No one has seen Mr. Vaine in over seventy-two hours. His office is sealed, his staff unreachable. He’s... gone.” Elena’s jaw clenched. Of course he was. He always disappeared when things went dark. He was a man of pride and power — but never of presence. He loved the Vaine name more than he ever loved the family behind it. She looked away, down the street lined with reporters, cameras, and flashing lights. She knew the headlines were already being written. “Heiress Elena Vaine orphaned overnight.” “From Billionaire Bloodline to Broken Silence.” Let them write whatever they wanted. She wouldn’t give them a show. She turned back to the officer. “I’ll sign the release forms. Then I’m taking her home.” “Ma’am, legally, she—” “She’s going home,” Elena snapped. The officer paused, then nodded with reluctant sympathy. “Yes, ma’am.” --- She stepped inside the hospital, greeted by the scent of disinfectant and grief. Her heels echoed down the hallway like gunshots in a church. Every nurse she passed turned their head. Every doctor avoided her eyes. They all knew who she was. Elena Vaine. The girl who was once Lagos’ princess — the girl from the mansion on Bourdillon Street, the girl with a private driver at sixteen, the girl who once had Forbes write about her mother’s diamond business and her father’s offshore empire. Now she was the girl with a dead mother… and a missing father. --- She found Zane sitting in the hallway outside the morgue, knees pulled to his chest, face hidden behind a blue hoodie. “Zane,” she whispered. He looked up slowly, and the pain in his twelve-year-old eyes made something in Elena’s chest c***k. He didn’t cry. He didn’t speak. He just nodded once. Like a soldier. She walked over and sat beside him, pulling him close. He leaned into her, not because he wanted comfort, but because he needed warmth. “She’s gone,” he said quietly. “I know,” she whispered back, brushing his soaked curls from his forehead. “Did Dad do this?” Elena froze. She didn’t answer. She just stared down the hallway at the closed morgue doors… and let the question hang in the air like the smell of death. --- (Part 2 continues immediately below — keep reading) 👇