Chapter 1 - The Blood on the Silk Rug
The stainless steel paring knife was still slick with the juice of a Honeycrisp apple when Julian turned it toward my chest.
I had spent three years polishing his cuff links, managing his public appearances, and suffocating my own corporate ambitions to make him the toast of Manhattan.
None of that mattered the second Selena Cole stepped across our threshold with red eyes and an almost imperceptible scratch across her pale forearm.
She had collapsed into Julian’s arms like a wilted flower, weeping that I had ambushed her in the parking garage outside his corporate headquarters.
I was still wearing my silk pajama trousers and cashmere slippers, having spent twelve uninterrupted hours drafting legal briefs from our home study.
When I told Julian that I had not set foot outside our penthouse all morning, he did not look at the home surveillance monitors.
He did not look at my clean, manicured hands.
He looked only at Selena’s tear-stained cheeks, his jaw working with a familiar, dangerous rigidity that used to terrify me.
The words he spat at me were sharp enough to carve stone: he told me that if I ever laid a finger on Selena again, he would end my miserable life where I stood.
I stepped forward to demand sanity, believing for one last foolish second that the vows we took in St. Patrick’s Cathedral still held some microscopic weight.
The first thrust caught me right beneath my ribs, knocking every ounce of oxygen out of my lungs in a violent, wheezing gasp.
Pain tore through my abdomen like liquid fire, blinding and surreal, stealing my ability to scream before the sound could even form in my throat.
Before my knees could fully buckle, Julian twisted his wrist and drove the steel in a second time, lower and deeper, straight into the soft flesh of my belly.
The force of the blow threw me backward onto the antique Persian rug I had personally flown to Isfahan to purchase for our first anniversary.
Warm, crimson blood gushed through my silk top, pooling into the intricate floral patterns beneath my trembling spine.
I stared upward into the face of the man who had whispered promises of eternity into my ear every night for a thousand days.
There was no horror in his dark eyes, no sudden shock of realization, and not a single tremor of regret in his immaculate fingers.
Instead, Julian stepped cleanly over my bleeding legs, taking care not to let my blood touch the polished Italian leather of his shoes.
He dropped to his knees beside Selena, peeling off his charcoal wool overcoat to wrap it tenderly around her quivering shoulders.
He pulled her into his chest and whispered that she was safe now, that the nightmare was over, and that nobody would ever threaten her again.
Over his shoulder, Selena lifted her chin from his lapel and met my glazing eyes.
The tears on her porcelain face vanished instantly, replaced by a slow, triumphant, razor-sharp smile that chilled me far worse than the blade.
At that exact moment, whatever pathetic ember of love I had harbored for Julian Vance died an absolute, irreversible death.
My left arm was pinned awkwardly beneath my torso, shielded from their view by the heavy drape of my blood-soaked silk shirt.
Fighting the overwhelming blackness that threatened to swallow my consciousness, I used the tip of my thumb to swipe across the display of my smartwatch.
My fingers were numb and slippery with cold sweat, but my muscle memory guided me straight to the Voice Memos application.
One hard tap on the red circular icon started the digital reel.
Across the living room, Selena whispered something urgent, her voice shaking with calculated fragility.
Julian let out a ragged sigh that sounded almost like relief, pulling her toward the grand double doors of the foyer.
He looked back at my motionless form just once, his voice flat, emotionless, and final.
May you like
He told Selena that I was gone, that he had finally done what she had asked him to do, and that they were finally free to take everything.
The heavy front door clicked shut behind them, leaving me alone in the silent, suffocating dark with my blood soaking the threads beneath me.
