My hand trembled against the stone. The ice around my heart, two years of carefully maintained frost, cracked. Just a hairline fracture. But through it, something warm and terrifying seeped in.
Forgiveness. Not absolution. Not forgetting. But a direction. A tentative step toward living instead of existing in a memorial to loss.
I sat there and gave Elena a life update about everything that had happened in the last two years. I had been so busy plotting revenge that I postponed visiting her longer than was necessary.
“I miss you so much. But I promise to be back once Carter is no longer a threat.” I said, placing a gentle kiss on her tombstone.
I was ten minutes from home, still processing the conversation at Elena’s graveyard, when my phone erupted.
Not a ringtone. A series of shrill, overlapping alerts I'd programmed myself, the sound that only played for one thing. Security breach.
The screen lit up like a Christmas tree. Red notificationscascading:
BREACH - FRONT DOORMOTION
- MASTER BEDROOMBREACH
- ELEVATOR FOYERSYSTEM OFFLINE
- GUEST ROOM BREACH
My body moved on its own, before I could realize what happened, I was already slamming the door shut on my car and speeding down side streets.
My hands went numb. The steering wheel suddenly felt like it was covered in ice. The car swerved before I corrected, adrenaline slamming through my system like a sledgehammer.
No. No no no no?—
I jabbed at Anna's number, phone pressed to my ear with white-knuckled pressure. It rang once. Twice. Then nothing—not voicemail, not her voice, just dead, empty silence that made my stomach drop through the floor of the car.
Officer Martinez. I tried him next, fumbling with the screen, vision tunneling. Same thing. One ring. Silence. A void where security should have been.
"FUCK!" The word tore from my throat, raw and animalistic.
My foot slammed the accelerator to the floor. The engine roared. I swerved into the left lane, earning a blast of horn from a sedan.
Ran a red light, tires screaming.
Another horn, but I didn't care. I couldn't care about anything except the twelve miles between them and me.
The security app, I needed to see. My hands shook so badly I nearly dropped the phone twice before getting it propped on the dashboard.
The camera feed for the elevator foyer loaded first: door hanging open, the angle wrong.
Living room camera: static image, frozen mid-chaos. An overturned side table. Something dark on the white carpet that my brain refused to identify.
I don't remember the rest of the drive. Every second was a lifetime. Every red light, a torture. My mind kept supplying images I couldn't stop: Daisy's terrified face. Anna fighting. Blood.
Please. Please let them be okay. God, please?—
A prayer from a man who hadn't prayed since Elena's funeral.
I don't remember parking. Don't remember sprinting across the garage or jabbing the elevator button with shaking fingers. The ride up was silent except for my own ragged breathing fogging the mirrored walls.
Thirty-fourth floor. The elevator chimed, and the doors slid open.
The penthouse door was ajar.
Just slightly. Six inches. Enough to see a slice of the foyer beyond; overturned mail, shoe rack askew.
